HOMO ELECTROMAGNETICUS
Sound design with the Elektron Monomachine
Constant-time slides
Roland's TB-303 is a synthesizer with a number of somewhat unique features
that may be the source the deep reverence many have for the instrument.
One of these features is its ability to program consistently musical
slides between two sequenced notes, where the pitch changes smoothly and
this smooth transition finishes just in time for the next note in the
sequence no matter the interval between the notes. This type of slide is
called a "constant time" slide and is most similar to how a real
musician would smoothly transition between two notes on a real
instrument. A constant time slide is different to how slides are
typically implemented in synthesizers, where the slide
rate is
programmed and this rate may or may not be fast enough to transition
between the two notes before the second note is supposed to be played.
After spending some time with the Monomachine, you may wonder how to
program some nice constant-time slides on it. The portamento parameter
on the amplification page seems like it might do, but if you spend some
time experimenting with it, you will find that it's not quite right. Any
tempo change in your sequence will make the slides sound off time.
The Monomachine can do constant-time slides of locked sound parameters,
but not of pitch natively. The way around this is to use an LFO to
modify pitch and then use the Monomachine's parameter slides on the LFO
depth. For example, here's a recipe to program a one octave constant
time pitch slide:
On any track LFO:
PAGE: PTCH
DEST: 4OCT
TRIG: HALF
WAVE: SQR
MULT: 1X
SPD: 0
INTL: 0
DPTH: 0
Once the above is setup, use parameter to locks to lock the LFO's
depth to zero on the sequencer step where you want the slide to begin.
Then lock the LFO's depth to 124 (not 127!) on the step on which you want
the slide to finish. From here, hold the function button and push the
rightmost pattern bank button with the label "slide" under it to enter
slide edit mode. Put a slide trig on the step you want the slide to begin
on.
Run the sequencer, and you should hear that the pitch between the two
sequencer steps will slide up and get to one octave above the original
pitch just as the sequencer lands on the step for which we programmed to
finish above. You can adjust the tempo all you want at this point, the
slide will always finish at the right time.
Programming pitch slides this way can be a little tricky if you want to
slide up or down to a pitch that isn't an octave away. Here's a list of
some common intervals and the associated LFO settings needed to get there:
Octave up:
LFO DEST: 4OCT
LFO DPTH: 124
Perfect fifth up:
LFO DEST: 4OCT
LFO DPTH: 73
Perfect fourth up:
LFO DEST: 2OCT
LFO DPTH: 100
Major third up:
LFO DEST: 2OCT
LFO DPTH: 82
Minor third up:
LFO DEST: 1OCT
LFO DPTH: 60
You can slide down in pitch by letting the WAVE parameter of the LFO be
ISQR.