MD First Days...
2002-09-10 by Gavin Cook
Hi My name is Gavin And I'm a sid user.... But I just got a MD a week ago and now I'm with MachineDrum! Wow I'm angry that I waited this long to get a MachineDrum, I can only blame myself. Don't let this happen to you.... :) So I have some notes that I've been keeping in the past few days building up to me playing live with the MD. Yea, I got the MD on Tuesday and did a live set with it on Sat night. I'm a bit crazy... I had never used a MD for more than 10 seconds before Tuesday... (Thanks to Mickey T for those 10 seconds though!!!) If you are asking the question, as was I, if you should sell your Jomox Xbase09 and get the MD, I can clearly say no. They are two entirely different beasties. It'd be like saying I'm going to sell my TB-303 to buy a nord lead... (Or something like that) It seems no one has really said why you might want to keep them both, so I'll try. The MD is very "Electro" sounding. I think it can do more if you push it, but just using it out of the box that's it's style. The Xbase is more brutal, coming in with a very clear and hard 909 flavor. The sound is not really the answer to this question though. It lies in how the two boxes are used and what the controls allow you to do to the sounds and how quickly you can do that. The Xbase is very accessible and is much easier to play in a live setting, the MD is deeper and allows much greater variety in the kinds of sounds it can create. My thoughts below are ideas that hopefully would help to close this gap and make the MD more playable in a live setting. Just for clarity these are things the MD doesn't do as of os 1.11 - Levels page [Function] + [Level dial] click shows page with control of level for first 8 parts. Turn a dial to change the volume for the sound, clicking on a dial will mute the part. click [Level dial] again to switch between first or last 8 parts/sounds. -Clicking [Level dial] mutes selected sound when in any mode/page (except levels page as above) -[Mute - A/E] acts as exit when in the Mute page/mode A side effect would be you can't change pattern the while in mute page/mode, because of this it might be nice if it's a global option -Mutes show fat bars on tracks with content vs thin = no data As it is right now it's impossible to tell if a part has a sequence. It'd be nice if you could see which parts have a sequence rather than relying on memory... -Sound Select LEDs It'd be nice if instead of going entirely dark when they are muted if they went to dimmed 80% or inverted. It's again frustrating to figure out what sequences are muted. -Function dial to shift thru kits when in kit mode. It'd be nice to have a fast way to audition kits with sequences. It's a bit time consuming to change the kit at present. -Pitch lock - double click on pitch to change It would be really nice if you had to do something before you can modify the pitch of some sounds. Maybe double clicking the pitch dial would enable this lock and this mode would be stored with the kit. It's embarrassing when you're playing live and go to change the decay of the kick and suddenly realize you're changing the pitch.... -Play position resync Pressing play (while playing) sends song position pointer reset at end of bar instead of pause. We were syncing Reason to the MD and to play a sequenced section in Reason we had to stop and start MIDI Clock. It would be nice if there was a global setting that let you choose how play worked when in play; pause, reset clock at end of bar, reset clock on press. I'm going on the assumption that resetting clock also changes the song position pointer... -Dials As a note to the Elektron Hardware guy/gal... It seems that the current batch of dials are molded slightly off center and they wobble as you turn the dial. This is kinda frustrating considering the price... And to finish.... -GND/MID Midi Controller machine Three pages (selected with Synth/FX/Routing button) of 8 CC's each, on-screen dial shows position/value This would be great for controlling external software EG: Live/Reason My sincerest appreciation goes to Elektron for making a killer instrument! Gavin Cook - www.citriksite.com