Elektron Musical Instruments

About us having talked about up to 24 voices of polyphony, that refers
to the ensemble synth being able to do up to 6x4 voices. We're not
pushing that anymore and it will be removed from the boxes when we can
afford to make new printing blocks, as this can confuse (as we've seen
in here now). I'd say it's true though, just as the Poly 800 was
polyphonic even though it didn't individual channels. Let's don't get
stuck on that though, let's agree that the Monomachine is up to 6
voices of polyphony when normally used. The Monomachine is not about
quantity, it's about quality, and we don't use that kind of marketing
anymore for it.

With the Monomachine we have chosen not to go the common way for
synthesizers, because we think it's boring to do the same thing over
again. If you want the maximum number of analogue imitation you should
look elsewhere. The Monomachine is going its own path, and its
strengths are different from what you might compare it to.

Look below for some replies:

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, Joe <jmelnyk@c...> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 06:45:59PM -0000, hal3001 wrote:
> >    i'm not trying to bash elektron, i'm just curious and i think there
> >    can be a lot more done than there has been....:)
> 
> I don't know. there's simply too much speculation going on. if you
want to
> know these things, mail Elektron and ask them:
> 1) how much DSP power is in the Monomachine

The Monomachine has more DSP power than you'll find in most
contemporary synthesizers. So what have we used it for?

1) Quality in the sound generation. For example, the SuperWAVE uses a
technology that synthese the sound without producing _any_ alias. This
is very uncommon for digital synthesizers. The SID is using the same
sound generation with an extremely fast counter for phase accumulation
oscillation for the special SID sound, including the ring mod and sync.

2) Very high quality filters which are using 56 bit internal calculations.

3) A flexible routing system. Have you noticed you can route any track
into the effect input of another? Have you thought about what takes to
do this? All the effects need to be applied in stereo. If you put a
chorus output into the input of another track, the filter will be
applied to each channel, preserving the stereo image.

4) The track effects are "always there". You do not need the hassle to
assign an EQ or a delay to a certain track, and finally run out of them.

> 2) which components received the highest portion of the build cost

We haven't saved pennies where they usually are. All parts are the
best we could find, including the op-amps, da-converters, the speed of
the memory for the DSP's (slow memory can easily half the performance
of the DSP's), memory size for the DSP's which allows us to have many
different synthesis and effects machines, all the interface stuff like
keys and leds. Notice that all the keys of the mono are "real keys",
and not the clicky types that is simply a small bubble on the
interface board (like you'll find on remote controls etc) and that
will wear down over time. All the LED's shine with a steady light
instead of being interlaced, which makes them shine clearer and
without flickering in the corner of your eye. This forces us to have
more powerful power supplies. The box uses different material like
aluminium and plastic which makes it much more expensive, but keeps
its own look. The dividing lines on the interface are cut out instead
of simply being printed, the printing of the interface plate is
multi-colored and anodized, and can never be worn out. The joystick
pin of the keyboard is hand-made, and so is the small leather ring
underneath it. The keyboard and the leds and keys around it is crammed
into a very tight space to get the compact look, which makes it more
complicated to produce.

The Monomachine (and Machinedrum) is very much filled with details
that you might not care about, but care is taken in all corners to
make it stand out from the rest. We produce lower numbers of synths
(hopefully for the ones that really care) which makes in more
expensive, and all fixed setup costs more expensive. The production
cost of the Monomachine is probably higher than any other synthesizer
you'll find, and without doubt higher in percentage of the end user
price than any other synth you'll find.

You can be absolutely certain that we've set the lowest price we could
ever do. Then it is up to you to decide whether it is worth it for
you, or if you want to go for something else.

> 3) whether they are good or bad programmers

As for the guy questioning our knowledge in sound programming, and
thought it should be possible to cram more voices out of the DSP's:
The DSP's in both the Machinedrum and the Monomachine are loaded to
far above what anyone teaching realtime systems would ever suggest.
Our background are from the home computer hacking era where full
optimisation is a virtue, and we would never leave anything if we felt
we could do it better. Plus we generally have 4+ years of masters
education in computer science or physics. You can be sure we know our
stuff.

It really doesn't feel very useful to try to convince everyone that
this is the product for you. It will be for a certain number of
people, for whom the love, dedication and direction we have chosen
makes a difference. For others other products will be the best. Lets
face it, for the majority of aspiring musicians a copy of Reason would
be the best solution. Time will tell if we made the right choice
developing a razor knife for the pioneering musicians that want
dynamic realtime control over special sounding state-of-the-art synthesis.

...but don't come tell me we didn't know what we were doing! :)

Daniel