This is why I love techno festivals and parties. I also like the music (and I'm a hobbyist producer myself) but the sheer freedom you have for a whole festival or even evening/weekend is liberating, is a escape from reality. And the hypnotic sound also gets me to other places, even when sober.
P.S.: and by "techno" I mean the genre of EDM called techno, starting in Detroit in late 80s/early 90s and spreading through Europe by the UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, not the "general techno" that is used in US to mean any kind of electronic dance music.
Sure! One thing that I love about the music producing/synth community is that we all love to share :)
I have dedicated myself to use only hardware for a while, working on a computer for 8+ hours a day really puts me off on being creative on it so I went to the only-hardware route.
With that said, my current setup is:
* Roland TR-8S for the drums, recreations of the classic drum machines (TR-606, 707, 808, 909, etc.) and it also plays samples, it's a really cool instrument to play live and perform instead of programming but with the A-H variations per pattern it also is much more powerful than the previous TR-8
* Elektron Analog Four Mk II as my main analog synth, it can do 4-voice polyphony if you aren't using all 4 tracks for different sounds or you get 4-in-1 synths with 2 oscillators per track, a lot of options for modulation (2 envelopes per track, 2 LFOs per track, etc.). I use it mainly for basslines and some leads but sometimes will use for pads, sample them and free up the tracks for playing other stuff.
* Elektron Octatrack Mk II is my brain for the setup, my sampler, my pickup machine, looper, and so it goes. It's a VERY deep machine with tons of possibilites, artists across many genres use it (from Radiohead to a lot of techno producers) and I'm even using it to help a friend who has a solo ballad rock project to add some cool ambiance to his tracks.
* Elektron Digitone, my FM and polysynth, 8 voices, 2 per track but as the A4 it can steal voices from other tracks to play up to 8 notes at a time from a single track. This machine is really cool and inspiring, it's FM-made-easy as apart from the FM engine you also get the world of subtractive synthesis with its filters. I also love that that it has 4 MIDI tracks that I can internally route back to it to use more than 2 LFOs per track to have even more modulation.
I'm very happy with this setup, it covers all the bases while keeping it more or less compact (for a 4 synths setup).
Feel free to ask any more questions if you've got them :)
Been wanting to get a digitone, how easy is it to sculpte basses (similar to dnb like artists similar to bredran)
Also what is the inputs left and right used for?
It looks amazing especially when you need to travel
It's really easy to get a good bass from the DN, with the filter and amp env you can totally get a bass similar to a more common subtractive synth.
I'd say that the A4 can give me a "deeper" bass when I need but the DN comes loaded with quite a few basses presets for you to start from while you are getting the hang of it. I'm not sure how close to bredran's basses you can get (as I don't produce DnB) but if you can try a DN from a local music store for a bit do it! It's quite fast to get inspired with it and much easier to design sounds than it first appears.
And yup, I've been carrying it around sometimes while traveling, I'm starting to consider getting an external battery capable of powering my Elektron gear as I'd love to bring the OT and the DN while off the grid.
Thank you very much, that looks impressive. I'm looking for professional drum sound, but honestly can't justify the price of the TR-8S, hoped that there's some sample set that I could use from software. Anyway it's useful to me as a reference.
For drum samples I recommend to check out the packs from Samples From Mars[0], they are very thorough in how they sample hardware equipment and real music lovers that use most of the revenue to buy more gear to create new packs.
I haven't published anything yet as I don't feel comfortable with my creations, haha, most of the fun I have now is playing live with a friend or jamming by myself and recording 30-90 minutes sessions, mostly to track my own improvement. I hope I can publish something in the next year or so.
P.S.: I'm linking their "All Products From Mars" combo pack so you can dig into each one individually to check them out.
I definitely have been! I live in Sweden also so it was very cool to find a local maker with such unique instruments.
A big selling point for me was the Elektron sequencer and workflow, I just "got it" from the start as I didn't have much experience with other synths before. I don't really mind the menu diving as, after you get familiar with it, it feels like the machine is a keyboard of shortcuts for you to get around easily.
Mind sharing what is your setup like? Sometimes I've even thought about selling the TR-8S to get an Analog Rytm but the TR-8S is so much fun to play live (and the AR is more than double the price) that I've put the idea to rest, haha, also trying to not fall too much into GAS.
P.S.: and by "techno" I mean the genre of EDM called techno, starting in Detroit in late 80s/early 90s and spreading through Europe by the UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, not the "general techno" that is used in US to mean any kind of electronic dance music.