Hardware Drum Machine thread

  On 7/16/2012 at 7:20 PM, BCM said:

  On 7/16/2012 at 6:22 PM, slightlydrybeans said:

  On 7/12/2012 at 6:10 PM, EleminoP said:

  On 7/12/2012 at 6:04 PM, BCM said:

  On 7/12/2012 at 5:08 AM, EleminoP said:

Just snagged a DR-110 off ebay for $100. Comes with case and manual, hellz yeah.

 

nice one! get the DIN-sync mod (there might even be a MIDI one now not sure) so you can sync it up innit.

yeah man, thinking about trying to midify the parameters with arduino and some digital pots or something as well.

 

I wonder if you could add controls to the sound circuits to allow more variation in the tones too. It's all analog after all right?

 

certainly can - the one i was using had knobs to control loads of parameters - decay, pitch, tone etc

yeah, i'd like to do that except with digital potentiometers (probably in addition to the normal knobs) and control them with midi. haven't seen many people do that sort of thing, doesn't seem like it should be too difficult but i suppose we'll see.

Some is selling a Linn 9000 with a Forat upgrade and 100 sample discs for $700 in Austin, TX. I have neither the money nor desire but I have to say that looks like a deal - it's a rare machine, no?

  On 7/13/2012 at 2:35 AM, Kcinsu said:

looks like the elektron users site is back up! yay

 

For you MD users, does anyone have the pitch chart for the TRX-BD2? I have that nice pitch chart that someone made, but it does not include the bd2. I'd greatly appriciate it if you'd share!

 

Also, am I the only one that is really anal about tuning my BD's to be in key? The MD made it so annoyingly unintutive to do this. The notes aren't listed, just arbritary MIDI CC #s, and even between the machines the pitches differ... a value of 64 on one kick could be a C, and a value of 64 on a different kick could be G#. This drives me crazy, and I am constantly having to look at that damn chart!

I've made a pitch map for all tuneable machines: http://dl.dropbox.co...ches/index.html

(the webapp is kinda rough.. click into the view and use arrow keys up down to navigate..)

PS: a couple more machines could be mapped out, but they don't map in a straight line and i couldn't be arsed.

hey phling, nice chart! when you say midi note below, do you mean that if say one has the mini command that all of these instruments are already tuned to a chromatic scale via external midi? I always thought the mini command 'MD notes' synth mode was really great, but most of the sounds i tried were not in a chromatic scale via playing with a keyboard.

Looking at that makes me really annoyed at Elektron.

(thank you btw!)

  On 7/20/2012 at 1:32 AM, Awepittance said:

hey phling, nice chart! when you say midi note below, do you mean that if say one has the mini command that all of these instruments are already tuned to a chromatic scale via external midi? I always thought the mini command 'MD notes' synth mode was really great, but most of the sounds i tried were not in a chromatic scale via playing with a keyboard.

thx.. I don't have any experience with the minicommand.. no idea how wesen implemented MD notes...

in many cases, a clean midi note will fall in between two pitch param values of the MD, so it's not possible to play the MD with perfect tuning just by using the pitch param... you get a slightly detuned feel from most machines, is that what you mean?

If you're interested, the chart is just a side-product from testing a pitch mapping algorithm, which i use for programmatic pattern generation..

here's a harmonization test i did:

the kit consists of the various tuneable machines, and the "song" uses 7 patterns (1 for each mode) to play generated variations of rhythms and melodies.. just a proof of concept, take that as a warning for how lame it sounds ^^

I emailed Elektron to ask why they didn't make the notes chromatic and their response was that it's a drum machine, not a synthesizer. Kind of lame answer I think. A tuned kick drum is not an odd request... It's a pretty standard thing to do.

they're right though.. the midi implementation of the MD is all drum machine.. there's only note-ons, no -offs, no envelopes, no modulation/pitch bend.. it's just a really cool drum machine.

And you can do quite impressive stuff with it innit.. let me just tell you that it's freakishly awesome when you have programmatic control over parameter locks, makes melodic bassdrums rather trivial :]

i.e. this will fill track 1 of a pattern with an arpeggio'd bass drum:

uint8_t notes[] = {36, 46, 48};
int incr = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 64; i+=3)
{
int8_t pitch = [MDPitch pitchParamValueForNote: notes[incr++ % 3]
	 forMachineName: MDMachineName_EFM_BD];

if(pitch > -1)
[pattern setLock:[MDParameterLock lockForTrack:0 param:0 step:i value:pitch] setTrigIfNone:YES];
}

it's the shit!

(coming up with a touchscreen interface for this sort of stuff... not so trivial.)

But it will be arpeggiated out of tune... I just don't get why not have the pitches be standard chromatic pitches? Like I said, tuning your drums is a pretty common thing to do.

Also, what language is that? How are you implementing that?

  On 7/20/2012 at 9:19 PM, Kcinsu said:

But it will be arpeggiated out of tune... I just don't get why not have the pitches be standard chromatic pitches? Like I said, tuning your drums is a pretty common thing to do.

 

Also, what language is that? How are you implementing that?

couldn't you just play with pitch once recorded in your DAW? obviously can't do that live though

nah it's well okay, pitch is not perfect but good enough.. sort of like some slightly detuned analogue synth.

this is Objective C, I've spent weeks writing a parser for MD sysex data (kits, patterns, songs..), so basically I'm generating an empty pattern and sending that to the MD via midi sysex, but that code is omitted..

Yeah, that was my guess... Trying to make it sound analoge by having it detuned... Still kind of weird I think.

Anyways, that's awesome that you are making that! It would be awesome to make a plugin at you could load into your daw and control the MD completely... Not just midi, but sysex as well.

I'm building a front end in reaktor for the md but its limited to midi cc control.

LOL, I don't think anyone is trying to make it sound analogue by having it detuned. It's a limitation of this piece of gear, and I find it fun to work around it...

If one would be really anal about it, I think it might be possible to use the pitch parameter in conjunction with LFO mix/depth and both LFO shapes set to square-wave or something to get closer to a perfect pitch.. but that would be a major PITA and probably not worth it - I mean there are other limitations when using the MD as a polysynth which are more limiting, e.g. no amp envelopes... but hell i can live with that. There are loads of neat things you can do with the MD, and for anything else why not use gear that's more suitable?

(also, ROM machines are nicely tuneable..)

The one thing I'm missing is that you don't get MIDI CC from parameter locks. That would be great for controlling visuals or something.

Well then what do you think the reason is for having the machines slightly out of tune? This is a digital instrument, it was coded to work this way. Are you telling me that despite its awesome In depth features, when it came down to implementing the pitch controls, they just chose out of tune, inconsistent mappings on a whim? Highly doubt that... It was a design decision, and the only one I can imagine inspiring it would be to have an out of tune analog "feel" to it. Maybe they did a/b tests and found it sounded more full in a mix when it was slightly out of tune. I don't know, but it just seems it would take more effort to make it how it is now, than to just implement standard turnings at even intervals.

Yeah. I've heard abou that LFO trick... Like you said too much of a pain in the ass. I can live with the slight out of tune stuff... I just wish the closest note value was displayed so I didn't have to check a print out every time.

  On 7/21/2012 at 6:07 PM, Kcinsu said:

Well then what do you think the reason is for having the machines slightly out of tune? This is a digital instrument, it was coded to work this way. Are you telling me that despite its awesome In depth features, when it came down to implementing the pitch controls, they just chose out of tune, inconsistent mappings on a whim? Highly doubt that... It was a design decision, and the only one I can imagine inspiring it would be to have an out of tune analog "feel" to it. Maybe they did a/b tests and found it sounded more full in a mix when it was slightly out of tune. I don't know, but it just seems it would take more effort to make it how it is now, than to just implement standard turnings at even intervals.

This is a really interesting observation.

hm yeah, they probably had the monomachine cooking at the time the original MD came out, so maybe decided to go for a proper tuned synth with that instead of implementing some half-assed note-based interface on the MD...

I mean, they could have still kept the interface as display MIDI CC numbers, but the pitch themselves could have been standard tunings. I really think they made them out of tune on purpose, for the reasons I said.

you can do CC parameter locks on the machinedrum using midimachines cant you? or is this just the monomachine? i know for certain you can send up to 24 different parameter locks in the form of Midi cc #s

and if you want to do complex (chords and such) melodies using the machinedrum it can be done but you kind of have to lay down the machinedrum melodies first and accompany it with stuff working around it's odd tuning. The minicommand has an MD notes mode where you can use it as a 16 voice polyphonic synthesizer. It sounds great on it's own, but it's not tuned to a normal chromatic scale when you play it on the keyboard. This mode on the mini command only works if you make a kit on the Machinedrum entirely comprised of the same machine component like every slot filled with an efx hi hat

i've been looking at the Xbase 888 recently and it didn't interest me much until i saw this -

can't wait to try a reaktor front end with this, my friend has one and i should be going over there soon to link this up with reak

  On 6/26/2012 at 2:47 AM, sergeantk said:

I'm happy this thread was made, I've never owned a drum machine before and I am really interested in buying one. What are some decent ones on the market in a reasonable budget? (if i had tons of cash i would buy an 808 but no dice)

I have tried the Akai XR-20 at a music store & found it really nice. It was 200$ brand new, the display is clear & the sounds are very good (modern). If I had the money & space I would buy one right away! Otherwise there's they good old Alesis SR-16, it's still sold in store for around 150$, the sound is basic (oldschool) but very usable. If you have the money the SR-18 at 260$ is better. In the end it depend on what type of sounds you're looking for, acoustic drums or synthetic drums. If you're into analog percussion the MFB-522 "Drum Computer" (haha) is a boutique beat box that is sold around 450-500$ in stores. I saw a minimal techno artist playing this instrument live, it was really cool!

Yeah the Akai XR20 is a nice looking drum machine. Never played with one but I'm sure its pretty capable.

tr-606 so far - too much on hiss on cymbal so don't use it at all the rest of it is great tho if used with alot of gain to get a raw sound out of the hits

  On 7/20/2012 at 9:19 PM, Kcinsu said:

But it will be arpeggiated out of tune... I just don't get why not have the pitches be standard chromatic pitches? Like I said, tuning your drums is a pretty common thing to do.

I can't think of a single x0x Roland drum machine that had chromatic tuning

The 626 I had did, so I think the 505 did, since it seems to be a stripped down version without individual outs.