For me, the Model Cycles is the perfect groovebox, especially once I paired it with the samples. Do I want to upgrade to the Digi trio or the flagship boxes? Of course I do! That’s the whole point. These two cheap boxes are so good that whoever owns them will eventually buy into the upgrades. However, a case could be made for why these cheaper boxes are more intuitive/immediate/fun than their more complicated siblings. And the form factor, which is as close to knob per function design that you can find in a groovebox, along with the relationship that I’ve built with the machines themselves, is the reason I will be keeping my M:C and M:S forever, even when I have access to the Digi Trio or the OG Trio/MKII’s.
In fact, I’m so down for the brand and what these machines offer, I plan to get as many of their boxes as I can get my hands on over my lifetime. They’re all really quite extraordinary.
Is the ST a souped up, hot-rodded MC? Maybe, and that makes me want it all the more. But I would never part with either of my models. I am so confident in that statement, that I decorated them. Once I paint an instrument, it stays in my collection forever.
How do you pair them technically? Just a common midi clock? Do you use both sequencers seperately? How could both sequencers work together? Or do you use an external sequencer for both of them?
When I got the M:S I was coming from many years of DAWs so I had tones of samples to start, although they were mainly drums sounds. But there are a lot of websites to get whatever you need
My preferred ones are long melodic (bass, synth or both) samples. You can get hundreds of different sounds with just 1 sample playing with ‘start’ and ‘length’ knobs
This sounds great. Has a specific pattern (1-16) in a bank the same absolute program number on both devices? So I just would need to arrange the patterns side by side?
In Elektron machines I bet they will be the same. I can confirm this with the ones I have owned (M:S, A4 & M:C) so I suppose it will apply the same for the others
With other machines that will depend by how they manage projects, patterns, etc… But it works the same way
I have never really felt the need to midi sync anything personally. Sometimes I do sync them, for more complicated pieces, but oftentimes I just started them at the same time and have the patterns chained where they are switching in unison. I have good rhythm naturally and will usually make complex songs with multiple instruments and sync them by ear. So when I say that I paired it with the samples, I just mean that I added a samples to my rig.
There seems to be a system that all patterns are mapped sequentially to PC numbers, no gaps. Certainly applies to the models (I own both) and the 3 digis (I’ve researched them). So the models have PC numbers 0-95 and the digis (from memory) have 0-127. So it’s easy to combine these boxes and have them pattern switch together so long as you stay in the range 0-95 (6 banks)
Personally, I like the velocity of the M:C very much! Of course, the stock setting is unusable. But if you turn the velocity depth down (about 30) and assign the kick to pitch and the hats to decay, it works great for me! I never want to play a drummachine without velocity anymore. It´s so much more fun!
Syntakt has a big sound but i got a different palette of sounds from the Model Cycle
Also the fact that you can clip the volume on the MC and compensate with the track level adjustment is quote nice
I think the gain staging on the Syntakt is different
Also because I could hazard more on the MC i was getting more interesting result and this is due to the layout of the machine - less menu diving and more hands on control
I briefly talked to Ess on a discord channel once and he said that the M:C has a very low headroom which is a huge part of its sound. They apparently implemented it like that by accident and he begged them to keep it. He said it was like an homage to Nanoloop, which on Gameboy Advance has a similar type of crunchyness.
On the Syntakt it’s been implemented with way more headroom. The sound is much cleaner as a result.
My $0.02. The LFO is the Model:Cycle’s saving grace. Without it the sound engine is more quickly exhausted. Because of that, it can’t go obsolete.
I said it above but I’m gonna reiterate, the Model workflow is superior in several arenas.
The data knob is faster than arrow keys. Once you gain enough skill with it typing in names is at least twice as fast.
Per-track swing (on DT not sure about ST) and dedicated nudge knob
Saving sounds and sound-locking are much quicker. (Also, folders are better than tags.)
Designing sounds is quicker and more fun
You can see all p-locked parameters at once, no need to check all pages (I have asked Elektron to improve this on Digis)
Dedicated bank-select and track-select buttons (the pads) make things a little less confusing
MIDI-enabled tracks have retrig, while the dedicated MIDI tracks on Digitakt do not. Not sure about Syntakt
Solid build, and light, flatter form-factor, easier to transport
Option to destructively quantize
Short story it’s apples and oranges. ST improves on M:C’s track count, machine count, and lack of filter - but the aspects above make it IMO not an overall improvement. All the other features are like owning an AR and AH so I don’t consider them enhancements to M:C but inclusions to a larger integrated package.
I never used the M:S and it wasn’t mentioned in the brief chat I had, but it’s possible. Would you say the M:S also has that same sort of crunchyness? To me it’s really the secret sauce of the Cycles and I didn’t personally like how the Syntakt sounded without it, even with all those fancy extras it has.
