Look at it from the other way around. What would you want a sequencer and arranger to be? I went for Deluge because I like it visual, from my years of learning sheet music. I never understood the point of step limits in a sequence. I want each track completely separated from any other track. Never did like the classic pattern structure anyway. I want to write my music in a tactile way. And I don’t want to depend on a wall plug.
As long as Elektron remains in 64-step and tracks within a pattern land, I’m not revisiting their gear.
That’s exactly why I’m thinking about mostly about a deluge and gradually discarding other ideas. My start point is different to yours though, My sequencing experience began with the Model:cycles 4 months ago, so it’s only through hitting my limitations from that experience that I’m discovering what’s important to me.
Had to do it that way though … for me the Deluge looked like way too big a first step (money and complexity) . Wasn’t even sure I’d take to sequencing as way of making music.
I kind of agree. Other than the OT, it does feel a little too limiting for me now but then I had already ditched OTB for ITB (apparently) and now sitting with a Deluge.
It’s been an interesting journey with it. First week I thought “nah this is too fiddly”. Then I accepted my laziness and persevered. Now I’m looking at cases and deck savers as honestly can’t wait to Summer to get out into the sun and the garden with this thing. Sampling into kits is such a breeze and loads of fun.
Big thing I want to master is the other sampling/recording methods because that plus the sequencer and visual approach is a huge winner.
Don’t be scared of the display on Deluge. It is a factor of course but the pad short cuts is where it’s at.
The primary frustration I have with the display is how long it takes to move through presets. There is a search feature that helps but it’d be a step in the right direction to allow folders for synth/kit presets. Hopefully that comes soon. A minor thing though to be honest.
“visual” in a wider sense though is another win for Deluge. Very easy to zoom in/out and know what you’re looking at. In a way, those 128 pads become a 128 pixel touch display at times.
I won’t ignore the benefits of a screen but I am fairly certain that in my case a more “modern” display on the deluge would have left me still being incredibly lazy with the device and not actually pushing through what is really a relatively mild learning curve.
Think I posted it before, but since there are a few new Deluge users since the thread started, the mxpand overlay is well worth looking at, I have one and find it useful and quite nice design wise.
I should add, I wrote all songs from my latest EP on the Deluge. Synths were the Prophet 12 and the actual assembly was done on the 1010 Blackbox, but all sequences, melodies, leads and whatnot came from the Dellie. No sounds, but all harmonies.
So I’ve been working with the FlashAir card and it’s amazing. The way they suggest configuring it on the DownRush page is for it to work as an access point that you connect to, but that doesn’t seem like the best way.
Explains how you can put it in “station” mode where the card will actually join your network on its own. This is referenced at the bottom of the DR page in the ADVANCED section but no explanation of how to do it. I’m guessing they leave it out because it’s tricky to setup.
With the FlashAir joined to your network you can actually map it as a local drive (in Windows) on your computer. This is comparable to Octatrack USB mode but you don’t have to put the Deluge in any special mode, it’s always on, and it’s wireless.
Having it as a mapped network drive opens up a whole range of interesting possibilities, but I’m not sure what the limitations are. It seems crazy that it works at all. Loading a .WAV from the mapped drive into Sound Forge, that the Deluge already has in memory, and modifying/saving it back out seems to cause trouble. But the Deluge can work with it just fine if I save it under a different name. I will have to experiment to find out more.
Yah, the synth engine is the only dissapointing thing on Deluge. Lots of features, shallow sounds.
Boards of Deluge opened it up quite a bit, but they have this big evolving sounds with slow attack I really can’t use in danceable music. (;
My only problem with the FlashAir card is that it introduces a bit of hiss on the mic input when recording audio. This lasts for a few minutes until the wi-fi bit of the card switches off through lack of use, or if you manually switch off the wi-fi by connecting to it through Chrome. It’s a bit of a pain, tbh!
I kind of agree. Other than the OT, it does feel a little too limiting for me now but then I had already ditched OTB for ITB (apparently) and now sitting with a Deluge.
