Tim’s videos are a safe harbor in a turbulent sea of synth reviews. No gimmicks, zero BS. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $2000 synth or a $50 euro rack module from Behringer. It’s all presented In an honest, non-abrasive, and methodical way. Hats off to you Mr Shoebridge
Dropped in to say how much I’ve enjoyed your gear reviews, always a different and more honest approach than the typical “SHOCKED home alone face“ clickbaity synthfluencer reviews out there. It is very much appreciated that you put in the time to make these videos for us.
Great video showcasing the "other" side of the Perkons, 99+% of HD-01 vids/YT channels are locked in to hardcore techno jamming with this product. I have only seen 1 add'l channel exploiting the more synth-like approach with the Perkons. Thanks for sharing Tim, and, Happy Holidays!
I realy love Tim’s videos. Always insightful, beautifully shot , calming color grading and edited in a pace that gives sound, voice and thought time to be taken in. Loopop is great for all the technical details, but to get a sense for the instruments and the sure pleasure of watching and listening, Tim’s is my favorit synthesizer YT channel.
I think the strength of the 16 step sequencer is apparent when looking at it as a whole , especially where you are able to see the grid right in front. this approach would to me seem to indicate that this is a performance drum machine. I believe they are encouraging folks to practice creating permutations on the fly. This is a method the average improvisationalist might like, since you eliminate the load of paging over to the next 16,32 , 48 steps etc. as for its sound it sounds like an er1 or a volca drum. One thing I think is a massive pro on the Perkons is the size. I think we are a bit tired of pocket sized synth and gear and tiny knobs , it seems with the perkons you can really develop a players relationship with it based on its dimensions and UX / haptics. In my opinion the perkons is a mixed bag, I look forward to other companies implementing its workflow ideas , maybe in an analog style.
Is there not a way to set each channel of the sequencer to different lengths so you get all kinds of polyrhythms? I never noticed that during the video. I have a poly evolver and do that all the time and it’s great.
Very interesting reflexion of the Pekrons HD-01, you made me reconsider the instrument because I initially dismissied it. A bit like you, drums are not the core of my music and so far I opted for the Vermona DRM1 for two main reasons: the ability it gives me to tweak all the sounds with great flexibility and the Trigger inputs that allows me to integrate it in a modular environnement where it can be trigger in more flexible ways than with a traditional sequencer. Tx for this other inspiring video
The 16 steps is clearly a design choice. You are supposed to play it, it’s all there in front of you. Also, with probability, even/odds etc. you can make these patterns feel so much longer without touching a single thing. A single voice with every step triggering at 10% is a lot of extended detail, for example. Then randomise the mod lfo over a few parameters and you will soon get many different tones over many bars. Then touch the dials!
Nice to see you use it in the same way as I use it, as 4 monosynths. That specific sound on the 3 voice is great, and you should really get the Steampipe for more of those kind of sounds.
Great video as always Tim. Agree completely that this is an inspiring bit of kit. I also am finding the Teenage Engineering OP-xy to be very inspiring right now. Never gelled with the OP-1/F but the xy goes so deep and is so portable plus great sounds, synth engines, modulation capabilities and connectivity to my other synths. The Dreadbox Murmux, which you previously did a video on, is also top of my current list of gear that inspires me the most, along with the Soma Terra and Haken Continuum. I’m looking forward to diving into the Sonicware ELZ_1 Play that just arrived and hopefully I’ll be able to grab one of the Orchid synths on release from Telepathic Instruments later this week when they launch.
I checked your channel first, but it was all business videos... Does the Continuum play the Murmux well? Any difficulties or quirks with that hookup? (If you see this, and have tried that combo. But since you have both synths, I've assumed you've tried them together. Have you tried scaling the Continuum's "x" to get the analog delay/comb filter to match the pitch of the note?)
@ Haha, that business stuff on that channel pays the synth bills! I haven’t had a chance to play the Murmux from the Continuum yet. I’m in the middle of reworking my studio right now, but happy to try that out and get you an answer once I get everything set up together again.
Orchid internal engine sounds pretty m’eh imho, based on latest vid; which they acknowledge by noting that Kev 😉 is working on some new sounds for it … Seemed quite a let-down, after the (very processed, it seems) uber-retro-hype launch vid, imho … Watching him play that single octave made me feel claustrophobic! (Sufficient for its purpose, but still …) You’d have to really like the unique(?) Multi-Button UI of its ‘chord pack’ function … Little screen, menu diving … Not bad/totally fair, given its size, tho’ I’m probably not the target market(?!), tho’ … We’ll see how it ends up … !
@@kierenmoore3236agree completely on the sounds and the single octave prison. What will be interesting to me will be does it spur new creative ideas. I see it as a sketchpad and idea generator more than anything I would be using for finished sounds or production. I’ll take anything that assists in the creative process though and I’m willing to bet $549 and a demand exceeding supply for a quick resale to break even if it doesn’t deliver. 😊
Great review thanks. I had never seen you play with a drum machine before so I figured this was gonna be very interesting and it was. I also don’t have any drum machines, I usually rely on LFOs, sample/holds and delays to set a kind of rhythm in my music. This looks real interesting, and I happen to have a spare mixer!
Thank you for your review of the Perkons. I love mine. Menu diving kills my soul so the immediacy and playability of my Perkons are a sheer joy despite its limitations. I use it with my lxr-02 and it’s a lot of fun. Two Perkons would be perfect but I’d have to get a bigger desk.
They've been very clever with their omissions of features. The limitations are beautiful to me. The FX sound fantastic. Its boring as hell to me to have everything pre-routed. It sounds fantastic. Get into the automation, and you're really getting somewhere. Thanks for the review, Tim!
Great Video. Nice to see you got one. I hope you enjoy it as much as i do. FYI you are not limited to 16 steps as you can quickly copy your pattern and then use Pattern chaining :)
Ah! Well the studio is only temporary. I guess I could but I never really thought anyone would be interested in what I have. Hardly any prized vintage gems unfortunately.
Yeah, it sounds good and seems fun and inspiring to work with. Also a great fysical design. I can definitely see the value, even if I personally don't gonna get it this year. 😅
I’m also surprised you picked up the Perkons! I love mine, while not used all the time, I appreciate the immediacy of the controls. It’s fun and never heard it as beautiful as the way you have played it. Care to weigh in the the new Erika steam pipe?
Drum machines should have Attack phases, particularly if it's intended to be a groovebox/drum machine. You probably won't need an Attack phase for your kick drum, but all the little brushes, and "washing board" and whistle sounds - those only benefit from additional weirdness that could be imparted to the sound via the attack phase. Now with how you are controlling each drum track, - I do something similar, only when it comes to my Acid House tracks - instead of volume controlling each track - the tracks are controlled through individual filters. It's at that point when the Attack phase can be most beneficial, altering the shapes of sounds as the track progresses. I don't use traditional hardware drum machines either BTW. Most are too limited in their capabilities and I long ran out of space.
Well I never!! I wasn’t aware you could tune a voice. On the one hand it’s like a nice early Xmas present. On the other hand I’m now looking at A&H Z14’s. Thanks for that mate! 🤣 Top vid as always! 🥳
*I just read through this a fixed some errors, I am super sick and did voice dictation, so excuse the errors that I missed* Hey Tim, great video like usual. I’ve had one since it came out and I’m not sure if you know about a lot of it features. There are features that are not even in the manual. For instance, holding down shift and any knob will do a Global adjustment on that knob. holding down any button in the sequence or will record whatever you change when turning the knobs in that channel. The clock division feature can give you a kind of fau 64 track sequencer. And when the record button is locked on every movement anywhere is recorded. There are some frustrating things for me is that it’s very difficult to get drum sounds that I like. But I have other drum machine machines to do that so I just try to make interesting things. The sweet spots are so tiny that you have to really fine tune any sound. But with the global record and step record for each Sound on every step combined with the probability and role feature, that is random, you can get this thing to sound like it does have 64 steps. I think they knew that when they put it out like this and is why they made it like this. I’m not completely in love with the sounds that they put in and I am hoping that they do a firmware update that gives it more variation, but it’s still great. Also, I find it a lot of work to fit in a mix. But I route mine directly into the DAW with Focusrite AD converters. With that and the four outputs it’s unlimited in the stereo effects inside of logic for instance. One thing I wish they would address is Getting the volume knobs for each channel to work in individual output mode. It’s kind of weird that you cannot adjust the volume when you’re mixing out through the four outputs I hope they read this and fix that. I’ve actually sent a video to them for the next version of The perkons. And just yesterday I realized that I’m going to send them a message. telling them that they need to put a shift button also on the right side of the machine and make it possible to switch kit sounds and sequences at the same time instead of having to do one then jump to the other or maybe they can do a firmware. but if they fix the lack of volume control for the four outfits, then you would get your attack. But you get the attack now if you just do mono out, and all of the effects the volume gain everything is then recordable so you can get those attack if you like. The best thing to do with this thing is to do like all the things that I had laid out here in my long rant and it really makes this thing unbelievably deep, especially how each step could be a completely different sound than the next one . I hope you don’t mind my long rant on this.
I just saw something to do with that Shift Global Adjustment function referred to as a bug, in a other video … something to do with un-muting right afterwards, and getting a Global Adjustment when not intended … ?! 🙃. Not cool in the middle of a Live jam, if so … !
First I thought, this machine has these limitations to get you to proper results real quick, so everybody - even a novice - could enjoy it. But then, a total beginner would actually start with a Behringer Edge or 4 of them and have a blast. I, myself, started to make a setting on Surge XT after watching several Erica videos here and man: I really don't know why to buy it. I get wayyyy more interesting sounds out of Surge, PhasePlant, Pigments, Serum and Co... There's not a single reason for me to throw my money away for Erica Synths like Percons, Techno Machine, Black something and so on. AND - I love to be able to take my stuff with me if there is a need.
Hello Tim. Thank you for a great channel. What are your thoughts on the Erica Black Sequencer. Have you tried it? If not why not? It can be had for around £300 s/h. Some of the reviews are quite old now and updated firmware has added quite a lot.
I'm with you on this one. It's fun. I pair it with fx pedals and the Zoom Livetrak 12 mixer, which I got cheaply, used. I haven't posted anything with it yet, though.
Great gear! No compromission in this review. Hope see you more in 2025! Best wishes! Cheers (I use a simple looper and electro harmonix "space drum") (later i got the IK UNO drum, which has goodness to offer)
IMO where the Perkons shines is using another more traditional drum machine sequence with it keeping the “normal” beat. The Perkons plays under it with interesting additions to the beat and maybe one track playing a melodic line. I actually use “real” drum samples for the regular beat that were recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical. Doing this together creates beats you aren’t going to hear from other people so easily. It makes things very interesting sounding. I can’t see being able to do this so quickly with other setups.
Despite your lack of interest in beats, you program some nice beats on the Perkons. Wondering if the step limitation is a blessing in disguse. 64 can be unwieldy sometimes.
What an interesting review.. I FEEL like you’re trying to go down rabbit holes with it that are a little outside the intentionality of the design? AND.. I guess I feel like your approach to electronic music, maybe might be, sorta more composer-e then how many electronic instruments are really designed.. which is something I share with you. FOR ME the Perkons is… sorta about improvising.. with a drum machine, that as a paint brush, is a little broader then a drum machine.. I mean I don’t own one, I kinda want one, and that’s just the idea in my head about it. I use a lot of stuff for drum machines.. not always in the traditional way.. the top ones, right now.. probably, would be the Tempest, Rytm, and DFAM.. but also a an OP-Z and Dirtywave M8.. and an MPC Live… right now I’m on the fence for pulling a trigger on an Octotrack, digitak 2, or.. I think I’m really going to get a DSI Pro 2.. But.. I don’t know.. I’m looking for performative approaches.. where stuff evolves over time.. that with creative mixing, sorta creative modular madness and signal process.. and a sorta curation to collage approach.. I’ve some how fallen into an obsession with music concrete… I’ll get somewhere? (I feel somehow stuck in a kinda early 70’s avant garde approach to electronic music that I’m trying to bend into something a little more accessible that maybe lands like a kind of “progressive” music style. But.. yeah.. I really wanted the Perkons to be a bit more stereo.. and… I mean I do love how laterally you’re trying to use it?
I as usual enjoyed your video, an interesting slant on an unusual piece of kit. But may I ask what effects pedals you were using as I am not able to see them all. Also have you had a chance to explore an ASM Hydrasynth as of yet? I would be interested to see your take on one.
I've been trying many different effects, delays, chorus, rotary, phasers, compressors, stereo doublers and of course reverb. I own the Hydrasynth Explorer and desktop and love them both 👍
This very much felt like someone who doesn’t enjoy drum machines and wants to be controlled with their creative style, reviewing a monstrous drum machine that comes alive when all of those knobs per feature are freely used and interacted with as a live instrument. The whole point of the Perkons has been missed.
I use the Alpha Base with is much more capable in creating rhythmic patterns. But it is also a little old school from its data & sample management. The Perkons HD-01 is nice built, but too limited, as you said for the high price. I do not understand Erica Synth why they do such limitations on a premium product.
Same reason the “BBD” delay is digital, and only one on the Main Out … To maintain Margin, without increasing the Price even higher?! Lots of knobs and buttons to pay for there, mind … which is why I don’t think it makes sense to use Perkons like this … You gotta be twisting on its titties, like a North Korean soldier let-loose abroad, to get the real value/point of it, imho 🤷🏻♂️
Hi Tim, I'm glad to see you have an A&H Zed 14. What do you think? Is it a good choice for mixing, perhaps also for EQing and synth routing? Is it transparent enough to not mess with the original signals? How does it compare to the SSL SiX?
Like you I’m not a Drum person. I have the Elektron Digi- tack/tone Mk#1 pair which between them provide all I need as far as drum sounds go. PK HD Sounds good. It appears to be a good partner for the Syntrx 2 design wise I wonder if they play well together?
The perkons needs thinking so the 16 steps are so much more by speeing up turining down tempo, dividing etc. Step programming. Once you understand the challenge, it s not so limited, it s challenging
I looked briefly at the Perkons and because of its price coupled with the “performance” slant and because of only 4 voices I stopped looking. I have an Analog RYTM and Roland TR8S currently of which the TR8S is marked as a “performance” drum machine has 8 contiguous measures using the same “kit” of about 10 sounds. The RYTM has fewer voices but a song mode. All that said the hands-on analog nature of the perkons is alluring but not so much to push me over the edge. I do hope you find the constraints productive.
I love just using drum machines as drone machines. TR-8S with one effect per isntrument and global delay/reverb is enough to turn it into a drone synth.
Couldn't agree more with the 16 steps being the biggest flaw. No idea why they went that route, my only thought is maybe to encourage more live/real-time variation by the user. Still though, it's a drag, especially since the knob recording is so fun and produces such crazy results in the box. I still use the step recorder as a sort of scratch pad for a rough idea but man, yeah, give me 64 steps. 128 steps. ALL THE STEPS
It's definitely niche but it's also a niche that's otherwise pretty empty I think. No matter what you do with it, it's made to be performed. If you actually do drums, the trick is to combine tracks together and then the limited sequencer isn't really an issue anymore. As for drone or noise, I think pretty capable because it's very well equipped in terms of IO. I personally keep a couple of voices for setting the ambiance or mood of my tracks and route the rest through analogue Eurorack. It's essentially allowed me to have several digital oscillators on hand if/when I need them along with a decently strong noise and possibly rhythmic section. It begs to be paired and routed through pedals and effects. And the onboard effects are far from terrible! As for the price, honestly, there are some decent deals to be had these days. I just wish they made a firmware for drums and an alternate firmware with more noise/drone/osc and modulation options.
actually you can chain patterns on this machine as stated on p.26 of the manual. unfortunately the description there is a little vague. You have to press and hold PATTERN, then while holding PATTERN you push the buttons where you saved your patterns one after the other. after that the machine switches your patterns in the order you pressed them before. DOWNSIDE: you can edit your patterns while playing, but as soon as the machine switches to the next pattern, it reloads the pattern from its last saved state so all unsaved edits get lost. every pattern also has a master pattern length, that is set to 16 steps by default but can be changed to min. 1 and max. 64 steps (p15 of the manual). i didn-t have time to play with this as i got my machine just some days ago. there-s a demonstration of pattern chaining here: th-cam.com/video/QpWk7HF5fZU/w-d-xo.html
16 steps ... I can't believe manufacturers are still putting out limits like that. I mean in 1983 the Roland JX-3P's sequencer had 128 steps and up to 6 voices (though programming it was a pain especially if you were doing polyphonic). At the very least they should have added a way to chain the 4 sequencer lanes to make it 64 steps. OTOH, it sounds amazing for the uses you show in the video. I've always been a huge fan of using non-drum sounds as the rhythmic element of a track. I mean, that's what made early Tangerine Dream's work so tasty. At least it was for me. I'm tempted by this machine. I really am. We'll see if my small studio can house so much real estate.
@ it's got 12 polyaftertouch performance pads that you can assign multiple parameters to modulate. My pro tip for you is that those pads are CC controllable from the DAW, giving you amazing ability to sequence motion. More often than not I end up actually sequencing the machine with MIDI and not the internal seq. It allows for a ton of flexibility.
@@TimShoebridge Mk1 is definitely much cheaper, so worth taking a look at. I went for MKII though and I'm very happy with it. I snagged it last year during a Thomann Black Friday sale, which amounted to like 1300 EUR new without VAT. A great deal. MKII is geared much more towards realtime performance. The encoder resolution is much higher on the MKII. Easier to dial in sweet spots IMO. I like the pads for finger drumming better on MKII. Their pressure sensitivity is really well calibrated for the performance controls I mentioned before. There's also a quick performance dial, which is available regardless of the mode of the instrument you're on at the moment. Very useful to keep some global cutoff or something. There's also a Fill key so it's easy to influence the sequence live, and a Fix key for turning off velocity sensitivity, which is useful if you're playing back longshot samples that you want to have precise volume. MKII has audio inputs for sampling external hardware. MK1 doesn't allow sampling on the device. That alone isn't that interesting, but MKII allows for easy internal resampling of sequences (which includes analog sounds), so you can further process them. This is very neat and produces good sound quality since you're not going through analog outs. But even if you did, on MKII the individual outputs are balanced, which I find useful, they sound really clean. To me AR MKII is the ultimate drum machine. I'm there with you that 16-step sequencers end up producing boring and repeatable music. On the AR, even if you ignore song mode, there's so much you can do with a 64-step sequence to make it change over time, that it does not sound boring. And the performance controls make it a true musical instrument. You can really play it.
@RPLKTR Thanks for that, really appreciate it. Yes the Mk1's are getting really cheap now but I'm worried about the screen on any Mk1 instrument, they have a very finite lifespan. Hoping Elektron made some better design choices with the Mk2's ...
The trick for this and I am talking for Ambient stuff, is to slow the BPM right down so your hits are sparse, but you have all the control in front of you to be able mangle and manipulate whilst tending to other things. I recently got rid of a Jomox AB which was too overwhelming for my needs, the kick is otherworldly. HD 01 though seems like something that I really could gell with, time will tell. Hope all is well and thanks for the upload.
Analog Rytm all the way. If at a high prize tag, then please analog. And the Elektron Sequencer gives you a lot of possibilities, easily venturing into polyrhythmic or generative territory.
That being said, great video as always. I also appreciate you are presenting a more versatile side of the Perkons sound. Although I did not quite get what the instrument actually gives you, as sounds are quite limited and surely not unique to this device.
This is nice. To my ears the Perkons sounds terrible as a drum machine. The video by Blush Response is exactly what im talking about. If pure over-distorted static and noice is your thing, then the Perkons is for you.
Perkons can go ways, both aggressive and subtle. Not a bread and butter machine but it has it's own distinct sound. Most of the videos feature Perkons as a industrial/techno drum machine but it can do so much more than that! It really is a machine where you could loose yourself playing with just that for hours and come up with all kinds of stuff. I also use it in combination with LXR02 where I keep LXR02 for the "bread and butter" stuff and use Perkons for more experimental stuff.
I agree with you about Blush Response and many other Perkons users. When I 1st started researching the Perkons, It seemed like it was only capable of loud, distorted, in your face, super aggressive drums. Video after video was the same. Hardly any variation. Then I found a video showing more range and versatility which got me more interested. I started finding more videos showing off what this box is really capable of. So I purchased one and can say based on my experience with it that it's capable of so much more than how Blush Response chooses to use it.
At some point when listening to your improvisations I was annoyed that it sounded so familiar, and then I realized it is just because your improv style is nearly identical to me own. So I was just not surprised by it. But it is actually really very much to my taste haha. It was a weird feeling because I don't think I've ever felt that feeling of hearing something so similar to my own sensibilities done by another musician. Great stuff. Good sounding machine, but I'm happy with my quirky gear that is 1/10 the price and gives me way more dynamics. The 16-step sequencer is absurd. Inexcusable.
I think the whole 'introducing limitations helps creativity' doesn't hold up in a lot of cases, but it does with this. Plus I think the amount of outputs they gave it, including individual send and returns on each voice is really a major selling point that people don't fully get behind in this digital age. But I love the devotion to utility.
Don’t take this the wrong way Tim, but I (and probably many others) kinda knew for years that drums weren’t really “your thing” judging by how you have used them… 😏
Let's hope for a future firmware update on the sequencer where you could extend it to 64 using a key combination as some key combinations are possible and currently not being used, or maybe the possibility of using an external controler for this, I would definitely be interested in the later e.g. a hardware expansion for Perkons.
Do you really think the Erica design team ran out of processing power so resigned thenselves to only 16 steps? Its an implemented idea and ethos of the machine - accept it and use it to your advantage!
Very insightful video Tim, as always! However, I have never really found a reason why I should buy an external sequencer (or drum machine). I have four synths with built-in sequencers, and they are all more than capable of doing what I need (especially the two from the Poly- and Matrixbrute), but also offer so much more for the money!
I use the same sequencer for a lot of different things and I think it often comes down to behaviors and preferences. A person may not necessarily gel with one sequencing style as opposed to another
Tim’s videos are a safe harbor in a turbulent sea of synth reviews. No gimmicks, zero BS. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $2000 synth or a $50 euro rack module from Behringer. It’s all presented In an honest, non-abrasive, and methodical way. Hats off to you Mr Shoebridge
Dropped in to say how much I’ve enjoyed your gear reviews, always a different and more honest approach than the typical “SHOCKED home alone face“ clickbaity synthfluencer reviews out there. It is very much appreciated that you put in the time to make these videos for us.
🫨
Intelligence is appreciated. Yes.
😱
Great video showcasing the "other" side of the Perkons, 99+% of HD-01 vids/YT channels are locked in to hardcore techno jamming with this product. I have only seen 1 add'l channel exploiting the more synth-like approach with the Perkons. Thanks for sharing Tim, and, Happy Holidays!
❤ I loved the honesty and humility of this man ❤
Amazing demo! Never heard these kind of sounds coming out of the Perkons before and I watched most of the existing demos!
I realy love Tim’s videos. Always insightful, beautifully shot , calming color grading and edited in a pace that gives sound, voice and thought time to be taken in. Loopop is great for all the technical details, but to get a sense for the instruments and the sure pleasure of watching and listening, Tim’s is my favorit synthesizer YT channel.
Tiiiiiiim...there you are....welcome back.
wow welcome back with hardware stuff
Your reviews are always honest and insightful. I’m also very partial to music of your style, so it’s makes for a pleasant experience.
I think the strength of the 16 step sequencer is apparent when looking at it as a whole , especially where you are able to see the grid right in front. this approach would to me seem to indicate that this is a performance drum machine. I believe they are encouraging folks to practice creating permutations on the fly. This is a method the average improvisationalist might like, since you eliminate the load of paging over to the next 16,32 , 48 steps etc. as for its sound it sounds like an er1 or a volca drum. One thing I think is a massive pro on the Perkons is the size. I think we are a bit tired of pocket sized synth and gear and tiny knobs , it seems with the perkons you can really develop a players relationship with it based on its dimensions and UX / haptics. In my opinion the perkons is a mixed bag, I look forward to other companies implementing its workflow ideas , maybe in an analog style.
Is there not a way to set each channel of the sequencer to different lengths so you get all kinds of polyrhythms? I never noticed that during the video. I have a poly evolver and do that all the time and it’s great.
Seeing your new video made my day. It’s charming, and cool looking. Thanks Tim.
Came here to watch and hit Like right away, hehe! Thanks, Tim, for all your inspiring videos (and for always triggering that sweet, sweet GAS). 😅🎶
Very interesting reflexion of the Pekrons HD-01, you made me reconsider the instrument because I initially dismissied it. A bit like you, drums are not the core of my music and so far I opted for the Vermona DRM1 for two main reasons: the ability it gives me to tweak all the sounds with great flexibility and the Trigger inputs that allows me to integrate it in a modular environnement where it can be trigger in more flexible ways than with a traditional sequencer. Tx for this other inspiring video
Wow really inspiring explorations, not too much tech but music galore. You can play bro🙏🏾❣️
I would say, Tim, you are the sort of person who deserves a Perkons. 🙌👍
The 16 steps is clearly a design choice. You are supposed to play it, it’s all there in front of you. Also, with probability, even/odds etc. you can make these patterns feel so much longer without touching a single thing. A single voice with every step triggering at 10% is a lot of extended detail, for example. Then randomise the mod lfo over a few parameters and you will soon get many different tones over many bars.
Then touch the dials!
12:17 That Boss RT-20 Rotary gives me Star Trek vibes with its Light effects. Great video as always.
Digital BeDazzler! 🌈
oh tim!! so enjoy this vid!! havent seen such an amazing introduction for a while
Love your videos and your approach to this beast
Nice to see you use it in the same way as I use it, as 4 monosynths. That specific sound on the 3 voice is great, and you should really get the Steampipe for more of those kind of sounds.
@@Owid1 I was thinking the same thing. And Steampipe has stereo out…
You can do pattern chaining, as well as make creative use of odds, ratchets and track timing mult/divs to get past some of the limitations of 16 steps
Great video as always Tim. Agree completely that this is an inspiring bit of kit. I also am finding the Teenage Engineering OP-xy to be very inspiring right now. Never gelled with the OP-1/F but the xy goes so deep and is so portable plus great sounds, synth engines, modulation capabilities and connectivity to my other synths. The Dreadbox Murmux, which you previously did a video on, is also top of my current list of gear that inspires me the most, along with the Soma Terra and Haken Continuum. I’m looking forward to diving into the Sonicware ELZ_1 Play that just arrived and hopefully I’ll be able to grab one of the Orchid synths on release from Telepathic Instruments later this week when they launch.
I checked your channel first, but it was all business videos... Does the Continuum play the Murmux well? Any difficulties or quirks with that hookup? (If you see this, and have tried that combo. But since you have both synths, I've assumed you've tried them together. Have you tried scaling the Continuum's "x" to get the analog delay/comb filter to match the pitch of the note?)
I meant the Murmux's analog delay time, controlled via MIDI from the Continuum.
@ Haha, that business stuff on that channel pays the synth bills! I haven’t had a chance to play the Murmux from the Continuum yet. I’m in the middle of reworking my studio right now, but happy to try that out and get you an answer once I get everything set up together again.
Orchid internal engine sounds pretty m’eh imho, based on latest vid; which they acknowledge by noting that Kev 😉 is working on some new sounds for it …
Seemed quite a let-down, after the (very processed, it seems) uber-retro-hype launch vid, imho …
Watching him play that single octave made me feel claustrophobic! (Sufficient for its purpose, but still …)
You’d have to really like the unique(?) Multi-Button UI of its ‘chord pack’ function …
Little screen, menu diving … Not bad/totally fair, given its size, tho’
I’m probably not the target market(?!), tho’ … We’ll see how it ends up … !
@@kierenmoore3236agree completely on the sounds and the single octave prison.
What will be interesting to me will be does it spur new creative ideas. I see it as a sketchpad and idea generator more than anything I would be using for finished sounds or production.
I’ll take anything that assists in the creative process though and I’m willing to bet $549 and a demand exceeding supply for a quick resale to break even if it doesn’t deliver. 😊
Great review thanks. I had never seen you play with a drum machine before so I figured this was gonna be very interesting and it was. I also don’t have any drum machines, I usually rely on LFOs, sample/holds and delays to set a kind of rhythm in my music. This looks real interesting, and I happen to have a spare mixer!
Thank you for your review of the Perkons. I love mine. Menu diving kills my soul so the immediacy and playability of my Perkons are a sheer joy despite its limitations. I use it with my lxr-02 and it’s a lot of fun. Two Perkons would be perfect but I’d have to get a bigger desk.
They've been very clever with their omissions of features. The limitations are beautiful to me. The FX sound fantastic. Its boring as hell to me to have everything pre-routed. It sounds fantastic. Get into the automation, and you're really getting somewhere. Thanks for the review, Tim!
Great Video. Nice to see you got one. I hope you enjoy it as much as i do. FYI you are not limited to 16 steps as you can quickly copy your pattern and then use Pattern chaining :)
When are you going to do a studio tour?
Ah! Well the studio is only temporary. I guess I could but I never really thought anyone would be interested in what I have. Hardly any prized vintage gems unfortunately.
@ It’s an amazing studio.
Yeah, it sounds good and seems fun and inspiring to work with.
Also a great fysical design.
I can definitely see the value, even if I personally don't gonna get it this year. 😅
I’m also surprised you picked up the Perkons! I love mine, while not used all the time, I appreciate the immediacy of the controls. It’s fun and never heard it as beautiful as the way you have played it. Care to weigh in the the new Erika steam pipe?
Drum machines should have Attack phases, particularly if it's intended to be a groovebox/drum machine. You probably won't need an Attack phase for your kick drum, but all the little brushes, and "washing board" and whistle sounds - those only benefit from additional weirdness that could be imparted to the sound via the attack phase. Now with how you are controlling each drum track, - I do something similar, only when it comes to my Acid House tracks - instead of volume controlling each track - the tracks are controlled through individual filters. It's at that point when the Attack phase can be most beneficial, altering the shapes of sounds as the track progresses. I don't use traditional hardware drum machines either BTW. Most are too limited in their capabilities and I long ran out of space.
Well I never!! I wasn’t aware you could tune a voice. On the one hand it’s like a nice early Xmas present. On the other hand I’m now looking at A&H Z14’s. Thanks for that mate! 🤣
Top vid as always! 🥳
*I just read through this a fixed some errors, I am super sick and did voice dictation, so excuse the errors that I missed* Hey Tim, great video like usual. I’ve had one since it came out and I’m not sure if you know about a lot of it features. There are features that are not even in the manual. For instance, holding down shift and any knob will do a Global adjustment on that knob. holding down any button in the sequence or will record whatever you change when turning the knobs in that channel. The clock division feature can give you a kind of fau 64 track sequencer. And when the record button is locked on every movement anywhere is recorded. There are some frustrating things for me is that it’s very difficult to get drum sounds that I like. But I have other drum machine machines to do that so I just try to make interesting things. The sweet spots are so tiny that you have to really fine tune any sound. But with the global record and step record for each Sound on every step combined with the probability and role feature, that is random, you can get this thing to sound like it does have 64 steps. I think they knew that when they put it out like this and is why they made it like this. I’m not completely in love with the sounds that they put in and I am hoping that they do a firmware update that gives it more variation, but it’s still great. Also, I find it a lot of work to fit in a mix. But I route mine directly into the DAW with Focusrite AD converters. With that and the four outputs it’s unlimited in the stereo effects inside of logic for instance. One thing I wish they would address is Getting the volume knobs for each channel to work in individual output mode. It’s kind of weird that you cannot adjust the volume when you’re mixing out through the four outputs I hope they read this and fix that. I’ve actually sent a video to them for the next version of The perkons. And just yesterday I realized that I’m going to send them a message. telling them that they need to put a shift button also on the right side of the machine and make it possible to switch kit sounds and sequences at the same time instead of having to do one then jump to the other or maybe they can do a firmware. but if they fix the lack of volume control for the four outfits, then you would get your attack. But you get the attack now if you just do mono out, and all of the effects the volume gain everything is then recordable so you can get those attack if you like. The best thing to do with this thing is to do like all the things that I had laid out here in my long rant and it really makes this thing unbelievably deep, especially how each step could be a completely different sound than the next one . I hope you don’t mind my long rant on this.
A lot of drum machines seperate outs can t be turned down, they just do the mix in the master out. So will need a mixer on all of them
I just saw something to do with that Shift Global Adjustment function referred to as a bug, in a other video … something to do with un-muting right afterwards, and getting a Global Adjustment when not intended … ?! 🙃. Not cool in the middle of a Live jam, if so … !
I use the midi out sometimes to trigger Ableton drumracks live. The limited sequencer is a bliss for creativity...so hands on.
First I thought, this machine has these limitations to get you to proper results real quick, so everybody - even a novice - could enjoy it. But then, a total beginner would actually start with a Behringer Edge or 4 of them and have a blast. I, myself, started to make a setting on Surge XT after watching several Erica videos here and man: I really don't know why to buy it. I get wayyyy more interesting sounds out of Surge, PhasePlant, Pigments, Serum and Co... There's not a single reason for me to throw my money away for Erica Synths like Percons, Techno Machine, Black something and so on. AND - I love to be able to take my stuff with me if there is a need.
Great video Tim , as to buying one don't think so, too many limitations
Hello Tim. Thank you for a great channel. What are your thoughts on the Erica Black Sequencer. Have you tried it? If not why not? It can be had for around £300 s/h. Some of the reviews are quite old now and updated firmware has added quite a lot.
Love you Tim
I'm with you on this one. It's fun. I pair it with fx pedals and the Zoom Livetrak 12 mixer, which I got cheaply, used. I haven't posted anything with it yet, though.
Great gear! No compromission in this review.
Hope see you more in 2025! Best wishes! Cheers
(I use a simple looper and electro harmonix "space drum")
(later i got the IK UNO drum, which has goodness to offer)
IMO where the Perkons shines is using another more traditional drum machine sequence with it keeping the “normal” beat. The Perkons plays under it with interesting additions to the beat and maybe one track playing a melodic line. I actually use “real” drum samples for the regular beat that were recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical. Doing this together creates beats you aren’t going to hear from other people so easily. It makes things very interesting sounding. I can’t see being able to do this so quickly with other setups.
Despite your lack of interest in beats, you program some nice beats on the Perkons.
Wondering if the step limitation is a blessing in disguse. 64 can be unwieldy sometimes.
What an interesting review.. I FEEL like you’re trying to go down rabbit holes with it that are a little outside the intentionality of the design? AND.. I guess I feel like your approach to electronic music, maybe might be, sorta more composer-e then how many electronic instruments are really designed.. which is something I share with you.
FOR ME the Perkons is… sorta about improvising.. with a drum machine, that as a paint brush, is a little broader then a drum machine.. I mean I don’t own one, I kinda want one, and that’s just the idea in my head about it.
I use a lot of stuff for drum machines.. not always in the traditional way.. the top ones, right now.. probably, would be the Tempest, Rytm, and DFAM.. but also a an OP-Z and Dirtywave M8.. and an MPC Live… right now I’m on the fence for pulling a trigger on an Octotrack, digitak 2, or.. I think I’m really going to get a DSI Pro 2..
But.. I don’t know.. I’m looking for performative approaches.. where stuff evolves over time.. that with creative mixing, sorta creative modular madness and signal process.. and a sorta curation to collage approach.. I’ve some how fallen into an obsession with music concrete… I’ll get somewhere? (I feel somehow stuck in a kinda early 70’s avant garde approach to electronic music that I’m trying to bend into something a little more accessible that maybe lands like a kind of “progressive” music style.
But.. yeah.. I really wanted the Perkons to be a bit more stereo.. and… I mean I do love how laterally you’re trying to use it?
I as usual enjoyed your video, an interesting slant on an unusual piece of kit. But may I ask what effects pedals you were using as I am not able to see them all. Also have you had a chance to explore an ASM Hydrasynth as of yet? I would be interested to see your take on one.
I've been trying many different effects, delays, chorus, rotary, phasers, compressors, stereo doublers and of course reverb.
I own the Hydrasynth Explorer and desktop and love them both 👍
@@TimShoebridge. Wow, why those two/both?! 🙂
This very much felt like someone who doesn’t enjoy drum machines and wants to be controlled with their creative style, reviewing a monstrous drum machine that comes alive when all of those knobs per feature are freely used and interacted with as a live instrument. The whole point of the Perkons has been missed.
Oh come on Tim ; ) Live happily within the very flexible 16 steps of the sequencer 🎉
I use the Alpha Base with is much more capable in creating rhythmic patterns. But it is also a little old school from its data & sample management. The Perkons HD-01 is nice built, but too limited, as you said for the high price. I do not understand Erica Synth why they do such limitations on a premium product.
Same reason the “BBD” delay is digital, and only one on the Main Out … To maintain Margin, without increasing the Price even higher?! Lots of knobs and buttons to pay for there, mind … which is why I don’t think it makes sense to use Perkons like this … You gotta be twisting on its titties, like a North Korean soldier let-loose abroad, to get the real value/point of it, imho 🤷🏻♂️
Hi Tim, I'm glad to see you have an A&H Zed 14. What do you think? Is it a good choice for mixing, perhaps also for EQing and synth routing? Is it transparent enough to not mess with the original signals? How does it compare to the SSL SiX?
F
Like you I’m not a Drum person. I have the Elektron Digi- tack/tone Mk#1 pair which between them provide all I need as far as drum sounds go. PK HD Sounds good. It appears to be a good partner for the Syntrx 2 design wise I wonder if they play well together?
The perkons needs thinking so the 16 steps are so much more by speeing up turining down tempo, dividing etc. Step programming. Once you understand the challenge, it s not so limited, it s challenging
I looked briefly at the Perkons and because of its price coupled with the “performance” slant and because of only 4 voices I stopped looking. I have an Analog RYTM and Roland TR8S currently of which the TR8S is marked as a “performance” drum machine has 8 contiguous measures using the same “kit” of about 10 sounds. The RYTM has fewer voices but a song mode. All that said the hands-on analog nature of the perkons is alluring but not so much to push me over the edge. I do hope you find the constraints productive.
wow fascinating
I love just using drum machines as drone machines. TR-8S with one effect per isntrument and global delay/reverb is enough to turn it into a drone synth.
ohhhh these are sounds i never heard from this machine 😮
Tim, I had a light-hearted chuckle about you saying that drum machines aren't for you, but your t-shirt choice would suggest otherwise! Hehe.
Couldn't agree more with the 16 steps being the biggest flaw. No idea why they went that route, my only thought is maybe to encourage more live/real-time variation by the user. Still though, it's a drag, especially since the knob recording is so fun and produces such crazy results in the box. I still use the step recorder as a sort of scratch pad for a rough idea but man, yeah, give me 64 steps. 128 steps. ALL THE STEPS
Hi Tim please consider reviewing Dteadbox Artemis
It's definitely niche but it's also a niche that's otherwise pretty empty I think. No matter what you do with it, it's made to be performed. If you actually do drums, the trick is to combine tracks together and then the limited sequencer isn't really an issue anymore. As for drone or noise, I think pretty capable because it's very well equipped in terms of IO. I personally keep a couple of voices for setting the ambiance or mood of my tracks and route the rest through analogue Eurorack. It's essentially allowed me to have several digital oscillators on hand if/when I need them along with a decently strong noise and possibly rhythmic section. It begs to be paired and routed through pedals and effects. And the onboard effects are far from terrible! As for the price, honestly, there are some decent deals to be had these days.
I just wish they made a firmware for drums and an alternate firmware with more noise/drone/osc and modulation options.
@timshoebridge thanks for mixing it up. In like your color audio patch cables. Where do you get those?
Hi. It's a multicore cable.
actually you can chain patterns on this machine as stated on p.26 of the manual. unfortunately the description there is a little vague. You have to press and hold PATTERN, then while holding PATTERN you push the buttons where you saved your patterns one after the other. after that the machine switches your patterns in the order you pressed them before. DOWNSIDE: you can edit your patterns while playing, but as soon as the machine switches to the next pattern, it reloads the pattern from its last saved state so all unsaved edits get lost. every pattern also has a master pattern length, that is set to 16 steps by default but can be changed to min. 1 and max. 64 steps (p15 of the manual). i didn-t have time to play with this as i got my machine just some days ago. there-s a demonstration of pattern chaining here: th-cam.com/video/QpWk7HF5fZU/w-d-xo.html
16 steps ... I can't believe manufacturers are still putting out limits like that. I mean in 1983 the Roland JX-3P's sequencer had 128 steps and up to 6 voices (though programming it was a pain especially if you were doing polyphonic). At the very least they should have added a way to chain the 4 sequencer lanes to make it 64 steps.
OTOH, it sounds amazing for the uses you show in the video. I've always been a huge fan of using non-drum sounds as the rhythmic element of a track. I mean, that's what made early Tangerine Dream's work so tasty. At least it was for me. I'm tempted by this machine. I really am. We'll see if my small studio can house so much real estate.
Will watch soon. Just coming to click Like
Really only have space for one drum machine, and between this and a pulsar 23.
It sounds to me like you would be much happier with an Analog Rytm mk2. 8 voices. Stereo. World-class sequencing. Samples + fully analog voices.
Yes I am beginning to form that opinion too 🤔
@ it's got 12 polyaftertouch performance pads that you can assign multiple parameters to modulate. My pro tip for you is that those pads are CC controllable from the DAW, giving you amazing ability to sequence motion. More often than not I end up actually sequencing the machine with MIDI and not the internal seq. It allows for a ton of flexibility.
@@RPLKTRis there much difference between mk1 and mk2...?
@@TimShoebridge Mk1 is definitely much cheaper, so worth taking a look at. I went for MKII though and I'm very happy with it. I snagged it last year during a Thomann Black Friday sale, which amounted to like 1300 EUR new without VAT. A great deal.
MKII is geared much more towards realtime performance. The encoder resolution is much higher on the MKII. Easier to dial in sweet spots IMO. I like the pads for finger drumming better on MKII. Their pressure sensitivity is really well calibrated for the performance controls I mentioned before. There's also a quick performance dial, which is available regardless of the mode of the instrument you're on at the moment. Very useful to keep some global cutoff or something. There's also a Fill key so it's easy to influence the sequence live, and a Fix key for turning off velocity sensitivity, which is useful if you're playing back longshot samples that you want to have precise volume.
MKII has audio inputs for sampling external hardware. MK1 doesn't allow sampling on the device. That alone isn't that interesting, but MKII allows for easy internal resampling of sequences (which includes analog sounds), so you can further process them. This is very neat and produces good sound quality since you're not going through analog outs. But even if you did, on MKII the individual outputs are balanced, which I find useful, they sound really clean.
To me AR MKII is the ultimate drum machine. I'm there with you that 16-step sequencers end up producing boring and repeatable music. On the AR, even if you ignore song mode, there's so much you can do with a 64-step sequence to make it change over time, that it does not sound boring. And the performance controls make it a true musical instrument. You can really play it.
@RPLKTR Thanks for that, really appreciate it. Yes the Mk1's are getting really cheap now but I'm worried about the screen on any Mk1 instrument, they have a very finite lifespan. Hoping Elektron made some better design choices with the Mk2's ...
The trick for this and I am talking for Ambient stuff, is to slow the BPM right down so your hits are sparse, but you have all the control in front of you to be able mangle and manipulate whilst tending to other things.
I recently got rid of a Jomox AB which was too overwhelming for my needs, the kick is otherworldly.
HD 01 though seems like something that I really could gell with, time will tell.
Hope all is well and thanks for the upload.
Analog Rytm all the way. If at a high prize tag, then please analog. And the Elektron Sequencer gives you a lot of possibilities, easily venturing into polyrhythmic or generative territory.
That being said, great video as always. I also appreciate you are presenting a more versatile side of the Perkons sound. Although I did not quite get what the instrument actually gives you, as sounds are quite limited and surely not unique to this device.
This is nice. To my ears the Perkons sounds terrible as a drum machine. The video by Blush Response is exactly what im talking about. If pure over-distorted static and noice is your thing, then the Perkons is for you.
Perkons can go ways, both aggressive and subtle. Not a bread and butter machine but it has it's own distinct sound. Most of the videos feature Perkons as a industrial/techno drum machine but it can do so much more than that! It really is a machine where you could loose yourself playing with just that for hours and come up with all kinds of stuff. I also use it in combination with LXR02 where I keep LXR02 for the "bread and butter" stuff and use Perkons for more experimental stuff.
I agree with you about Blush Response and many other Perkons users. When I 1st started researching the Perkons, It seemed like it was only capable of loud, distorted, in your face, super aggressive drums. Video after video was the same. Hardly any variation. Then I found a video showing more range and versatility which got me more interested. I started finding more videos showing off what this box is really capable of. So I purchased one and can say based on my experience with it that it's capable of so much more than how Blush Response chooses to use it.
@@randeezy3914 Thanks for your report. I'll keep revisiting.
@@randeezy3914. Capable of other things, but they’re certainly not its forte, imho 🤷🏻♂️
info on a hd 02?
At some point when listening to your improvisations I was annoyed that it sounded so familiar, and then I realized it is just because your improv style is nearly identical to me own. So I was just not surprised by it. But it is actually really very much to my taste haha. It was a weird feeling because I don't think I've ever felt that feeling of hearing something so similar to my own sensibilities done by another musician. Great stuff.
Good sounding machine, but I'm happy with my quirky gear that is 1/10 the price and gives me way more dynamics.
The 16-step sequencer is absurd. Inexcusable.
I think the whole 'introducing limitations helps creativity' doesn't hold up in a lot of cases, but it does with this. Plus I think the amount of outputs they gave it, including individual send and returns on each voice is really a major selling point that people don't fully get behind in this digital age. But I love the devotion to utility.
Don’t take this the wrong way Tim, but I (and probably many others) kinda knew for years that drums weren’t really “your thing” judging by how you have used them… 😏
You are such a good musician , dear Tim,-
Let's hope for a future firmware update on the sequencer where you could extend it to 64 using a key combination as some key combinations are possible and currently not being used, or maybe the possibility of using an external controler for this, I would definitely be interested in the later e.g. a hardware expansion for Perkons.
🧐🤓👍
Do you really think the Erica design team ran out of processing power so resigned thenselves to only 16 steps? Its an implemented idea and ethos of the machine - accept it and use it to your advantage!
Getting early tangerine dream vibes
Very insightful video Tim, as always!
However, I have never really found a reason why I should buy an external sequencer (or drum machine). I have four synths with built-in sequencers, and they are all more than capable of doing what I need (especially the two from the Poly- and Matrixbrute), but also offer so much more for the money!
I use the same sequencer for a lot of different things and I think it often comes down to behaviors and preferences. A person may not necessarily gel with one sequencing style as opposed to another
@@the_glove Absolutely true!
instead of a mixer you could have used an 8 input audio interface.
I own the PÈRKONS... Now I need to buy a 707, gee thanks 😂
😢
Thanks for the review but the demo is barely audible.
Don’t think it’s going to be a classic IMO
overpriced and
under featured
Depressing