It is suitable for experimental music. I’ve long been an experimental/electroacoustic/noise artist and I just got the Machinedrum and am really loving it.
(D’oh, just noticed AFTER I wrote this that you said you did NOT have the MDUW… Still, there’s a fair bit here that may be of interest to you or someone else looking at more experimental styles).
However, after 22 years, I’m kindof trying to “go straight” and go for a bit more structured and melodic (I’ve done a fair amount in the past, but I’m trying even harder now), so take my love of the machine with that in mind. However, I still tend to approach it in a fairly similar manner to what I’ve done over the past few years.
Also note, however, that it’s a drum machine. Quantizing to beats and playing percussive sounds is its primary purpose. It has a decent sampling workflow, and people doing more experimental things with it is what lead Elektron to develop the Octatrack, which obviously builds and builds and builds on what the MDUW can do.
So yes - first, you have to really ask yourself if you want a drum machine at all, because the MDUW workflow is heavily optimized around that.
But you can push any groovebox / drum machine to its limits. Part of the fun of being an experimental musician is using gear in unexpected or unintended ways. My friend Arvo Zylo makes some wonderful noisy work by pushing the Yamaha RM1X box to its limits.
In fact, listening to Arvo’s work earlier this year got me thinking about grooveboxes again. I hated some of my prior experiences with them, so I decided to look at the Machinedrum as being the “next level up” boxes that were close in spirit and design to some of the late 90’s grooveboxes, but with a lot more freedom (less lock in / presets geared towards the styles of the day).
Some things you can do on the more experimental with the MDUW:
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[li]Learn resampling to do live mangling of your patterns as you’re playing them.[/li]
[li]Learn parameter locks and the CTRL tracks.[/li]
[li]Push some of the synth-focused bass drums way down with long decays and some slight LFOs to get some low rumbly drones.[/li]
[li]Add in some SIN machines and short decay kick drums with a MUTE POS set to mute that low rumbly bass track to do some Alva Noto / Ryoji Ikeda / click and cut style beats.[/li]
[li]Look into using the swing and accent tracks in interesting ways.[/li]
[li]Add a cheap external piece of gear like a Volca or Pocket Operator that can take a ‘sync in’ signal. Use the GND-Impulse machine on a dedicated out to trigger that machine. Route it back in to one of the Machinedrum’s INPut machines (I’m doing this with the Mute Synth II and it’s awesome).[/li]
[li]Find a good cheap midi-able synth (maybe, again, a Volca) and use a MIDI track to control it. Use parameter locks to unlock sounds you can’t easily do directly on that machine. Resample that back into the MD.[/li]
[li]Or hell, just find some interesting samples of your own or from around the web and cut them up funny and load up a sampleback full of weird sounds. I know people who do this with noise gear that can be too loud and unpredictable on stage so that they still have sounds that few other people have, but don’t have to worry about that gear going too wild.[/li]
[li]The multiple inputs and outputs can be used to create unique setups, including using external delays and effects only on select tracks.[/li]
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