Elektron Musical Instruments

I think it's a very interesting point you've made there about the MD 
being a great programmer but a poor arranger/editor (see original 
message below).  I agree with you that the MD is not so conducive 
to "long-term" pattern evolution.  This is what my friends always point 
out first when they test drive the MD.  They feel like it's hard to visualize 
a song over longer time periods while editing at the same time.  What 
they are used to doing is having their sequencer loop over 4, 8 or 16 
bars on the computer, and simultaneously edit single bars within that 
long loop.  With a computer it's possible to have 16 bars of information 
looping in front of you while you edit it at the same time.  However, if 
you want 16 bars (or 4, or 8) looping on the MD you must be in song 
mode.  And when in song mode, you can only edit the pattern that is 
currently playing and then it rolls the focus to the next pattern.  (As 
opposed to editing just one pattern within the 16 bar loop and hearing it 
when the song position locator passes by.)  I wonder if other people 
have found creative ways of working around this.

I think this issue has a profound effect on the type of music we hear 
coming out of the MD and the MnM.  Most of the demo tracks on this list 
tend to be quite "loopy" with a simplistic song development based on 
mutes: Dropping tracks in and out in 2/4/8 bar chunks.  This is the 
traditional "techno" style of arrangement.  That's why people were so 
impressed with tahvenaine2002 's demo track.  The drum programming 
is bar-by-bar, each bar is unique but flows into the next bar logically.  
This is the kind of detailed drumandbass programming that Joe pointed 
out is more difficult to do on the MD because of it's "short-range" vision.

One thing I thought of is perhaps working in pattern mode and using a 
computer sequencer to trig patterns.  Then you could setup a loop of 
say 4 bars (or more) on the computer which triggers 4 different 
patterns on the MD.  Then you just fiddle with each individual pattern on 
the MD while it's being trigged by the sequencer.  Does that work?  I 
guess I'll try it tonight.

If you have any other ideas or interesting working styles on the MD 
please let us all know (esp. tahvenaine2002)!

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, Joe <jmelnyk@c...> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 09:30:43AM -0000, tahvenaine2002 wrote:
> >    Beat is all done in MD, just recorded it to stereotrack ot cubase,
> >    maybe added eq and compressor (can't remember), that's all.
> 
> this makes the programming even more amazing, considering the 
fine-detail
> within that song and the interface given.  that is, the MD is wonderful
> for pattern programming, but making things evolve over time and 
having
> minute changes within the song sequencer is very time-consuming to
> program. well done!
> 
> Joe.