Hello
I am an elektron noobie, just picked up a MachineDrum SFS-1-UW+ and i am using it to clock Ableton Live via a UNO Midi 1x1 and ExpertSleepers ES-40/EsX8GT+ESX8CV and it’s working pretty dreamy so i am interested in creating my first unique sampleset of drum samples sounds and i am wondering if there is a simple how-to online for beginners to get the procedure the first time? i am assuming i will need to make use of the midi turbo device and samples? I am just cracking the manual for parameters, global functions but i am yet to find the creating your own kit section.
Since i am new I will share my name is Patrick, i am a sound designer but this is my first “real” hardware drum machine. I am an experienced Max/pd/SuperCollider/Csound programmer interested now in hybrid media design linking programming peripherals and modular synthesis for live performance
I hope everyone is well and i look forward to sharing and learning with this forum.
Hi, I suggest getting to know the internal machines (not samples) first. There is alot you can do with them. Forget that one is named snare drum or kick drum, you can turn them into almost anything.
I’m not aware of any ‘simple’ online tutorial. I’m still fairly new to the MDUW myself though and don’t know all of the current resources.
Basically - You get one sample bank per snapshot. You load the samples into the sample bank. There’s not much room in there (2.5mb) but it’s enough to make one or more kits, especially when combined with synthesized sounds.
Your kit(s) then use ROM machines which reference the samples in the sample bank.
Sample bank management is all done in the ‘Global’ menu. A good chunk of the manual talks about how to manage sample banks. My best advice would be to just work through it.
You don’t need the TM-1 turbo midi interface, it just makes transferring samples much faster.
You can use the C6 program to pass samples into the MD. Its documentation is available separately and the program and manual can be downloaded from Elektron’s site.
You may want to look in the “Accessories” section of Elektron’s site and download some of the free kits they have. Many of the ones available for Machinedrum specifically are already in sysex format instead of AIF/WAV, so they’re basically prepared already, but they have some good ‘quick load’ docs.
In the manual, read the “+Drive Features” page (very close to the front) a couple of times, as it documents the relationships between Snapshots, Kits, and Sample Banks. This is useful to know before digging into the Sample Bank management features in the “Global Menu” section of the manual.
Thanks J_C and jshell
I know it’s boring sometimes answering noob questions.
I am getting used to the machine a little bit. and Am taking you advice and working with the internal stuff, i did try to load a set of samples in 16 mono ones, so next i assume i need to understand a snapshot and a ROM kit. I have to say this thing sounds pretty damn good already. I grabbed the Buchla samples from the Files area of this site and i r=would really like to work with this and see what gives. So far the most complex drum machine i had before was a Waldorf Blofeld with the Attack Soundset which does not hold a candle to this. I am trying to understand the Sysex messages so i can write a morpher between kits as a final goal but i need to play with this thing for a little while yet.
The great thing about the MD’s sample bank structure is that you can change sample banks on the fly. There’s even a shortcut for this. I’d suggest that you think about some kind of standardization before loading samples to the MD so that you can switch sample banks and it still sounds good.
My usual approach was to number samples, the MD has 16 tracks, 48 samples fit into one bank, 3x16=48, so you get 3 different sets of samples per bank. Then go crazy with kits to get a variety of different timbres out of those samples.
The moving samples to the MD part is just: drag files into C6, make a connection, press send, it’s oldschool but not complicated. Make sure turbo mode is on.
EDIT: maybe you find some inspiration in my MD Morphor Lemur template, no morphing between kits but a lot of other morphing and sysex. Forum member Jakob/void is an expert for things like kit morphing via sysex.
I have been emailing with Jakob and he was very helpful with getting me started. I am poring over the Sysex messages this weekend trying to get familiar with them and looping in Max7 as a prototype tool.
Can you share how you switch in between sample sets “on the fly” please?
Go into the Global menu. From there, File -> Samplebank. Highlight the bank you want and hit Yes.
You can switch banks while the sequencer is running without it stopping, but you may get a brief silence from any tracks that use samples. Good to make sure your kit includes a few tracks that use internal synthesis just to carry you over.
There’s a button combo for changing sample banks on the fly without menu diving. It’s in my muscle memory, but not in my mind. You’ll find it in the manual.
Wow, p. 79: “Keep the [FUNCTION] and [KIT] keys depressed. First the SONG menu will appear, but after a short while it will change into the SELECT SAMPLE BANK menu. Here you can choose the Sample bank you want to load.” …another highly useful feature I hadn’t noticed.