Silent Grooveboxes

The Lounge Other Gear
#61

Scene: a hot Tokyo day. You have just checked out of your hotel and are dragging your and your partner’s rolling bag across town to the train station. After navigating the remarkably well laid out station, you arrive at your train which is promptly on time. You find your seat and load your bags into the designated storage spot.

30 minutes or so into the journey, an attendant wheels a cart down the car. Despite understanding some Japanese, you point at a bento bento box and a can of beer and swipe your card. Not quite hungry yet, you open the beer and pour it into the provided cup. A few minutes later, the train begins to slow for the next station. You watch the beer closely, ready to grab it and take a big sip if it seems likely to spill. The train drops from ~200mph to a stop, picks up passengers and then ramps back up to speed. The closest the beer ever was to spilling was when you were pouring it into your cup.

You open the bento box and enjoy a delicious lunch as scenery silently speeds past you.

(incidentally, that’s the coach experience on the Shinkansen. I have yet to ride in the Green Car)

(also, as long as you are not a Japanese citizen and remembered to buy a JR Pass at home before leaving for Japan, your high speed rail journey cost nothing beyond the $230 you paid for the unlimited travel rail pass. I think we paid more than that for the Italian HSR between Rome and Florence)

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#62

For loops, you ‘record’ a tone or drum track (or mix of tracks) to a looper track, then ‘export’ to a wav. So it’s self contained, except that you get a wav called ‘EXP00001.WAV’ so if you want sensible file names you need a computer (or perhaps it can be done with iPad/phone)

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#63

You can somewhat get around this with patches that play (for example) both a bass and a lead. But yup, it’s limiting to a point. Worth checking what others have done with the box. If you’re into sampling, the Rhythm also has limitations (limited sampe time) but also works quite nicely standalone.

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#64

This must be just like living in paradise.

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#65

The Shinkansen is the only train on which it is permitted and socially acceptable to eat. Can’t do that on short-hauls. In fact, you’re not even supposed to eat while walking. You can eat sitting down, but good luck finding public seating in anything but a park, and good luck finding a trash can to put the remains of your lunch into. I love Japan, but sometimes the conventions can be smothering!

Only a gaijin would use a Digitakt on a Japanese train. My partner and I speak in muted voices to each other.

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#66

Earlier in the thread I had thrown out some groovebox recommendations, but I am now on team iPad. I think if I was commuting daily, and I wanted to do it light and efficiently, I would bring an iPad. Although the idea to make music everyday seems great, it would also be nice to be able read, write, watch some videos, or listen to music.

While the iPad isn’t my first, or even 10th choice to make music on, I think there are a lot of options for apps these days (as mentioned by folks in this thread), and you could probably carve out a nice workflow on it.

For me, personally, the key to success would be using a recording app that at least exported stems, or would ideally export to an Ableton file so I could take the ideas further (if I wanted to) back at home.

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#67

I would also like to suggest korg electribe wave app for the iPad/iPhone. It is a full fledged korg electribe Groovebox with a kick ass wavetable engine. Which can also be used as a plug-in in other iOS apps.

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#68

Isn’t there four black clickety knobs somewhere… :slight_smile:

#69

it depends on how you hit the pads of the novation circuits. its possible to just lightly tap them, and then it is almost comparable to touchscreen noise levels.

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#70

The iPad is one my first choices to make music on at home, and obviously for travel. This is not out of necessity, as I have a Digitakt, DigiKeys, Akai Force, multiple groove boxes, synths, Sp404m2, BlackBox, multiple computers with Ableton and BitWig, and more.

I get the whole I hate Apple, I hate touchscreens, I hate apps, real producers only use hardware, it’s knob-per-function or it’s lame, only analog for me, etc etc…

The tablet would be the lightest, most inconspicuous, easiest to travel with, most powerful, well rounded, and adaptable piece you could get for the use case. It’s the size a form factor of a magazine and would slide in and out of a travel bag/briefcase easily.

I have a few iPads, including buying the lastest basic iPad (series 9 I believe?) the moment they announced that the standard iPad was going to lose the 3.5mm headphone jack, just to have it.

The basic iPad runs everything you’ll need. Yes, you can setup scenarios where you reach its limits running multiple AUV3’s in AUM or the like, but I can also easily do that with my M1pro iPad.

If I had to travel 3+ hours on a train everyday for work, day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day…

I would end up hating and resenting whatever boxy electronic music thing I had to pack up to take with me day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day.

4 Likes
#71

Another vote for the MC-101, it’s simply the most powerful mobile device I’ve ever owned. As you already wrote, there are many ways to work around the 4 track limitation.

Not to mention, just connect an iPhone/iPad to the MC-101 with a single cable to easily expand the possibilities endless. In addition, the Files app can be used to prepare, edit or manage samples and other files directly at the MC-101.

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#72

Yes. Deluge is fairly quiet. The black push dials click, but not loudly. Quieter than an OT. But beware if the person next to you suffers from visual trigger epilepsy. The Deluge is flickery. Very distracting, I would say.
OP-Z is super quiet. Most quiet of the lot.
ELZ-1 is a quiet synth, but does make some buzzy noises with the dials, but they are more tactile than audible, if that makes sense.
Tracker is a bit clacky, but not massively so. No more than a laptop key. The dial may be distracting. Low power demands. A brick will do you.
Po33 is pretty silent.
Op1 I think is pretty quiet. Again think laptop key. The rotaries are pretty buzzy, but not massively so.
404 very quiet. Occasional click. Louder than OP-Z but not by much. It’s beat based though, so you’ll rock the seat.

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#73

…m8 tracker…

the perfect handheld pocket video game like little groove and music production box, that has great buttons, that give u the same perfect taktile response fun, but without THE elektron klak…

fits really every pocket…is a truu music production device to GO…superstylish but with truu pro and reasonable sonic results…where ever u may roam…

perfectly arranged tracks for later export to whatever u wanna use to further expand or just to bounce internally to release it right away…

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#74

Did you change the buttons?
I have a m8, I sometimes get irritated by the clickyness.
I can not play with it on the couch while my family is watching a movie.

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#75

…well, let’s say, it’s half the klak in pitch and level of an an elektron device…

so, maybe not silent enough for ur family close by while watching movies, but with no doubt silent enough to not annoy other passengers near u on some journey…

withoutl tactile, physical resonse at all, it’s touch touch only…and then, well, any ipad will do all fine…

or some soft squishy rubber buttons and heaps of menudiving…like on a sampletraks…

that physical tactile response is all the fun to me in hardware devices…otherwise, i’d always prefer a laptop with trackpad tapping…

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#76

You can absolutely swap out the switches for quieter ones as long as they are of type Kailh Choc v1

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#77

I would say they are far from mechanically strong… OP-Z has amazing sound quality, portability & design (in my opinion) but build quality and general TE customer support are probably its biggest weaknesses. Unfortunately, the most likely fix for this would be for them to release a new “field” version of the op-z which would have stronger build quality for probably double the current price (or more).

I still would vote OP-Z if you can find one in decent shape for a reasonable price… its buttons are pretty quiet in my experience, about the same as TV remote. I suppose that could still be a nuisance in quiet enough circumstances. But it has the chromatic keyboard that allows for jamming (slightly nimble fingers are helpful) or you can just use the step sequencer and enjoy the various performance fx. It requires a bit of memorization or quick access to an online or printed manual… there’s an app that gives you a dedicated screen to work with but I rarely use it and find that the device has enough feedback to navigate… but I do have to check the manual every once in a while for certain functions that I use infrequently. But the synths are great and the stock drums are nice and punchy, plus you can load your own.

I also own a Deluge, which is nice but as you mentioned, a little pricy and much larger. I think it’s pretty quiet but you can definitely get into it and bang on the pads to cause some noise. But softly playing the pads is probably even quieter than the buttons on the OP-Z, however there are some knobs that are much louder when “pushed” but I think all of the functions that the knobs do can be done by button combos except maybe the stutter effect (not 100% sure though).

Tablets or smart phones with apps are probably the most reasonable answer to this question in terms of noise but people can find a way to be annoying on anything or to be annoyed by anything, so I say just go for what seems like a decent compromise.

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#78

I think the newer op-z have less build quality issues. I have had two op-z, the first double triggered, the replacement doesn’t and the materials feel different, so I’m hopeful there will be no issues with this one.

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#79

I find this very interesting. So you don’t mind the no feedback touchscreen knobs and buttons? I would really love to use an iPad for music making but coming from a guitar I think the touchscreen feels so “sterile”.

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#80

I can say for sure that m8 is loud as hell, to the point where my wife got super annoyed by the clicking sound while we were taking a train trip.

OP-Z Is pretty much dead silent.

Tge newer Elektron boxes are louder than the silver boxes. M:C and M:S are pretty much dead silent as well.

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