The one thing I love abut the MD is its modular approach to tracks. You can load in different engines on any of the 16 tracks creating any track assignment layout your heart desires.
I’m currently working on some new kits and patterns for some jam sessions with a friend of mine and basically I’m looking for inspiration.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that 16 tracks of sound is more than enough for the music I make. However I do like to layer sounds with trig relations if needed.
Sooo, I’m thinking to limit myself to 6 dedicated drum voices. Something like (no hierarchy in this list):
Kick
Clap
Snare
Tom
Closed hat
Open hat
Track 7&8 could be my inputs, as I use the MD as a mixer/patchbay quite a lot.
I’m wondering if any of you have used the md in similar fashion, what are your experiences with it. Also, any ideas what I should use the other 8 track for haha? Obviously, I’ll use some to layer which might form a problem when performing (different volume and filter destinations fo one sound for example). Maybe some cool control or input machines? I haven’t used much of the CTRL machines tbh!
Anyway, thanks for your help, thought it would be a fun exercise when using the MD.
The MD setup I enjoyed the most had two versions of most sounds, like with and without accent. The ‚accented‘ tracks triggered themselves plus the ‚non-accented‘ neighbors.
Here’s my advice. Set up tracks 1-6 with your baseline drums, trigging tracks 9-14, but leave them empty. Set up your delay and reverb and put control machines for them on 15 and 16. If you want, input machine on 7. Control 8p on 8 (easy to remember, heh).
If you have UW a mic or a turntable hooked up to an input with audio trigging enabled, trigging a RAM recorder and a RAM player to play it could be fun. But you’d have to make a choice between what to sacrifice.
Can’t hurt to initialize LFO’s to some different shapes and dests, so that you can just tweak and p-lock them.
During your first session, do two jams, one where you are setting up the rest of the tracks as you play and then the “real” one.
Set up 4 record and play machines with simple set ups, one control 8, and one control all. You can manipulate twist and destroy anything you record on the spot and then reset it with the function button combo thingy.
