#87

With Bastl also making the Grandpa module I wondered if they had also made it possible to control the MG via CV but I’ve not found anything to suggest that’s the case. It does say that all parameters can be controlled via MIDI though so maybe that’s an option.

#88

Microgranny does support MIDI CC and sync [source]. Depending on what MIDI you feed it, you will be able to control the amplitude envelope and create percussive effects with mangled audio. I was on the verge of buying one four years ago before ultimately going with a Clouds and beginning instead a (far more expensive and time-consuming) modular journey. But the microgranny is clearly pretty awesome and a low-cost, self-contained unit with many possibilities. A filter or two onboard would be nice, but one can’t have everything.

PS if you might consider something rather more expensive, I would recommend Gotharman’s LD3 workstation.

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#89

Wow, the LD3 looks really impressive! Due to the cost, I think I’ll start with the Microgranny and see how granular fits with my workflow first, but the LD3 looks incredibly powerful!

I’ve been scratching my modular itch with hardware semi modulars and software similes (Reaktor, MiRack and Drambo on iOS) & have just picked up an Axoloti in an attempt to perhaps bridge those two worlds too. It feels to some degree inevitable that I’ll go down that route eventually, but I’m fighting it off as long as I can!

One other thing I would add regarding the sampler discussion is that the Pajen firmware for the Volca Sample turns an often derided box into something really quite versatile. They’re easily picked up for circa £50-60 secondhand and can even provide 4 voice polyphony (especially interesting when combined with 100 single cycle waveforms)

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#90

sorry, i missed this reply. thats a good setup. i am trying to learn to use my qubit nebulae more purposefully rather than just doing crazy shit with wild modulations. like triggering the start param with a one shot complex envelope and running the audio through warps and a either lpg like you mentioned or vca. i have actually been using it a lot more with percussive sounds lately. but one thing i want to do is punch in more “morphagene reel”-esque loops with different parts in 1.so that i can sort of sequence the 1 loop, play it back and kind of split them up later in the signal chain with a switch or different vca and triggers. sort of like a generative mini version of the octatrack .

granular has always been my number one focus and these modular grain loopers are the best. but now instead of just playing with ambient mangled random washes from field recordings, i’m figuring out how to use it like a fundamental base for more complex layers down the line. i think i’m getting somewhere here. eurorack helps. but yeah, the octatrack is basically the answer, you guys were right

the 1010 samplers do look very interesting. i always wonder how the granular engines in something like that or the polyend tracker or even the tastychips gr-1 & deformer compare to the dedicated grain looper modules for eurorack. it took me a long time to find one that worked for me. and i’ve tried just about every single software granular option on the planet

#91

Just today was thinking that octatrack and gr-1 might be a dream combo :slight_smile:
I recently been doing what i call “sample travelling” and Octatrack’s slider mapped to sample start was really instrumental in this.

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#92

yeah this is funny cause i used a 404 and 303 for years and never touched the sequencer at all

just played pads by hand and resampled into another pad to build tracks…or i’d play an instrument into a pad and then mess with fx by hand, recording the output w/ a daw

I’m still learning but feel free to ask any questions about mpc live
got the mk1 a few months ago

also in the context of this convo:

  • i chose the mpc over OT fearing that octa would take too long to learn
  • mpc has rechargeable battery
  • mpc was slightly cheaper on the 2nd hand market at the time
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#93

oh, i believe in that post i was referring to the Pioneer Toraiz SP-16… it’s so sequencer focused with that XOX interface… it is shame they restrict your pattern lengths.

but with regards to the sp303/404 - i will admit that for a long time i was not hip to the resampling workflow. i love how the 303/404 style asks you to just commit to your ideas and move on. i think it encourages positive musical confidence.

i think the biggest drawback to the 303/404 is the lack of chromatic sample pitch shifting. i know there is that frequency shifter, but it just doesn’t sound that good to me.

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#94

yeah

the roland sp series would be INSANE with legit pitch shifting or transpose!

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#95

You need the SP-202 for proper pitch shifting. Or you could get at Zoom Sampletrak ST-224.

#96

i just end up bouncing back and forth between 303 + op-1. i recently picked up an mpc 500, which can sound really nice and crunchy when pitching down 2 octaves

IMG_4142
IMG_41423024×4032 2.87 MB

i kinda like how minimal the display is.

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#97

i’ve always been curious about the 500. how is it to work with?

#98

Granular has always been my focus as well. I entered eurorack with the slightly misguided aim of further examining granular-based composition and performance away from the unreliable (in terms of CPU) and less tactile environment of the DAW. Ever since it’s always been a search for an appropriate device to substitute for the many excellent options available for computers. How much was I willing to reduce the possibilities of my granular instrument of choice, and how much was I willing to pay for the privilege?

I had to accept lately that my necessary conditions included polyphonic stereo granular sampling, including for pad voices, and that that meant something outside the rack, and use the rack instead to concentrate on exciting modulations as well as some effects.

I had a 1010 blackbox for a while because it does indeed allow stereo sampling with four-note polyphony. One good test of a granulator is how it handles tiny grains and the 1010 one is all right at it. I was able crudely to reproduce some old pads I’d made in Ableton with Robert Henke’s M4L granulator. What I liked the most about the blackbox was its tiny size. But programming or even recording sequences, and then chaining them into ‘songs’ (because each individual sequence is short) is a severe experience indeed. Just relentlessly, mercilessly horrible with the control surface.

These days I use a Little Deformer 3. It has eight-note polyphony, a suite of effects including EQ (something I often felt in need of with the blackbox) and the CV in/out expansion. And its sequencer system is grand stuff. Its potential is enormous and after months of systematic familiarising with its various sections in turn, I’m looking forward to, er, making some music with it. Written entirely from scratch in assembly language it has a distinctive gritty, digital sound. Grain envelopes are another good test for a granulator and the LD3 has no parameter control over them. That was initially disappointing. You can smoothly cross-fade grains but at small sizes they simply disappear altogether. It is an open-ended workstation that invites experimentation in modulation and arrangement, and even with crackly grains it can sound very lush and elastic depending on what’s going through it and what it’s doing. It’s definitely designed more with a rough, glitchy musical style in mind.

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#99

so far so good. the two line display means lots of time with the arrow keys and jog wheel - but the menus aren’t deep so it’s pretty quick to learn. also the abundance of dedicated buttons allows for building muscle memory.

i picked it up because i wanted to stay mobile, but didn’t want to have a big touchscreen with me - and i have grown increasingly frustrated with the op-z / op-1 sample management approach and extremely limited storage capacity. that and i wanted to be able to use/record stereo samples. this solves all those issues for me.

it’s a funny object - the thing is solid with a very tough/heavy metal enclosure - but the buttons and jog wheel feel like they could break at any minute. the upgraded “fat pads” provide decent velocity response. the workflow is easy and classic mpc - surprisingly capable for such a budget instrument - but apparently the firmware is super buggy and was abandoned very early by akai. i haven’t had any issues with it yet…

kinda surprised there isn’t anything else like this these days.

3 Likes
#100

i have found a lot of these same things to be true.

1.tranposing samples only works the way i want in ableton. i wish to god that the octatrack had the sample pitching abilities of ableton’s simpler + maybe some autotune effect and midi keyboard capability

2.granulator 2 is maybe the most practically useful software granular tool for creating musically useful pads from source material and further textural processing of recorded material

I am really interested in the little deformer but i dont think i could justify it until i get rid of one of the pieces of gear i already have, since i have a lot of the same bases covered, even if they arent implemented as well. but i will take note of that. i definitely have been considering it since i’ve learned about it. i never knew about the lofi aspects of it. it kind of sounds like it has more of what people love about the microgranny, which is very intruiging

nebulae is the most exciting hardware granular/experimental looping tool i have ever used. maybe not as useful as granulator II. but to me, its what i wanted pedals like Outward, Tensor, or Mood to be as far as random loop restructuring and for exploring new textures inside of old samples. it has the window shaping, density, overlap without going straight into clouds blur territory, sos recording, a bunch of secondary functions for little details, modulation over the parameters you need to automate, and independent pitch/speed. i think the phase vocoder addition is important as far as the overall sound too.

so i haven’t completely given up on a hardware solution i think. but i do use ableton for vocal chops in octatrack. i think i do agree that modular is mostly going to be for interesting new tactile effects processing

@janglesoul the boss sp-202 does chromatic sample pitching well? can you use midi in for that?

#101

I didn’t mean to suggest its sound is lofi. In fact its sound quality is extremely high; moreover I’ve noticed no noise floor whatsoever. One of my favourite things about it. It was misleading to use the word ‘gritty’ I think, so I apologise for that. My participation on Lines occurs usually between my toddler’s naps and therefore tends to be rushed and clumsy. :flushed:

What I meant by ‘gritty’ was really just that many of its (granulation-based) effects more readily give a rough, glitchy, quite clicks&cuts/Mille Plateaux sound than they do something you might find in more gentle styles today. I had the sense the device has a kind of punkish indifference to ‘pleasant’ sounds – it’ll make them when appropriately patched, but doing so isn’t one of its prime directives. Being myself indifferent to most ambient/drone music, this is something I respect about it.

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#102

Very interesting thread, thank you all for the replies! Considering I already have a Qubit Nebulae v2 and I enjoy Tardigrain on iPad, I was thinking about the Octatrack to be able to support me live, but then I really don’t like that the OT only has a stereo out so it can ONLY be used live and not for production. Is there maybe a eurorack sampler that allows me to do stuff similar to the Octatrack and maybe even at a cheaper price? Otherwise I’ll have to invest in the Octatrack knowing it will only be used live

#103

Have you looked at Drambo on iPad? Apparently AUv3 is in beta now so it will be a fully-featured standalone application. You could ally it with a MIDI controller and whatever class compliant audio interface you wanted and get whatever outs you need (perhaps it connects with an ES-8 in your rack, for instance?)

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#104

very long post, beware :slight_smile:

my experience with samplers:
i started with an akai s950 (unexpanded) which i still have and will upgrade with usb drive and led display soon. probably the best one i ever used features wise if you don’t consider the ram limitations and clunkyness of the small old display. great features, multisampling, variable sampling rate!!! this is something i used a lot both to save memory and to process sound. the onboard filter is great as well, plus you get a nice bonus sine generator :slight_smile: the sound of this machine is so cool is almost unbelievable! despite (or thanks to) its 12 bits converters this spits out sounds that are almost solid matter! my drums never sounded so good as on the 950.

then i added an mpc 2000xl , great gear but with its limits re: multisampling and live performing, so i upgraded to an mpc4000. this was a real beauty. glorious machine with tons of modulations, i often used it as a synth multisampling simple waveforms and looping them as oscillators. great i\o’s (even mic in with phantom and phono preamp with ground). great visual feedback (piano roll like view of sequences! yesss!). cons: it was huge to bring on stage and prone to some malfunctions, had to repair it thrice. sold it in a bad financial moment, missed it a lot. then years later i bought an mpc500, it was nice but too toyish for my needs, so brought it back to the shop the day after and purchased a mpc1000. upgraded the pads, installed jjos2xl (great alternative firmware) and fell in love. the 1000 is a great little one: i did tons of live sets with the 1000 alone, or with it and a micromodular, or with it and another single multitimbral synth (blofeld, jv1080). jjos adds incredible value especially for performance, new clever ways to change patterns while playing etc… then i felt the need for bigger pads and swapped it for a 2500 (with the same jjos). same experience, better user interface, bigger and heavier. then sold it, bought maschine, loved it, then felt the need to get rid of computers for performing and go back to hardware only. tried the octatrack. loved it for its open-ended, experimental nature but had two issues: 1)i’m not really a fan of step sequencers (even advanced ones like elektron’s) 2)the sound of it is good when you go minimal, but mixing different busy tracks on it? gainstaging nightmare. overall i always found it sounded dull compared to what i used before. swapped it for a er-301\monome grid + ansible combo. dream come true. the er-301 is probably the best instrument i ever used, it sounds so much better than the octa and you can basically program it to do whatever you want with samples, live recording, synthesis, you name it. of course it lacks the sequencer, but you can build them inside it to suit your needs.
then felt the need to something a bit more physical and i was missing the mpc world. bougth an mpc live mk1. now i have the best of both worlds, crazy bizarre totally customizable on the 301 and mpc workflow optimized for the new millenium on the mpc live. the fact that you have so much ram on these newer mpcs means you can get creative throwing in entire songs, and then chopping only the parts you like and building programs out of them. i’ve chopped a shitload of my unreleased tracks. you know, often you have tracks with wonderful sounds and phrases but that don’t go anywhere musically, that’s perfect food for a modern sampler! plus the autosampler feature built in means i can conjure up a great patch on the modular, use a midi-cv interface and let the mpc sample it automatically (multisampling) and then play it like a poly synth!!!
the effects and instruments inside were a huge great surprise, they actually sound very good (where classic mpc’s effects were basic to say the best). i think there is still a lot of space for improvement (in the mixer section, in the sustain loop department, in the “next sequence” performance options etc…) but this time akai nailed it, the whole line is a great improvement on a classic machine!
the live and the x have phono preamps built in. i have tape machines, cassettes players and turntable hooked up to my main mixer and a dedicated out to the mpc so i’m always ready to sample and chop. sampler’s heaven, eventually! <3

(p.s.: some last considerations. the new mpc line feels a bit like working on a computer, or an ipad, with its touchscreen and advanced graphics. this is a pro but it lacks that aura of dedicated, ninja style unit that older mpc’s had (if you get what i mean). if i had the cash and space i would pair it with a 1000 with jjos2xl, for sure. they are different and differently inspiring. but: keep in mind both 1000 and 2500 have one big issue: all buttons are prone to die sooner or later, they are badly engineered and very fragile. if you use them a lot and perform a lot you’ll need to change them sooner or later. the mpc live rubberized buttons feel eternal in comparison. i’ve seen some users on mpc-forums did some mods to the buttons to have them more solid years ago. that was my only complain on the 1000\2500 line.)

10 Likes
#105

i love samplers,
i have the little toy yamaha vss300 so simple but very curious machine.
rytm mkll is amazing i finished a lot of track and could make an album with that so immediate and sounds beautiful , i am stuck with octatrack layout, it’s not for me!
i bought recently a akai s1100 to pair with the octatrack sequencer.
but i have always been curious about the mpc samplers, so thank you hyena!!! , the new generations seems solid… if i wanted to go that route which one you guys would suggest?
mpc one , mpc live or the fource??? thanks

1 Like
#106

So far I’ve found my home with Polyend Tracker, which is kind of understandable considering my first touch with electronic music over two decades ago was trackers - way back when there was no way I could afford synthesizers and samplers, but still had a home computer with a sound card. I think it was around half a decade of first just the trackers and then having synths and sampling them to trackers, before starting to use other things day-to-day and spending less time with that particular paradigm.

Always struggled with all the other hardware samplers in some way, feeling I’m not really in control of what’s happening (eg. I still don’t think the x0x steps + parameter locks type UI is that suitable for other than very simple sample-based workflows, knowing there are many who disagree), can’t slice and manipulate the samples quickly in a way I want, et cetera. Octatrack was closest to love before, but was more of a live / loop / percussive oriented and struggled with pitched one-shot stuff and such so ended up being less than suitable for what I wanted it to be (and superb for what many others want it to be). Classic MPCs I could never gel with despite borrowing several during all the years - not even the “MPC 1000 with JJ OS” combo a lot of friends liked - and didn’t feel like trying out the MPC Live as every person I know who owns it says it feels like “DAW in a box”, which I didn’t really need.

Now, the Tracker. You can’t really do fancy granular stuff with it, nor live sampling and processing. It has 8 tracks and somewhat limited sample memory per project (more than your average unexpanded vintage sampler, but less than any modern device of the “memory costs nothing” age). It has a decent master verb, delay and limiter, but nothing super special, and no per track eq, track compression or such. It doesn’t have multiple outputs which really forces you to treat it as a single self contained music-making device. You can’t play back anything while sampling. Et cetera.

All that is forgiven at the point when one takes up the unit and can immediately get interesting things done fast, without pressing the wrong buttons, getting lost, stumbling upon things that require menu diving when they should be accessible behind their own button, or reading the manual regularly. Seeing the whole sequence at once and actually having an overview what was just recorder / programmed, being able to program all kinds of fun tricks one was routinely using with old trackers. Actually being able to play samples across the whole pitch range like with a normal sampler, with or without horrible (or cool) aliasing. And so on. It’s really a case of limitations being a good thing and enabling a super fast workflow for me (I do have complaints, but they’re so small I think there’s a good possibility they’ll eventually be addressed).

Don’t try this at home unless the paradigm is equally familiar to you, though…

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