Hello,
I would like to find out, if buying Cycles or some other Elektron (sample, digitakt, …) is the right solution for me.
I am a newbie. I played with Propellerhead Reason Trial and didn’t like it. Than I bought Korg Volca Keys to go DAWless. It is a completely different experience and I think about buying drum, bass and arpeggio (Volca, NTS-1 or others) and something to control them all (well, it seems that Cycles could even replace some of those Volcas). I don’t have a very particular sort of music in mind, could be from Tangerine dream to Techno Trance. I realize that electronic music is more about discovering what already exists, than really making melodies, harmony, notes, etc. It is mostly about turning knobs and hitting pads, which makes it simple for someone as tonedeaf as me. But there comes my problem.
Let’s say I like what I am currently playing on my Volcas. I can easily write those few notes and a rhythm or I could trigger them from a sequencer. The problem is how to remember the settings of all the knobs on several devices and get them back, when you want to play that song again? Even if you photograph it, sometimes slight difference in a position of one knob makes huge difference. If you play it live, it’s impossible to fine tune it all before starting the new song. Can some of Elektron sequencers do that?
I found this chart of Volca Keys, which mentions Control Change. Do I correctly assume, this are MIDI codes (CC maybe), to which you could assign a value (0-100 maybe), to tell Volca, what value to assign to different knobs of EQ, LFO, VCO, etc.? Than, with a software like this Fabrizio Poce you can control it at glance? But how to do it DAWless?
I assume Elektron Cycles has few assignable knobs for something like that, but how does that really work?. Is it possible to set all MIDI CC parameters on Cycles on zero and assign the knobs to those controls of Volca, which I do control in this song and than to save it all together with the song? How much work is it each time you try to create a new song?
I know, that Volca can’t tell back the sequencer or any other device its current settings. But If I like how Volca sounds, I could try to set it again with knobs on sequencer and save that into the sequencer along with the song. Is that how it works or am I looking into a wrong direction? How do musicians accomplish that without a computer?