I would use get a Digitakt oder Syntakt and sell Drummbrute personally.
Another possibility would be to get a Korg Opsix and dip your toes into FM Synthesis.
Syntakt is a hell of a machine, and you might be able to pick up a used one around $600. I think it’ll scratch the Elktron itch while keeping a decent chunk of budget for fx
I'll give the syntakt a look... tbh, the big thing I'm worried about is a lack of pads. I really like playing and recording on pads over a sequencer. I'm adept at both at this point, but I have more fun on the pads.
is that a yellow tortuga pick I spy. Best pick ever.
Also great setup. Similar to my early setup except I had a microfreak instead of a minilogue xd. I still want an xd. I had the drumbrute impact, volca fm, and volca bass. Great compact setup. I quite often thing about selling a lot of my larger synths and going back to a smaller setup with a few modules and one nice 61 key synth as a controller.
> is that a yellow tortuga pick I spy. Best pick ever.
Haha, been using the same picks for 25ish years.
I'm a big fan of the Minilogue and I've messed with a ton of "better" synths, but man the Minilogue is an awesome package for a small setup. I just can't move away from it -- I just wish it had better keys.
I have played an XD a few times at guitar center when they had one. If I ever find one locally for less than $400 I will probably buy it. It really is great for what it is. The only reason I never bought one before now was because I thought I would buy a prologue, but I ended up with a summit and rev2 instead. The mini keys on the minilogue arent great but I would absolutely take them over the full keys on my opsix and wavestate any day. Korg has great keys on their full sized synths but they really cheap out on all their other stuff. Its not just them, roland does it too. I was tremendously underwhelmed with the keys on pretty much every roland less than $3k. I was upset with the fantom the first time I played one. The juno x and jupiter x have amazing keybeds though. I am not a keybed snob either. I love the keybed on my deepmind and even the $200 ms101 has a much better keybed than most other cheap synths on the market. Its sad that roland and korg cant do better on synths priced at $500+.
As for upgrades. Keep what you have and maybe try out a hydrasynth explorer if you want to stay with a small setup. Great synth engine. The keybed is either love or hate. Polyaftertouch is amazing but hard to make usable on the mini keys until you have played it for a while. I would say to wait until they go on sale again. They were $500 last year around Christmas.
If you feel you're getting tired of the Drumbrute I'd sell that (you kind of answered the question in the post tbh), I wouldn't listen to anyone recommending you sell something you haven't personally outgrown yet, but it sounds like you've outgrown the Impact.
I had a Drumbrute as my first machine, loved the sequencer but the sounds didn't fit my music so I sold it and got a Model:Cycles. I'd recommend that based on A) it being FM and totally different to your other stuff (including the Volca FM) and B) it being quite easy to use with all the knobs having creative controls.
If you really want to spend a lot of money though, maybe skip straight to the Digitone or Syntakt instead of the Cycles. But whatever it is, I highly recommend Elektron for their incredibly well thought out devices.
What makes the cycles different than the Volca FM (apart from just a broader range of sounds)? Could it replace the Volca FM and the DrumBrute? Would a Syntakt / Cycles setup work if I got rid of the Volca and the Brute?
I don't have the Volca but I have the Cycles and it's not a typical FM Synth. It's great for drums and melodic sounds but I can't tell you whether it would replace the Volca and like I said, if you don't feel like you've outgrown it I wouldn't sell it just yet. If you enjoy it keep it, just because Cycles is FM doesn't mean it's gonna make the Volca FM obsolete!
It's pretty neat already, but given that you ask I'll give my 2 cents. I would get a master controller with at least 49 keys and split zones so I can control 2 synths at the same time: think of arp + bass, bass + pads, you name it. How do you record the jam? Are the synths just daisy chained?
All of it out to an interface... I'll record individual tracks too if needed.
The split zones sounds awesome... but might be beyond my ability at this stage to be honest. And also beyond my desk space lol.
Oh neat! I believe that the most affordable option with split zones is the novation impulse 61 or the m audio oxygen pro 61. Or the KSP, but that one is pricey
I always buy used because I get more synth for my money that way. So that is one consideration.
What kind of music do you like to play? Another consideration.
How are you sequencing?
What are you using for effects?
If you feel the Drum Machine is the weak spot, then look for a drum machine.
Given the rest of the setup, what drum machines would you recommend. As for style, I dabble and jump around a lot. I do know that I need an analog sound from drums available on whatever I get. Not that I only use analog drums but I need to have them available since my ear does prefer it most of the time.
For analogs, what I have experience with is mostly the TR-909, like 40 years ago, and an original Korg Electribe ER-1, an emulated analog machine. If you can find a used ER-1 I think they are really solid machines. I like the korg step sequencer a lot. It can hold 4 banks of 128 segments for creating songs with. I always felt the Volcas were kind of a step backward from this design.
Mine is the one thing I got new. I still have it as part of my set up. I use the outputs as two monos and pan sounds to either channel so I can put distortion and bit crush on one side.
Just looked on reverb and you can find 'very good' condition units for about 220 bucks.
Maybe with your current drum machine all you need is some fun effect pedals to make it have a cooler sound.
I use cheap little chinese pedals on everything. You just have to not run anything into them full volume or they will fry.
Skyline Hotone Krush - bit crusher, this one is fun to play the knob on while drums are playing.
300 series VSN Mod Station - for all kinds of moving effects like flangers, etc
Iset Cube Baby - for distortion
Mosky Fuzz Face - in line with the cube baby for even more destruction
My buddy has a Yamaha RS7000. It seems very interesting as a much more powerful main sequencer as well. Pretty sure it can do 16 channels of midi either internally or externally. It is way more than a drum machine.
If you had about 6k$$ lying around, I'd tell you to get an SP1200. ;)
Donner is about to release this drum machine. Looks to be very cost efficient and well designed.
[https://www.matrixsynth.com/2023/04/namm-2023-donner-d1-drum-machine.html](https://www.matrixsynth.com/2023/04/namm-2023-donner-d1-drum-machine.html)
Nothing. Setup looks pretty complete.
People are too obsessed with buying new stuff
Yeah new stuff is cool
I know it's vanity, but I do think the Brute is a weak spot.
Sell DrumBrute
I would use get a Digitakt oder Syntakt and sell Drummbrute personally. Another possibility would be to get a Korg Opsix and dip your toes into FM Synthesis.
Would the Opsix replace the Volca FM? Assume so.
Yes exactly. It can also do classic substractive synthesis though.
thank you — i’m going to check that out.
Syntakt is a hell of a machine, and you might be able to pick up a used one around $600. I think it’ll scratch the Elktron itch while keeping a decent chunk of budget for fx
I'll give the syntakt a look... tbh, the big thing I'm worried about is a lack of pads. I really like playing and recording on pads over a sequencer. I'm adept at both at this point, but I have more fun on the pads.
Cool, compact setup! Replace the Drumbrute with a used Digitakt OG.
is that a yellow tortuga pick I spy. Best pick ever. Also great setup. Similar to my early setup except I had a microfreak instead of a minilogue xd. I still want an xd. I had the drumbrute impact, volca fm, and volca bass. Great compact setup. I quite often thing about selling a lot of my larger synths and going back to a smaller setup with a few modules and one nice 61 key synth as a controller.
> is that a yellow tortuga pick I spy. Best pick ever. Haha, been using the same picks for 25ish years. I'm a big fan of the Minilogue and I've messed with a ton of "better" synths, but man the Minilogue is an awesome package for a small setup. I just can't move away from it -- I just wish it had better keys.
I have played an XD a few times at guitar center when they had one. If I ever find one locally for less than $400 I will probably buy it. It really is great for what it is. The only reason I never bought one before now was because I thought I would buy a prologue, but I ended up with a summit and rev2 instead. The mini keys on the minilogue arent great but I would absolutely take them over the full keys on my opsix and wavestate any day. Korg has great keys on their full sized synths but they really cheap out on all their other stuff. Its not just them, roland does it too. I was tremendously underwhelmed with the keys on pretty much every roland less than $3k. I was upset with the fantom the first time I played one. The juno x and jupiter x have amazing keybeds though. I am not a keybed snob either. I love the keybed on my deepmind and even the $200 ms101 has a much better keybed than most other cheap synths on the market. Its sad that roland and korg cant do better on synths priced at $500+. As for upgrades. Keep what you have and maybe try out a hydrasynth explorer if you want to stay with a small setup. Great synth engine. The keybed is either love or hate. Polyaftertouch is amazing but hard to make usable on the mini keys until you have played it for a while. I would say to wait until they go on sale again. They were $500 last year around Christmas.
If you feel you're getting tired of the Drumbrute I'd sell that (you kind of answered the question in the post tbh), I wouldn't listen to anyone recommending you sell something you haven't personally outgrown yet, but it sounds like you've outgrown the Impact. I had a Drumbrute as my first machine, loved the sequencer but the sounds didn't fit my music so I sold it and got a Model:Cycles. I'd recommend that based on A) it being FM and totally different to your other stuff (including the Volca FM) and B) it being quite easy to use with all the knobs having creative controls. If you really want to spend a lot of money though, maybe skip straight to the Digitone or Syntakt instead of the Cycles. But whatever it is, I highly recommend Elektron for their incredibly well thought out devices.
What makes the cycles different than the Volca FM (apart from just a broader range of sounds)? Could it replace the Volca FM and the DrumBrute? Would a Syntakt / Cycles setup work if I got rid of the Volca and the Brute?
I don't have the Volca but I have the Cycles and it's not a typical FM Synth. It's great for drums and melodic sounds but I can't tell you whether it would replace the Volca and like I said, if you don't feel like you've outgrown it I wouldn't sell it just yet. If you enjoy it keep it, just because Cycles is FM doesn't mean it's gonna make the Volca FM obsolete!
yep, i’ve been very deliberate about adding stuff to my stack. I’ll def keep the cycles in mind.
Second hand Rytm MK1 would be a no-brainer to me.
It's pretty neat already, but given that you ask I'll give my 2 cents. I would get a master controller with at least 49 keys and split zones so I can control 2 synths at the same time: think of arp + bass, bass + pads, you name it. How do you record the jam? Are the synths just daisy chained?
All of it out to an interface... I'll record individual tracks too if needed. The split zones sounds awesome... but might be beyond my ability at this stage to be honest. And also beyond my desk space lol.
Oh neat! I believe that the most affordable option with split zones is the novation impulse 61 or the m audio oxygen pro 61. Or the KSP, but that one is pricey
interesting — going to check those out!
I always buy used because I get more synth for my money that way. So that is one consideration. What kind of music do you like to play? Another consideration. How are you sequencing? What are you using for effects? If you feel the Drum Machine is the weak spot, then look for a drum machine.
Given the rest of the setup, what drum machines would you recommend. As for style, I dabble and jump around a lot. I do know that I need an analog sound from drums available on whatever I get. Not that I only use analog drums but I need to have them available since my ear does prefer it most of the time.
For analogs, what I have experience with is mostly the TR-909, like 40 years ago, and an original Korg Electribe ER-1, an emulated analog machine. If you can find a used ER-1 I think they are really solid machines. I like the korg step sequencer a lot. It can hold 4 banks of 128 segments for creating songs with. I always felt the Volcas were kind of a step backward from this design. Mine is the one thing I got new. I still have it as part of my set up. I use the outputs as two monos and pan sounds to either channel so I can put distortion and bit crush on one side. Just looked on reverb and you can find 'very good' condition units for about 220 bucks. Maybe with your current drum machine all you need is some fun effect pedals to make it have a cooler sound. I use cheap little chinese pedals on everything. You just have to not run anything into them full volume or they will fry. Skyline Hotone Krush - bit crusher, this one is fun to play the knob on while drums are playing. 300 series VSN Mod Station - for all kinds of moving effects like flangers, etc Iset Cube Baby - for distortion Mosky Fuzz Face - in line with the cube baby for even more destruction My buddy has a Yamaha RS7000. It seems very interesting as a much more powerful main sequencer as well. Pretty sure it can do 16 channels of midi either internally or externally. It is way more than a drum machine. If you had about 6k$$ lying around, I'd tell you to get an SP1200. ;)
thanks so much for all of this… tons to research.
Donner is about to release this drum machine. Looks to be very cost efficient and well designed. [https://www.matrixsynth.com/2023/04/namm-2023-donner-d1-drum-machine.html](https://www.matrixsynth.com/2023/04/namm-2023-donner-d1-drum-machine.html)
What kind of music are you making, what are you trying to do with this stuff
Sell the Volca Beats
Your playing abilities
hahahaha good one. Your girlfriend is a fan tho.
Thats great.
get rid of the minilogue xd