Pure Analog Four mkii, one (sloppy) take (with a lil bit of EQ/limiting after)

Sometime i'll give myself more than a day for weeklybeats...

i haven't properly dived into the a4 in a long time!  Sequencing workflow is a little rusty, but sound design muscle memory is still there.

Interesting patches at play:
* One of my fav A4 tricks: almost-vocal sounds by dialing in the two filters to characteristic vowel formant frequencies.
* The main bass drum is a pretty typical bass sound, but LFO modulated noise through the filter overdrive gives some nice rhythmic pedal.  (gotta be that mkii overdrive though, the mki side doesn't cut it)
* The first growl that comes in wasn't exactly what I was imagining.  Wanted more like the sound of a spring door bumper (you know, those ones).  What I got here was pitch modulated sawtooths (one a couple octaves above the other i think?) through a very resonant lowpass, with overdrive.
* The main character of the snare drum is the pitch modulated with a "hold" envelope (one of the square-front shapes, with a short attack and a short decay).  Slappy two-stage snare.

But the star of the show is the performance mode.  Probably what makes the A4 what it is, for me.
When I'm setting up a performance page, I'll typically dial in each performance knob:

* Based on the min/max range.  So the middle range can end up a surprise for me.
* Based on that knob on its own.  So combinations with other knobs are even more surprises.
* Based on one sound, even one note.  So different octaves, or sound-locks, can be even more surprises.

I've heard the Elektron workflow was heavily inspired by trackers, and I can see that in the depth of programming, p-locks, etc.
But the performance aspect brings so much spontaneity in contrast.  It's kind of absurd to have access to any 50 parameters across 4 tracks all at once.  Can play with a single loop for hours (which does make it a little more difficult to form a complete track, for me).

Vague idea of the 8 performance macros I set up for this tune, in roughly the order I configured them (named by their on-screen 3-letter abbreviation, of course):

* SCO primarily lifts the highpass cutoff of the main bass drum.  Also turns the snare into a great clap?
* OPE extends the decay/sustain of the high hats (but also the other percussion on that track)
* STA shortens the decay of the "vocal" synth ostinato
* FOR nudges up the resonant cutoffs of that track
* WID opens the lowpass and lowers the highpass of the main chords.  But the nasal growl is on that track too.
* BOX dramatically cuts the delay time and reverb decay time (but increases reverb pre-delay)
* DIR increases the "pulse width" of the main bass drum for some extra rasp
* SQU raises the level of the second oscillator of the bass drum, tuned way up to sound like a resonant harmonic

I only got through one full take before the deadline, so I hadn't learned my way around those 8 parameters in combination yet.  But it's so fun regardless.

There'll be more A4 sometime this year.  I need to get more in the groove of music that works better on the A4; some aspects of this tune are more suited for the M8 workflow i've much more immersed myself in this year.

Tags: a4mkii, analog four, analog four mkii, elektron, week 29 2022, View by:wangus