$999, impressive.
@spacetown there was an electribe firmware update recently. Any thoughts? I’m starting to think I’d like an ES2 to compliment my SP-303 and other wares once the firmware matures a little bit
so I just looked at the new firmware and it looks like it adds a couple cool things! but it’s not really dealing with what I think the main problems with the electribe are:
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pattern switching gap - this still exists! and it’s the MAIN issue my workflow is aimed at dealing with. basically you can’t switch from one (up to 4 measure) pattern to another without there being an audible gap at the moment of switching. they’ve taken steps to deal with it through having FX tails persist through the switch if you have the same global effect through both patterns. it’s not ALWAYS noticeable depending on the nature of your phrase – long notes that are meant to continue into the next pattern definitely have a gap, but short staccato notes shouldn’t have a problem. I like long basses and pads though so it always messes me up
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24 voice limit - this doesn’t seem like a problem at first because there are only 16 maximum parts, so you have some voices left over, right? but every time you add even the smallest layer of complexity to a part, you add to that voice total and you’ll end up hitting that limit pretty quickly, which results in parts cutting in and out as the electribe attempts to deal with it. this can be worked around by disabling the filters on percussion and stuff like that, but I still find myself hitting the limit quicker than I’d like which is why I’m looking at an external percussion unit (volca beats or sample, or maybe just using ableton) to handle percussive stuff and only using the electribe for synths
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no keyboard-based step edit - this is a smaller issue but you’ll need to get used to the idea of editing per-step using a knob instead of the pads. I’d LOVE the ability to change the pitch of a part’s step by hitting the pads but for some reason this doesn’t exist yet. it’s definitely addressable through a firmware update but as it stands I spend a lot of time just adding notes through step edit using a knob, which isn’t ideal
so those are the main problems I’m having with it, but otherwise I’m really enjoying the electribe! the sequencer is great aside from the step edit problem, and the voice limit makes it so that you probably won’t be using all of the parts, leaving at least one free to sequence whatever external gear you have. it’s JUST limited enough for me to want to expand it with other things, but for the price it’s more than enough. I’ve posted a couple of videos of tracks I’ve made with it and a microbrute in the music sharing thread if you’re interested!
my plans for the electribe mostly involve pairing it with ableton. I was looking for a solution that would allow me to store patterns externally AND control the volca sample, but the volca’s MIDI situation is weird-ish. I was hoping that everything would work out with a beatstep pro, but I think I can save money with just setting up an ableton set to sequence percussion AND send MIDI out to the electribe, which also gives me a way around the 4-bar limit for sequences
Revisiting this thread to remind myself that I should not buy the Timbre Wolf even though it’s now down to $200.
Right?
I’d dodge it, yeah
I’m saving for a Minitaur though so
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Also can anyone recc a decent oscillation/waveform display plugin that scrolls read-ably slow? I’d like to be able to monitor how any compression tweaks I make are squashing or not
Reaper’s inbuilt JS one is okay but I could do with something slower
What a dumb video.
‘Rocking out’ on stationary little squeekboxes never looks good
props to the person bold enough to prominently rock a fitbit in the video
This thing is cool, and the guy also has good rundowns of the other new roland stuff.
I think Sylenth1 is still good enough for the likes of me
ok the above being said but these actually look pretty great
Oh word. I read about this piece the other day and it’s instantly shot to the top of the wish list. Bassist needs a drummer y’kno
The demos are so bad but there’s a soniclab video where the marketing flunkie guy shows off what the thing can really do and it’s aaaawesome this thing sounds greattttt
especially when he gets the distortion pedal on it holy crap
yo I’m really excited about the drumbrute
like unreasonably so
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Yeah I don’t really get it
I think I’m excited because it kind of perfectly solves what I’m trying to get past in my hardware setup – I was considering running my electribe as a synth part-only thing and having ableton do my drum sequencing but I didn’t want to draw patterns in ableton before I could play around
and it’s nice that arturia is continuing to make really cool entry-level devices for pretty cheap, comparatively. the closest analogues are the tr-8 and the newest 909 remake but the thing I’m really excited about with the drumbrute is the pre-filter outs on every channel, so you can route every instrument into a different effect or whatever, which is great. and you might even be able to get the CV sync out of them if things work out
I just really like the idea of having my drum box and having my synth box and that’s it
Yeah an actually affordable analog drum machine that isn’t a straight-up Roland x0x clone is kinda the gear equivalent of a unicorn
I hope this thing’s rimshot works as a trig out so I can drive my Jx sequencer w/ it
Yeah, all those outs really surprised me. Back when, just being able to pan drum sounds into either stereo channel with each going through different pedals was a big deal. This thing could be at the heart of a weird audio octopus.