I’m ready to pull the trigger on either the Monomachine or Machinedrum. Hoping someone in here has some experience with both. The drums on the op-1 are leaving a lot to be desired for me. I don’t have a hard time pulling good synth sounds out of the op-1 and wonder if the monomachine offers a whole lot more sonically with the synths. The p-locks would be great, for sure, but are the drums that tweakable on the mono? If the drums are pretty diverse I’d love to have more synth engines to work with, but don’t want to end up with the same problem I have now. Sampling drums just really isn’t my thing.
the beatbox thing on the mono is pretty basic. you’d have to create your own drum sounds using the synth engines. but thats kinda what the MD is for, and is way more catered to drum sound making w/ more channels to boot. plus u can make some gnarly synth sounds w/ the MD as well.
I have all three. Right now, I would suggest the Machinedrum. The one place where drums are kindof fun on the Monomachine are when using its arpeggiator with them and using the three LFOs to make some glitchy ciat-lonbarde plumbutter style sounds. But that’s kindof like saying the drums in the OP-1 are fun when used with the Tombola sequencer. A bit gimmicky.
If you want drums, the Machinedrum is awesome. I love it. It’s currently my favorite piece of gear. I love the FM family of machines. I love the physical modeling machines. Sampling with the MD-UW can be fun, but it’s not needed if sampling isn’t your thing and you can go with the cheaper plain MD model. You can do some pretty good synthesis on the MD and it’s got a pretty good Midi sequencer too, where you can p-lock midi CC values. (Monomachine can also do Midi sequencing, but MD’s got some fun tricks up its sleeve).
There are a few videos of Machinedrums and OP-1’s together on YouTube. I haven’t noticed if there are any Monomachine + OP-1 ones, but I think the MD is probably a better fit.
However, Elektron’s “workflow” video for the Monomachine goes into how to make a beat on it, and it synthesizes the sounds more than using the ‘Beat Box’ sounds. ie, it uses the noise setting of the SID machine to make snares. So you can hear a bit of how to synthesize drums with the Monomachine here:
But the Machinedrum is much better suited for drums if you have a synth like the OP-1 already. Here’s the same guy from that workflow video playing MD and Op-1:
Although! To here the depth of the Monomachine, check out this live set from LEM. There’s an Octatrack on it too, but he says it’s just being used for a compressor and some subtle effects. Everything else is coming from the Monomachine. So the Monomachine is a bit closer to the ‘synth+drum machine’ style groove boxes than the Machinedrum, but you will have to work a bit harder to get unique drum sounds.
the machinedrum is a great drum machine - possibly the best drum machine, though it requires a lot of work and time to sound decent - you might also want to consider the nord drum series as an option…
I have both monomachine and op-1. I don’t use the monomachine very often but it is very good for drum sound design—particularly when using the SID and FM machines. I usually create sounds on the monomachine and transfer them over to my es-1, but I think I may start chucking them on the op-1 as well… or getting a USB MIDI host device to control the op-1 from the monomachine
Having said all that, I played around on a friend’s machinedrum for a while and it was amazing. Very easy to get good quality minimal tech going.
Thanks for all your replies. You have pretty much confirmed my suspicions. The OP-1 is more deep in the synth section than a lot of people think. It will take a long time before I’m out of avenues with it. I think the machinedrum is what I’m after.
All of the above is very true.
Now that you’ve set your mind, let me tell you that if you have the money it’s very worth to consider getting a Rytm
With the two last updates it has become a very unique drum machine.
Now you can’t go wrong with a Machinedrum : I feel like with such instrument it’s very hard to get bad beats
i’m really at a crossroads. the Machinedrum is nice but do I want MD or a Rytm? Cost aside, the overbridge stuff is really tempting and I can’t avoid thinking in the larger scenario (as in wired up to my main DAW)
I went with the MD, though I have no need for overbridge. Glitchy Death Grips type beats are my thing and I feel like MD is probably the best hardware for that sort of thing.
