Below 30 bpm

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Hey… is there a way to make hardware synths play below 30bpm and over 300bpm? Whenever I want to build something really slow or really fast I am always hindered by this limitation… I wonder why they do it… why not make 0.1bpm the slowest and 999.99bpm the fastest? Is this a hardware limitation or do engineers just think that nobody will need this?

The sequencer at 30bpm is just playing way too fast… Especially for dark ambient and such music I’m often confronted by this limitation… Not even dedicated clock hardware can go below 30bpm…

#2

elektron gear can subdivide the tempo, so you can get down pretty low…

TEMPO MULTIPLIER offers seven possible settings, 1/8X, 1/4X, 1/2X, 3/4X, 1X, 3/2X and
2X. A setting of 1/8X will play back the pattern at one eighth of the original tempo. 3/4X
plays the pattern back at three quarters of the global tempo. 3/2X will play back the pattern
twice as fast as the 3/4X setting. 2X will make the pattern play at twice the BPM. Double
speed is useful for increasing the base resolution of the step sequencer to 32nd notes.

and 1/8th of 30bpm is roughly 2.5bpm…

or you can just ignore the clock altogether and not use any quantization… then you can do any tempo you want… of course if its hardware you will still be limited to working within the resolution of the sequencer’s timing

1 Like
#3

Yeah I know… but this is only on the newer devices right?

#4

Good question!

#5

That’s right, MD/MnM can only increase the tempo, not decrease it.

One workaround is to chain a pattern with several empty/trigless patterns.

#6

Yeah right… thats what I thought…

#7

I was playing around with this on my new A4 last night as I love slowing my stuff way down too. There was a big difference between dropping my BPM to 1/4 speed (from 129 down to like 32.3) versus using the “1/4x” scale option. Slowing the BPM down sounded much more droney and interesting, while using the ‘scale’ feature sounded really sparse. Big difference in how the note length / envelopes seemed to behave.

I think that if you have a sequencer or clock source that can go slower than 30bpm, the Machinedrum and Monomachine will recognize it. The internal sequencer just can’t be set to that tempo. It’s been a while since I’ve tried this, but I think I got it to work with the Future Retro Zillion running at its slowest speed (25bpm). But I may be just remembering using the Zillion as the sequencer of the MM.

#8

Yeah… MM and MnM also run @20bpm when I set Ableton as the master clock… Live has 20bpm as its lowest… I also think theres a big difference in sound… I play alot with bpm shifting as I’m doing lots of rhythmless soundscapes and bpm shifting is a big thing to create unique sounds… I’d also love it if they made the bpm controllable by lfo!!!

#9

I wonder if you could get lower easily with something like Max or Pure Data sending MIDI clock, which then you could control with a Max object as an LFO?

Max is always lurking in the back of my brain as a ‘how to abuse the MD when I can’t push its internal sequencer any further’ tool…

#10

anyways, the answer here is that yes its almost assuredly a technical limitation, although it may be more on the software side of things…

because I think the Synthstrom deluge sequencer can go all the way from 0bpm up to something like 10,000 bpm? its a crazy one

i guess you need to buy one of those

#11

Holy shit! Gotta give this one a shot… I know max is always a way of doing things but when it comes to music I like to keep away from screens… I only use a DAW for arranging /mastering but never for production… Ofc I’ve done my fair deal of computer only productions but its not my approach…