Electribe Help!

Posted on Dec 10, 2007 12:15 am
Brandon Frisby
Member Since: Dec 10, 2007

I have an Electribe ES-1 MKII, the 2nd generation of the electribe family.

I want to achieve the same kind of results as the group Enter Shikari does with their synthline.

He has a MicroKorg running into his ES-1 (this was back in 2004, mind), and while synth is playing (controlled by his ES-1), he is running around on stage, only returning to the ES-1 when changing the pattern (E.G. Verse to Chorus)

I have tried to do this by the following methods and failed for the following reasons:

1. I've tried sampling in a part (E.G. A chorus to a song) and using time slice, sliced the part. My only issue is after every step, there's a very noticeable chop sound, making very legato parts sound irritatingly choppy. Also, there's the issue of imperfect tempo. I'll be using this live, and I don't want my drummer to have to adjust the whole band to the electribe trying to process my .4 BPM too slow or fast keyboard playing. I do have the MIDI clock controlling the MicroKorg, but that only applies to the arpeggiator, which I do not need in many cases.

2. I've had better success (although still not what I want) by assigning the pitch of the note I want to play to a part, then arranging the parts (which now signal my MicroKorg to play that pitch) in the order and timing I want. This way, I can easily change the tempo and the parts will retain the same pitch and the same flexibility. The issue here is that it sends very short signals, and I need to figure out how to hold out note durations (so a note can hold while other notes play over it, without it sounding choppy). It's sending extremely staccato signals, making smooth sounding trance sequences sound terrible.

If anyone knows the best way to record song parts into the ES-1, allowing me to change tempo without the sound or length of the part being changed, please tell me. I'd very much appreciate it.

- Brandon

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