Elektron Musical Instruments

Hello MD users,

I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit. 
However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)

Regards,
Sten - swinging at 55%

Sometimes I like how clean the <D is, othertimes I hate it. It depends
which machines you deploy, I guess. I use a sherman filterbank to deal
with some of the sterility, and sometimes an old spring reverb. Any
analogue gear (filters, eq, compressors, springs) tends to help - even
if just let the MD signal pass through it without any twiddling. 

Some of the Reaktor modules sound really good (not quite analogue, not
quite digital), so you might want to chuck the MD through that. In
fact, for a 'from vinyl' sound, you could use an ensemble from reaktor
4 called BanaanElectrique, followed in the chain by one of the
compressor modules.

I"ve only just realised myself that the MD might be best seen as a
'source' to be further affected rather than a complete instrument in
itself. Not that it doesn't sound very good on its own, but because my
ears get tired (sometimes literally) of the same frequency configurations.

DG


--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "concreationist"
<concreationist@...> wrote:

>
> 
> Hello MD users,
> 
> I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit. 
> However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
> be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)
> 
> Regards,
> Sten - swinging at 55%
>

Thanks for the tip! 

I recently found a vinyl simulator called Izotope which is a free
plugin for WinAmp. Most of the settings tend to distort a little but
the grit is certainly there. This DSP plugin can be combined with the
disk writer plugin to route the output straight to a WAV file.

Sten


--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "berries_gulberry"
<berries_gulberry@...> wrote:
>
> Sometimes I like how clean the <D is, othertimes I hate it. It depends
> which machines you deploy, I guess. I use a sherman filterbank to deal
> with some of the sterility, and sometimes an old spring reverb. Any
> analogue gear (filters, eq, compressors, springs) tends to help - even
> if just let the MD signal pass through it without any twiddling. 
> 
> Some of the Reaktor modules sound really good (not quite analogue, not
> quite digital), so you might want to chuck the MD through that. In
> fact, for a 'from vinyl' sound, you could use an ensemble from reaktor
> 4 called BanaanElectrique, followed in the chain by one of the
> compressor modules.
> 
> I"ve only just realised myself that the MD might be best seen as a
> 'source' to be further affected rather than a complete instrument in
> itself. Not that it doesn't sound very good on its own, but because my
> ears get tired (sometimes literally) of the same frequency
configurations.

> 
> DG
> 
> 
> --- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "concreationist"
> <concreationist@> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > Hello MD users,
> > 
> > I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit. 
> > However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> > What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> > in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
> > be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Sten - swinging at 55%
> >
>

HI!

Welcome to the MD :) Its great, I love it and I too have it set up to run
through my Drawmer 1968 at all times...

Its definitely a little too harsh sometimes and clean, too. 

I have found that some gentle overdrive and a limiter to catch those
super-crisp peaks it loves to throw out are just the thing to rough over the
MD's output...

Also, Vinyl is available as AudioUnits, VST and a few others all still free,
I like that one a lot...

Izotope's trash and Ozone are WELL worth the money, too - Trash has become a
mainstay of my processing now, a firm favourite and certainly incredibly
'real' sounding for a plug-in...

Enjoy!

>What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound,

This is purely a question of taste. For what it's worth; 

Am deeply in love with analogue(electronic, not tape) delay lines.
They're always heaps of fun! The high frequency content is zero, so it
may not fit the description of 'grit', but it's definitely very warm
and cozy in a techno clangy sort of way. 

The TL Audio FAT1 is a cheap and cheerful toob compressor that can
dirtify just about anything. Mostly use it as a paralell comp on one of
the busses on the board.

Sometimes I even dig out one of those dirt cheap behringer tube mic
pres! :)


Cheers, 

Andreas Nordenstam
bergenteknomafia.com/muzak/lupo/

On 5/18/06, concreationist <concreationist@...> wrote:
>
> Hello MD users,
>
> I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit.
> However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
> be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)
>
> Regards,
> Sten - swinging at 55%

Dirty, beat to hell portable reel machines are good for a cheap, small
way to get some tape compression and chaos on to drum lines, or
anything, really.
Vintage tube pres are randomly good, too, depending on what they were built for.

tube screamer pedals dialed in for modest colouring go with everything
and will go to crunchy 11 with some knob spinning

Take care,
des

Clearly, the #1 way to add grit to the MD SPS-1 is the UW upgrade. ;)

That said, a Moog Delay and Memory Lane in split stereo with CV
control of each pedal is positively alive and psychedelic.


be well,
Ian

> However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> in post-processing or on the machine itself? 

For crispy mid-range vinyl-loops you can do some on the MD itself. Try
these tips:

1. Make your sounds so that FLTW isn't maxed at any sound (close it a
bit). The use parameter locks to 'open' it at accents. 

2. Use Master EQ drastically. Get rid of the highs, boost mid range
with  mellow q where the snare sounds good (around 100 on MD knob).
Also try _cutting_ the bass.

3. Mix noise within (GND-NOISE machine)

4. You can do wonderfull vinyl snaps with GND-IMP machine with
parameter locks. 

Toni.

i second the addition of a BBD, or a really good modelled
one, to the signal path, with varying wet/dry and feedback
settings.  a lot of times, any piece of analogue outboard
gear will have a pleasing effect on the sound, even if
mechanically bypassed or dry.  the mutronics mutator, eg,
with its filters wide open {no resonance}, adds a subtle
coloration that i like.  old analogue filters can work
wonders, especially if they're broken in some way {pole's
malfunctioning waldorf filter all but defined the berlin
techno sound for awhile}.

if you have the opportunity to upgrade to a UW, you'll find
plenty of grit in your 12-bit samples, and the bit reduction
sounds excellent.

i've never recorded the MD to tape reel, but i know michael
weeks, aka the wretch, has talked about doing this.  i'd
love to hear that in action, sometime.

-- 
yours,
niall.
.. .  .   .    .     .       .           .             .                 .
aleph null.                             a simple insinuation around silence.
http://syncretism.net
.. .. gpg public key - http://www.aleph-null.net/niall.gpg .. ..

not necessarily a vinyl type of grit, but you can either use the sps-1's 
compressor to add more chunk to the whole unit.  assuming you have a 
mixer to run hardware, you can patch the sps-1 to your mixer's mic 
inputs and turn up the gain until it starts to sound dirty.

concreationist wrote:
> Hello MD users,
>
> I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit. 
> However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
> be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)
>
> Regards,
> Sten - swinging at 55%
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>   

-- 
.roby
http://www.sweet-trip.net
http://www.myspace.com/sweettrip

if you have a hex wrench, try opening up the unit and pushing some  
mud around the voice board with your thumb.  you can also put the  
machinedrum in a plastic bag with some raw meat and stick it in the  
closet for a week.  i've found these techniques beneficial, but your  
mileage may vary.  good luck.

jkm

I've done the same thing with mayo to make it sound 'phatter'.

On May 18, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Justin Maxwell wrote:

> if you have a hex wrench, try opening up the unit and pushing some
> mud around the voice board with your thumb.  you can also put the
> machinedrum in a plastic bag with some raw meat and stick it in the
> closet for a week.  i've found these techniques beneficial, but your
> mileage may vary.  good luck.
>
> jkm
>
>
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dont mayo, use lard

damon wrote:
> I've done the same thing with mayo to make it sound 'phatter'.
>
> On May 18, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Justin Maxwell wrote:
>
>   
>> if you have a hex wrench, try opening up the unit and pushing some
>> mud around the voice board with your thumb.  you can also put the
>> machinedrum in a plastic bag with some raw meat and stick it in the
>> closet for a week.  i've found these techniques beneficial, but your
>> mileage may vary.  good luck.
>>
>> jkm
>>
>>
>> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------------- 
>> ~-->
>> You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free.   
>> See how.
>> http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/XkLolB/TM
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> ~->
>>
>>
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>>     
>
>
>
>
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>   

-- 
.roby
http://www.sweet-trip.net
http://www.myspace.com/sweettrip



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

another vote for the UW upgrade. :)

I also like the gain stage on the moogerfoogers for fat overdriven 
sound.

Another thing I learnt recently is to add a slight shaker (SH) sound
on top of the bass drum to make it sound a little crunchier. Together
with the compressor this works wonders!

Sten

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, roby <roby@...> wrote:
>
> not necessarily a vinyl type of grit, but you can either use the
sps-1's 

> compressor to add more chunk to the whole unit.  assuming you have a 
> mixer to run hardware, you can patch the sps-1 to your mixer's mic 
> inputs and turn up the gain until it starts to sound dirty.
> 
> concreationist wrote:
> > Hello MD users,
> >
> > I recently bought a SPS-1. It's a terrific piece of kit. 
> > However I often find that its sound is a bit too clean for my taste.
> > What do you guys recommend for adding some grit to the sound, either
> > in post-processing or on the machine itself? The ideal would of course
> > be to make the beats sound like they had been pressed on vinyl. :)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Sten - swinging at 55%
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> -- 
> .roby
> http://www.sweet-trip.net
> http://www.myspace.com/sweettrip
>