Elektron Musical Instruments

I'm trying to figure out the best way to use the MM and MD in tandem.
Ideally I'd like to master everything from the MM and compose
complete tracks on the MM with MD patterns coordinated with the MM. 
This is turning out to be difficult in practice though.  A couple of
options:

1. both in pattern mode, manually trigger patterns on both machines.
pros: flexible, improvisational
cons: can't really save "songs" this way, cool song mode features
unavailable

2. mm in song mode/md in pattern mode, send pattern changes to md
pros: can compose and save a "song" this way, song mode features
available to MM at least
cons: need to maintain 1/1 pattern correspondence between machines, no
song mode features on the MD, can't stack multiple MD patterns against
a single MM pattern

3. mm in song mode, use midi machine to trigger md patterns
pros: machines track in tandem, entire song saveable
cons: no md song mode features, correlation between mm patterns and md
patterns not clear without digging into the midi data.

4. both machines in song mode
pros: song mode features available on both sides, possible in theory
to compose entire track side by side on both machines
cons: song position pointers don't track, so non-linear editing is out

I'm leaning towards running both machines in song mode with looped
subsections and improvising by jumping between looped sections on both
machines.  I'll play both machines somewhat "live" and dump it all to
audio and finish it up there.  The advantages of song mode just seem
too big to ignore.  Still, it would be nice to be able to compose and
save an entire piece with both machines in tandem somehow.  It would
help a lot if pattern changes could happen at some sub-pattern
quantization level like Ableton.

Any thoughts?

as vague as it may sound, i think it all depends on the material you're
working on or the way that you find more comfortable working with.  i
personally end up syncing both machines to song mode, just because, like
you mentioned, this method yields more editing possibilities.  being able
to access and loop parts of a pattern to re-arrange a track is great.


> I'm trying to figure out the best way to use the MM and MD in tandem.
> Ideally I'd like to master everything from the MM and compose
> complete tracks on the MM with MD patterns coordinated with the MM.
> This is turning out to be difficult in practice though.  A couple of
> options:
>
> 1. both in pattern mode, manually trigger patterns on both machines.
> pros: flexible, improvisational
> cons: can't really save "songs" this way, cool song mode features
> unavailable
>
> 2. mm in song mode/md in pattern mode, send pattern changes to md
> pros: can compose and save a "song" this way, song mode features
> available to MM at least
> cons: need to maintain 1/1 pattern correspondence between machines, no
> song mode features on the MD, can't stack multiple MD patterns against
> a single MM pattern
>
> 3. mm in song mode, use midi machine to trigger md patterns
> pros: machines track in tandem, entire song saveable
> cons: no md song mode features, correlation between mm patterns and md
> patterns not clear without digging into the midi data.
>
> 4. both machines in song mode
> pros: song mode features available on both sides, possible in theory
> to compose entire track side by side on both machines
> cons: song position pointers don't track, so non-linear editing is out
>
> I'm leaning towards running both machines in song mode with looped
> subsections and improvising by jumping between looped sections on both
> machines.  I'll play both machines somewhat "live" and dump it all to
> audio and finish it up there.  The advantages of song mode just seem
> too big to ignore.  Still, it would be nice to be able to compose and
> save an entire piece with both machines in tandem somehow.  It would
> help a lot if pattern changes could happen at some sub-pattern
> quantization level like Ableton.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>


/roby
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