I love the A4mkii and I hardly ever use it. It’s the very best synth I think in terms of how it sounds and what it’s capable of. I thought it would fill a similar role as my Matriarch or the Vermona Perfourmer… No, not as immediate… I thought I would set it up with my modular, nope, no patience. I guess it could be interesting…
But dang, if I want to dedicate some time to sculpting sound and if I can muster the patience to sequence something, it delivers! The analog side is real too, it has a life of its own sometimes. It can be a lush poly synth or a deep bass or (my favorite) an alien drum machine. But it’s work to get there for any of those.
I think of it as a nice bonus and a luxury. If it was gone tomorrow I would be fine. There’s other faster ways to make polysynths and bass lines and alien drums, though I can’t think of a way to do those things in one box.
If you want or need the money sell it. The Korg will get you most of the way there and sounds just fine.
I actually got quite good at playing those little plastic keys before I got a Keystep to sit in front of my A4. But yeah a keyboard with velocity definitely helps
Removed it to think it over a bit more. I get bummed out when im just struggling in the limited free time i have. Feel like i should just leave it at one hardware device and ableton more often than not. But often i encounter cool stuff right when its bedtime
Yeah sometimes i get overwhelmed and end up making jack shit and that frustrates me at times. With some devices i dont really have that as much, ie the Digitakt was perfect and so is the rytm but melodic stuff is a lot harder for me. Prefer sampling
Annoying part is I do know its part of the game, can’t always flow. More often I get something going!
I have the Analog Keys, and I’ve bought and sold several other expensive synths like Moog, Tempest. Analog Keys is always my workhorse for everything live. The functionality is extremely good! The biggest and very underrated feature is the performance macros. Unlike most synths, you can use one macro knob to target several synth tracks at once.
For example, you could have four mono synth sounds, and have a different pitch action for each track, perhaps a chord? Perhaps dissonant? When you turn the knob in between it leads to very interesting results. Considering you can set up two LFOs, three envelopes and modulations on four separate tracks, with almost every parameter able to mod, there is just a whole boatload of things to do with the perf knobs. For another layer, it’s also worth to keep in mind that multiple performance knobs can be at different positions at the same time!
As always with Elektron devices, it’s not a “Get up and go” type of affair. You will have to spend time beforehand configuring everything, kits and patterns etc. I usually will create entire banks of scenes, set all of the joystick and performance modulations for each. A lot of work to be sure but once it’s done you just bring your box hit play and mess with the sounds. I always use overbridge for setting up my kits and modulations as it makes the process quick instead of slow and painful through the synth menus.
Having the keybed on the AK makes it infinitely more playable in my opinion. For example you can play/voicesteal sounds over the pattern you programmed. Or just mute the part to play it live. As well as the transpose per track feature which is incredibly useful to transpose your bassline or even multiple tracks at once. And the split mode. And the MIDI out to play another synth. It’s like a Keystep pro with internal tracks.
You also get arranger mode, MIDI outs, trig per step edits. You really gotta dive deep, once you realize there is four tracks you can split up, custom program everything it makes for some very interesting interactions.
If you aren’t a sound designer however I don’t think the A4 is right for you. You really gotta’ take the time beforehand to prep everything. At minimum, building some jamming kits of complimentary sounds.
Saw A&P perform last night at this place I always thought was strip club but apparently thats the upstairs part. Dope show but no Elektron gear. Asked him why and he just said it was for the last album and doesn’t tour with it (maybe or doesn’t own it?).
