My phone has a weird setting called Super Stable. I've never used it. Looks really strange. Here's what it looks like while zoomed.

This is a quick shot of something I was working on while resetting the Octatrack.

Analog Rytm, Digitakt, Monomachine and Digitone Keys all through the Octatrack and Analog Heat. Managing my routing with Bitwig.

I will probably not use Super Stable again.

First night with the Monomachine, I got a feel for the menu structure and learned how to use the VO-6 vocal synth. I’ll have to use this for my next voicemail greeting.

Last night, I started exploring the feedback capabilities of the synth engine and filters. I was thrilled to find out you could simulate a full band's worth of guitars leaned up on amps. Oddly enough, I find this very useful.

Amazing piece of kit.

I've always wanted a Monomachine SFX60. I wanted one back when it was new, though the price tag had put it completely out of reach of my admittedly low budget back in 2007.

I've seen (heard) some really crazy stuff come out of these in the hands of LA's Sleep Clinic and if you haven't, tracks of his appear on Norelco Mori Episode 057 and Norelco Mori LTD 001.

I'm a late to the party convert to the Elektron way of doing things, having finally pieced together my own “Dark Trinity” just 4 years ago. But after recently getting into both the Digitakt and Digitone, I realized the depth of the older devices was just not present. Not like it is on the Octatrack. Even the seemingly crippled Analog Four and Rytm both offer pretty extensive performance-mode customization. The challenge of adjusting your gait to the steep learning curve was not really a thing with these two new boxes. Not to say that's bad, but I wanted more flexibility.

The +Drive versions of the SFX60 MKII don't come up for sale all that often so I jumped at the opportunity to pay a premium for one in great condition. I have to say, the aluminum faceplate is growing on me. I have always been a fan of the custom-made black Dick Malibu panel. Years back, I was just minutes too late to buy Richard Devine's black panel Monomachine for sale on Muff Wiggler and, even now, I am still mad that I deliberated about spending $800 on that thing for long enough to lose out. If you have a spare black panel (why would you?) please reach out!

I'm thrilled to have a new (to me) machine with a big, fat, ringbound manual to spend some time with. I've also printed out a copy of Tarekith's Monomachine tips compiled from the old Elektron forum. I'll be posting some more here to share my progress along the way.

It might also be time to dust off the old' YouTube channel.

Developing workflows for machine to machine integrations via Bitwig. Bitwig handles the routing of the many inputs in a pair of MOTU AVB interfaces. This lets me record anything from any machine directly to the computer, Octatrack, MPC or allows them to be fed through other machines' inputs as well as effects chains. This modularity really creates a cohesive network for machine to machine interaction. It's pretty thorough. I really liked using the Octatrack as a live-sampling mixer but was limited by the number of stereo sources I could feed it at a time. Now, everything from everywhere can get to it, be captured and manipulated while other machines duplicate these sounds from other perspectives simultaneously. Related samples with unique sonic qualities, depending on the unit in questions output processing. The MPC and Octatrack have very distinct output characters from one another. .

I’ll be dusting off some old recordings and peeling the protective film off a few new ones this weekend for Furniture Music Sundays. Come through!