A4 4 Sounds + 4 CV?

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Hi,
If I am using track 3,4,fx,cv to sequence Trigs going out CV 1-4 I am just having Tracks 1 and 2 left for the 4 internal sounds.
Is there a way to sequence 2 internal sounds from one track? So for example I am on track 1 and place a trig, is there a way to let this trig play Sound 1, Sound 2 or both?
I suppose it is not possible but it would be nice as the a4 is great for sequencing modular drums and having 4 seperate tracks for that is awesome but somehow wastes 2 of the 4 soundengines. It would be great if there was a way to control / play several soundengines from one track.
If that makes sense.
Also I am wondering what would be the best way to set it up. Unfortunately the its do not store global settings and switching between track 3,4,fx,cv sending triggers or gates and Tracks FX an CV sending gates and V/oct each.

#2

You can do that in the polyconfig menu. There you can set which sequencer track can use which internal sound engine track.

There is also a setting to let each track use its own voice setting.

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#3

The voice allocation does not account for your use case scenario, so any activity you have on track 3 and 4 as cv gates only will still trigger those voices, even if those voices are grounded/null

itā€™s a pity that thereā€™s no way to assign a track to be midi only, or cv only, such that in both cases, the voice pool is ignoring the ā€˜deselectedā€™ track

you should feature request this - it makes total sense

then you could split your four voices over two tracks as you please

#4

Can you not lock 2 voices to each track like on the Digitone?

#5

sadly not ! activity on the others will take a voice(s) - the DN seems to have more flexible voice reservation

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#6

I donā€™t find this surprising. Oneā€™s analog, the otherā€™s digital. Digitalā€™s much more flexible (generally).

I am surprised to learn that CV counts as ā€œa voiceā€. I suppose it makes sense: CV will need some kind of signal generator.

(Please excuse the waffling and speculation. Now I own a couple of CV synths Iā€™m wondering if an A4 would be a good tool for driving them so I read the odd A4 thread)

#7

CV doesnā€™t count as a voice, but placing trigs on Track 3 and Track 4 counts as a voice

The A4 voices are incredibly flexible, the issue is the original intent was for no support for MIDI sequencing - the issue isnā€™t driven by the analog nature of the voice circuits, but the way the trigs are utilised ā€¦ it would be trivial(imho) to facilitate the idea above by allowing the user to decouple the track from its voice when using it as a MIDI track or in teh case above, using the Track for a CV source

Each of the 4 separate CV outputs can be ā€˜drivenā€™ from any of the six tracks, likewise any of teh six tracks can output MIDI - decoupling voices from T1-4 tracks notionally designated as MIDI or CV is pretty straightforward

On the DN thereā€™s no conflict, it has its own MIDI tracks and no CV, so the voice allocation was as intended originally, the A4 has amazing voice flexibility, it just hasnā€™t caught up with its subsequent changes

The FR would be to define a new track toggle or ā€˜OSC typeā€™ to define the track as a sequencing only track - fairly trivial, even though itā€™s an analog voice, there just needs to be a will and firstly to make it a feature request :thup:

The A4 is a very flexible CV sequencer, especially when you factor in the trig conditions, the lfoā€™s and envs are powerful and the CV lane options are comprehensive - really powerful for regular cv/gate, analog clocking and modulating, even for creating audio rate signals linked to keytrack-linkable LFOs - teh FX track and CV track can serve as two cv/gate tracks or 4 modulation/clock sources and that still leaves all the other ā€˜regularā€™ tracks free - itā€™s only when you dip into using the ā€˜regularā€™ tracks as CV ā€˜sourcesā€™ (or solely MIDI) that the voice allocation shows this ā€˜weaknessā€™ - it would be an easy fix to decouple the T1-4 voice from its track

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#8

Thanks for your answers. I am still wondering what would be the best way to go ahead.
As the A4 is incredibly flexible it involves a lot of menu diving etc to change things.
So from a configuration
Tr 1 analog synth
Tr 2 analog synth
Tr 3 left in to reverb
Tr 4 right in to delay
Tr 5 cv a gate cv b v/oct
Tr 6 cb c gate cv d v/oct

To

Tr 1 & 2 analog synth
Tr 3-6 cv gate each

Would involve a crazy amount of setup.
So I am wondering what it would ideally be used for. I suppose 2 analog voi es + 4 gate tracks seems to be the best as drum programming is great with it and 64 steps is nice too. Hmm too many options really