The technical competency demonstrated is superb without a doubt. However, it sounded very typical Elektron (minimalist/progressive). After have gone through so much Elektron media on the internet, it was not all-that refreshing/inspiring to me.
Look forward to #2!
I thought exactly the same when I saw this demo. Getting very bored by all this typical minimal/prog sound… Gimme more noise and destruction!
Same here. Never liked minimal from the start. Never been into house or any of that straight 4x4 techno. There’s nothing wrong with it um just not a fan. YouTube is utterly awash with that sort of stuff. I wanna see some beat destruction mayhem or even some autechre style madness. Someone needs to give venetian snares a couple of elektron boxes.
I really subscribe to percival, drone & nedavine opinion. The video shows great skills, but sound isn’t my cup of tea. I really prefer breakcore and stranges beats. Elektron gears are eficient for those really architectural sound. Ambiant/house/minimal are the first and easiest use of elktron gear. This not show the real abilities of instruments.
top inspirational clips for me are nearly anything by Cuckoo + electron http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_0IWqFdQbQ
The looseness of how he puts things together makes you want to start messing about.
Lem’s classic erarta performance on pretty much only a monomachine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRpH5Ij6CfM never gets tired no matter how often I listen to it.
dataline’s stuff is technically amazing … showing you that if you can do this, you now know how to work your machines to full competency.
Yes, more break-core/noise/industrial sound!
But, apart from our musical tastes, I think this type of video (and all the demo vids made by Elektron staff are a reflect of their own musical tastes, and for me it explains some of the limitation of Elektron gear. For instance, if you think that electronic music is represented by a slow and harmonious progression from a quiet pattern to a just a wee bit less quiet one, then you understand why it is so difficult to jump quickly and easily from one pattern to another without waiting for the end of the current one: see this thread, in which we tried to solve this problem. And at least, it can be solved on the OT, but not on the MD. So, the MD alone cannot easily be used to play in a “cutup style”. Whereas I think it could be easily solved by Elektron in an OS update. But maybe they don’t even think it make sense, because of their own use of the machines. I have a Yamaha RS 7000 since the year 2000, and I’m trying to change (for the OT + MD) because I think I now know maybe 99% of the old machine, and sometimes I get bored by its sounds. BUT, its sequencer so much better than all the Elektron machine sequencer to play in cutup style, mainly during live acts. You can also play very easily strange signatures like 7/5 or 12/8. But of course, If you want to play 4x4 minimal house, you can also. It’s a pity, because I really like my OT and my MD, but they lack just few things to be the best grooveboxes of the market: but these few things are essential.
@drone : think you’right about MD OS that not permit real cut and immediat pattern changes. We’re obliged to program them in song mode and lost the instant improvisation. I don’t know if it’s easily programmable in OS. If it is, it would be one of my request.
I think it’s right too, that those lack of abilities in OS are certainly due to the music and style that Elektron team likes.
But, finaly, Elektron gears are the best equipement i ever had to approxim the art of breakcore and strange rythm in live act. So i spend hours to turn the OS difficulties and try to reach my aim, cause i really love’em.
yeah I’m with you guys on this…
Cenk’s jams are nice and I applaud his commitment & talent… actually this latest video is the best jam I’ve seen of him… nevertheless, this video is just more of the same in a sense… i hope not to push the wrong buttons here… how to put this… 
there is so much agreeable head-nodding electronic music out there YAAAWWN…
with an abundance of tools which makes this stuff super easy to do. tap on your ipad oh yeah. make a house beat oh yeah. it certainly doesn’t help that most DJs subscribe to this idea of “well let’s make it a little groovy here, a little teensy-weensy here, a little bit for everyone hehehehe”… the result is that the music that’s played in clubs is the same fucking music that’s played when you shop for socks. There’s something wrong with that in my book.
Personally I’ve learnt to appreciate Elektron instruments through Autechre’s releases & livesets between 2005-2008 (If you haven’t heard these livesets, there are a few soundboard recordings, and they are intense… should be googleable (glasgow 2005, pontins 2007)).
This is, imo, by far the best music made with Elektrons… These guys take their gear to places…
Now Elektron have this Hector character, right? I think the MnM/MD tutorial videos did paint a really interesting, sorta Orwellian picture of the company, and they did follow up with the OT & A4 teaser films (which, imo, were both well done but their videogame style was less good than the dry style of the tutorial series…)…
But this new video is, as video, just hmmm… meh. There’s no magic to it…
I mean I do see its purpose… You can see that by twisting knobs and pressing buttons, live electronic music will happen. But there’s a missed opportunity here, namely showing that you can intuitively make mad music with this gear that’s not at all possible with NI Maschine or Ableton Push… ,
This refers to the classical gap in the electronic music scene: between those who play in clubs during lunchtime (or at the hairdresser, or for the night parties, for a nice happy and clean people public of clubbers), and those who prefer to play for free in a forest or in a bunker cave in front of a public of freaks. Most of the time, it’s not the same music, because you can’t buy your socks in a bunker cave. Well, I’m drawing a caricature of the music scene here, of course, but it’s not so far…
I don’t usually make breakcore but I think I will make that my project for the weekend to make a huge breakcore track. I used to always make crazy stuff like that years ago, I was even on a cd with venetian snares and the flashbulb. But these days I got old and fat and my music mellowed out in to BoC style hip hop flavoured stuff. Might be nice to throw some of the old spice back into it.
I suggest those of us here who want to hear stuff that isn’t minimal house or whatever should get off our arses and infiltrate youtube. I challenge you all to a crazy break duel (and I am sure I will lose). But hey challenges are why most of us stuck with using the OT.
You mean that that’s you playing there :
Yes that is me. Old fat and breathing fire like a badass!
I’m trying to get a bit of inspiration so dug out my old venetian snares albums. Man he was amazing. Totally forgot how inspiring his stuff was…
Anyway, I digress. Off to the batcave to slash some beats!
I am not sure about these videos, this kind of YouTube videos made me refuse to buy Elektron products until I tried the units myself.
Minimalist/progressive/Deep-House/Techno’ish music is boring for my ears and most sounds like cheesy Groovebox discount techno
I would like to see the Elektron products used in a more creative way as part of a band gear setup.
Tastes differ quite a bit around here… I personally always found all that stuff, Autechre, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares etc to be too boring, too pseudo-intellectual, too fancy, too academic. It doesn’t do anything to me emotionally, it doesn’t touch my soul. I like the simple stuff, like a proper house record.
That’s fair enough and tastes do indeed differ. Also I’d like to clear in that whats going on that video isn’t simple. I mean the music is simple. But I wouldn’t call the performance of it simple, hands are all over the place and load sof stuff going on I can’t even get my head around. But yeah musical tastes really do differ but that ebing said it seems the minimal stuff is the more popular side of things because its all over youtube.
i look at elektron’s machines as any other instrument and i do believe that each one of us comes up with different sounds. i reckon it would probably take more than 10 minutes to showcase what each single machine could do in any genre…
it’s like thinking about a guitar, a drum kit or a bass guitar…it all depends on who uses it and the results will always be different. i like to ‘get lost’ into my MnM when creating sounds but it’s something that could take hours sometimes and i’m sure it won’t be the best way of showcasing all the features of the synth.
Herr Dataline has done a great job and one shouldn’t really just look at what he comes up with but more at how he uses the machines, what comes out of them it’s purely up to who plays them
this is an old album i did using only a MnM and i guess there’re other people out there that have used Elektron’s machines differently from what here is defined ‘standard’ 
I’ve been watching TONS of YouTube videos featuring Elektron gear lately, and I have to agree that there is a large swath that is quite uninspiring, and much of what is underwhelming is of the minimal techno/house ilk. That said, it’s not just from one genre. I listen to all sorts of electronic music from old jungle/dnb, breakcore, IDM (spit!), Berlin techno, UK bass music, etc. I still find that what is vastly missing in these YouTube demos (and a lot of electronic music, period) is melody and harmony. These are fundamentals of music that the greats have always had a keen ear for. You listen to something like LP5 from Autechre, and yes there is some mad, mad rhythms happening, but there is also some fantastic melody that provides the real emotional core.
I dont see these videos not really as musical statements, but more as some kind of guerilla marketing-ish advertising. They are very well done, but its mostly focused on showing the technical side of a product. For my taste, theres too much change, too much effects and too much everything. Thats why i would not call this minimal. I love minimal, but i see it seems to have a bad reputation here on the forums. Wich is funny, as the machinedrum is often referred to as the instant- minimal device… Well, for me, this is not exactly the music they play in my local shoppingmall http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HxAlrilK4lE&feature=plpp&p=PL7D1DC4FE37DE5EE5
Well what i wanted to say: i enjoy watching as skilled as mr dataline performing on the elektrons. No matter if the style of music is of my personal taste
Minimalism has to be differenced from minimal tech, this genre which invaded the clubs dance floors and parties these last years. I really don’t like minimal tech/minimal house, because I always have the feeling to be at the last up to date hairdresser or in a fashion show: too commercial for my ex punk bad tastes.
But minimalism can be very interesting, indeed.
Some examples of what I call interesting electronic minimalism: