Elektron Syntakt

A 12-voice drum synthesizer.

Elektron's LFO timings are at once opaque and yet strangely intuitive. LFO rates are specified in terms of two parameters: a speed and a multiplier. These quantities are related by the following formula¹⁾: $\frac{128}{T_{steps}/16}=speed\cdot mult$

For example, to create an LFO with a period of 8 steps, set $T_{steps}=8$ to yield $speed\cdot mult=256$ . We arbitrarily choose $mult=16$ , so $speed=16$ . This works just as well for odd periods; taking $T_{steps}=5$ , we have $speed\cdot mult=409.6$ . With $mult=8$ , $speed=51.2$ . Negative speed values seem to simply invert the waveform.

Table 1: LFO period in 16-step bars derived from the speed and multiplier parameters

	Mult	1	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512	1k	2k
SPD	1	128	64	32	16	8	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16
	2	64	32	16	8	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32
	4	32	16	8	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/64
	8	16	8	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/64	1/128
	16	8	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/64	1/128	1/256
	32	4	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/64	1/128	1/256	1/512
	64	2	1	1/2	1/4	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/64	1/128	1/256	1/512	1/1024

Load the SysEx file into Elektron Transfer, and connect the Syntakt to the computer via USB. On the Syntakt, navigate to Settings → System → OS Update. Press Send in Elektron Transfer. Once the update is complete, the Syntakt will ask to be rebooted.

Mine currently has version 1.21 installed.

needswork

¹⁾

Adapted from this Reddit post, which includes an in-depth explanation. The short version is that an LFO's period is split into 128 discrete intervals, and the speed parameter determines the number of intervals per bar. We are not yet sure whether sequence scaling affects these calculations.

Elektron Syntakt

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