Spectralis 2

It's a not-so secret weapon. Super powerful, but more complicated than an MPC or KORG Groovebox. It's a Virtual Analogue engine with analogue filters. Sounds amazing. It's very hard to make a bad sound with it.

Along with the single VA engine, there's DSP powered parts that use samples...
Step sequencer that features pills instead of pads or buttons.
It's heavy, sturdy and truly built to last.

The minor niggles are the 'forever unfinished OS'. I think the Spectralis will remain a work in progress. It's a small company so the updates take their time in coming and some basic functions are unfinished -like over-dub. The unit is designed to be the whole deal and the spec doesn't play well with others. You can't trigger multiple parts (snare, kick, hat) at the same time for live recording. And the Speccie can't run itself and trigger external modules (drum machines or samples in a DAW).

It has an internal 8 (I think) gig flash drive, but there's a limitation to the number of samples/files it can hold. We're waiting for an update to address this.

I picked one up because every demo on youtube that featured the speccie sounded phenomenal. Even if the song was corny, the sounds IN THE SONG were all great- so I knew that if I snagged one, I'd be straight.

I would say, since it's a sampler or holds samples, it's great with drums and it's got some really advanced groove functions rooted in Sequencer Lines. It excels at Bass and Leads...

It's got a one-button function that can create random songs/drum patterns and sounds. USB easy drag and drop....

No Soft Editor (one would be great) what else...?
Highly recommended....

I wouldn't try to work with the Speccie like any other piece- as in 'trying to chop samples like an MPC user would'

It's a groove box that's meant to do the entire song and mix it live during your show.

The closest competitor I would say is the Elektron boxes, but they (IMHO) don't sound anywhere near as good.
 
Griffin Avid said:
The closest competitor I would say is the Elektron boxes, but they (IMHO) don't sound anywhere near as good.
Click to expand...

Thanks for write-up. I messed around with a machinedrum uw and I enjoyed it. It could do interesting things to samples, and as far as the sound goes, yea it sounds pretty "cold", but you could get some nastiness out of it, and then process the signals with outboard analogue gear.

I talked to jorgen and he said that the spectralis could sample from the inputs and trim loops etc, have you ever tried this, and could you lay out a loop on the step sequencer and change start points just like the elektrons parameter locks?
 
have you ever tried this, and could you lay out a loop on the step sequencer and change start points just like the elektrons parameter locks?

No. I don't use the Spectralis internal sequencer at all. I did when I first got it, but mostly I used a MIDI controller to trigger the hits and went hybrid Step and Real Time recording. Once the over-dub wasn't fully implemented and I couldn't trigger external gear, I wasn't really interested in going further.

The spectralis does change loop points using sequencer lines, but I'm not too keen on HOW it does it. I've read the chapter and tinkered and gotten the sequences and ARPs to flip, but that's it.

The parameter locks are a little different- it's more like saving the entire box's settings for each step and as the sequencer plays the sounds are manipulated. It's really powerful for unique change-ups as the track is running.

I consider (again IMHO) the Spectralis more for mixing your song live with some spice and the Elektrons more for show. It's impressive for what it can do, but I don't really find the results musical. The KORG electribe ES-1 (the little green sampler) did a lot of those stuttering effects years ago and nowadays everyone is running lap tops with Sugar Bytes Effectrix for live mayhem and mangling.

What they both have in common is the complexity and depth and continued rewards down the line for digging in the units and exploring. If you watch any of the youtube videos of either units, it's still a lot of button presses and knob turning to make it happen.

It's really down to whether or not you'd want a digital drum machine or a VA groovebox.

for my tastes (IMHO [another disclaimer]) I just wasn't hearing great sounds from ANY of the Elektron songs/demos/users recording. I have even been able to A/B the same musician's music from before and after having/using the Elektron and I always hear a drop in 'beef'.

The Elektron stuff has a lot of flips and dips and weird effects, but all of that makes the box impressive, but not the music coming from it. You could do all of that in your DAW with effect plugs. The Real Time part seems to be the big attraction, but I don't mix my songs live or do any show based on me turning knobs...

So I see the appeal, but it's just not for me. The new Octatrack....sampler....seems to be a real contender. At least you know it'll sound the way you want from the samples you dump inside of it. It will have a solid build and be deep.
 
I'm going to end up getting both down the line. What I like about both machines is that they're complex and not really made for hip hop, and the more creative you are, the better the results. But I do have to agree with the sound of the machinedrum, but all that could be fixed with some outboard gear, it no different then an mpc. What I like about the machinedrum is that you could make acoustic kits through the efm synthesis, I was pretty impressed even tweaking the stock sounds.

The octatrack does look promising, and I still don't know details of what it could fully do yet, but from what I see so far, its nothing you can't accomplish in ableton. I just emailed elektron and they told me the octatrack would be a little cheaper then the machinedrum so thats a plus. The specs of the octatrack is 16bit 44.1kHz and machinedrum is 12bit 48kHz.

What else could you tell me about the spectralis, I wish there was a place to demo it, but I'm in ny.
 
Where in New York? I'm out on the Island. Radikal has an office Jersey so if you ask nicely you might be able to head over and demo a unit.

That would be a sick combination if you were to sync the two of them up. I know a few people on the Spectralis forum use both. You might want to ask them about using the Spec and MD together.

What else can I say? I like the Speccie for the solid foundation and the Elektron stuff for the icing on top. That's how I imagine them together. A real solid groove that rocks (VA Speccie) and lots of digital mayhem on top from either the synthetic drum machine or their straight synth module. Fun times for sure.

Well....in comparison (again my humble opinion) I went to NAMM and recorded samples/sounds from just about every piece of gear there. When I got home and was dumping the sounds out, I was able to easily A/B all the different gear straight from their outputs. Several units stuck out in my mind and most of them are known for their quality anyway. The Moog Voyager and Old School sounded great. Studio electronics has great samples and...oh damn...a modular company that escapes me right now.(they had the circular synth/sequencer [I should know this])...other than that a lot of the other stuff sounded different but on the same level as far as sound goes.

The Speccie has a sound that is worthy in its raw state. Matter of fact, Joerg sent me some MP3s of unmixed demos he was working on for the Spectralis 2 and even they sounded great.

I have an Andromeda A6, Moog Voyager and the DSI TETR4. While those are rather different pieces- I am strictly comparing voice for voice and I must say the Spectralis gets the job done. Now another downside is the single Delay DSP effect(no S on purpose) section on the spectralis. It's used to make any kind of effect based on...delay...like reverb and flange. That's good enough for most, but just know you're not going to find time-trip or extreme warping stuff.-- although I keep reading that more effects are on they way.

At this point I pretty much think you're going to get both.
I've been looking at the Elektrons for a while too and I'll be watching the Octatrack to see how it develops. I wanted to go over-the-top and get the Linndrum II, but at this point I might go simple and get another electribe.
 
I'm on the island also, near the border of queens. I'm gonna give the jersey office a call or shoot them an email to see if I could demo a unit.

I got an mv-8000, and an emu ultra, so I'm good when it comes to sampling, I just need a few pieces of gear that's unique and would breath some life back into production/creating. I might end up getting the spectralis first since it's a rarer then the machinedrum, and within a few months get the machinedrum, and the kurz I always wanted. As far as production goes that'll most likely be all the gear I'd need, then I'd start working on my outboard chain. One of my bros got a sherman filterbank on the way which I can't wait to test and if I like it(which I'm sure I will) I'll get that also.

So I read the that were only two effects currently available which is the dual delays you mentioned, and I think compression but I am not sure. I would imagine a few more effects would make the spectralis even greater especially running them through the fixed-filterbank, or if they could somehow implement dsp blocks just for the effects, so we could create our own, set parameters, save them as presets and exchange them through the forum that'll also be pretty neat, but a lot of work I would imagine. I also read that some of the buttons and functions don't quite work yet, but that's to be expected in an o.s that's not complete.

Well I got a lot of reading to do on the forum and I'm also going to download the manual, thanks for everything. ;)
 
Griffin Avid said:
have you ever tried this, and could you lay out a loop on the step sequencer and change start points just like the elektrons parameter locks?

No. I don't use the Spectralis internal sequencer at all. I did when I first got it, but mostly I used a MIDI controller to trigger the hits and went hybrid Step and Real Time recording. Once the over-dub wasn't fully implemented and I couldn't trigger external gear, I wasn't really interested in going further.

The spectralis does change loop points using sequencer lines, but I'm not too keen on HOW it does it. I've read the chapter and tinkered and gotten the sequences and ARPs to flip, but that's it.

The parameter locks are a little different- it's more like saving the entire box's settings for each step and as the sequencer plays the sounds are manipulated. It's really powerful for unique change-ups as the track is running.

I consider (again IMHO) the Spectralis more for mixing your song live with some spice and the Elektrons more for show. It's impressive for what it can do, but I don't really find the results musical. The KORG electribe ES-1 (the little green sampler) did a lot of those stuttering effects years ago and nowadays everyone is running lap tops with Sugar Bytes Effectrix for live mayhem and mangling.

What they both have in common is the complexity and depth and continued rewards down the line for digging in the units and exploring. If you watch any of the youtube videos of either units, it's still a lot of button presses and knob turning to make it happen.

It's really down to whether or not you'd want a digital drum machine or a VA groovebox.

for my tastes (IMHO [another disclaimer]) I just wasn't hearing great sounds from ANY of the Elektron songs/demos/users recording. I have even been able to A/B the same musician's music from before and after having/using the Elektron and I always hear a drop in 'beef'.

The Elektron stuff has a lot of flips and dips and weird effects, but all of that makes the box impressive, but not the music coming from it. You could do all of that in your DAW with effect plugs. The Real Time part seems to be the big attraction, but I don't mix my songs live or do any show based on me turning knobs...

So I see the appeal, but it's just not for me. The new Octatrack....sampler....seems to be a real contender. At least you know it'll sound the way you want from the samples you dump inside of it. It will have a solid build and be deep.
Click to expand...

hi
you hit the nail head on
I had the Monomachine for a few days before I availed of the buy back
what disappointed me was the sound and the factory patterns
nothing really impressed me, without prejudice the monomachine stands nowhere near the speckie which I own
I was looking forward to the synths in the mono that was so well demonstrated on the vids, but in reality I found the sounds too hollow
unlike the fat analogue sprectralis.
 
being able to twist up and turn a sample into ur own sound, and evade sample tracing, is a key element that i look for in machines... the RS7000 does this, it is the reason why i still use it, and never bought the MPCs (i think now the 5000 can do it)... the Spec does it also... u combine that with even BETTER stock sounds, built in memory, and a keyboard... knobs for quick changes, filters and oscillators, and u have a machine that really doesnt need external gear to help it make a song... the keyboard setup (16 pads across, as opposed to a real keyboard setup on the RS) is the only reason i never bought it.. but both the Spec 1 and the 2 are hot!

da relic
 
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You should check out those soundbanks for the Synth 1,2 and 3 from ComplexSystems. They are free and highly recommended. They have a new one coming based on the Roland V-Synth so it's going to be nuts. There's also a free one based on modular waveforms on their forum, but I'm real good with the bleeps and bloops so I never installed it.

And for my own (commercial) plug, I did the Kraken package.
http://www.studioavx.com/kraken.asp

Oh and the RS7000 is a beast. That and the SP 606 are two hidden gems that get it all done on their own.
 
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grandmasterjo said:
hi
you hit the nail head on
I had the Monomachine for a few days before I availed of the buy back
what disappointed me was the sound and the factory patterns
nothing really impressed me, without prejudice the monomachine stands nowhere near the speckie which I own
I was looking forward to the synths in the mono that was so well demonstrated on the vids, but in reality I found the sounds too hollow
unlike the fat analogue sprectralis.
Click to expand...
Did you atleast give it a fair assessment? The monomachine is no analogue synth and definitely not a spectralis, but you could achieve incredible results and sounds that can stand on their own. Just saying because I used both the mono and the machinedrum, and at first they sound uninspiring or "cold", but after spending time with each machine, it changed my mind with what you could do with the onboard effects, and layering. Simply put, there's nothing wrong with the monomachine when it comes to big, deep, warm(in a digital sense) sounds, you could definitely achieve them. Only drawback is that it's not as immediate as an analogue machine, ..if you're trying to achieve that type of sound that is. What's uninspiring is all those vids on youtube which doesn't really show they're capabilities.

I'm saving up for a specki now, but a monomachine and machinedrum are definitely on my wish-list. But to each, his own, just my input.
 
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For the digital side of electronic music, I think they can't be beat. The wonderful twists and turns are great. I always read how their users are still finding out capabilities years later. For me though, I just don't want to spend that much time working a piece of gear. I've watched tons of videos and even been on their home site and checked all the demo songs. Not one had an inspiring moment or even a tone where I went 'oh man, I want that'.

Years ago, Scott Bernard had a bunch of videos using the first generation of KORG electribes. Seeing him do all that stuttering and reverse-bending and audio mayhem using those boxes had me run out and buy them all. Even with poor youtube quality, something that sounds cool, still sounds cool.

I know.
beating_a_dead_horse.jpg


I still have hope still for some kind of Linn Drum product.
For now, the KORG EMX is in my target sights. I miss having a simple step sequencer around. And I'm hoping it'll do double duty as a sound design tool and lastly, I miss my little EA-1.
 
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