Rene vs Metropolis

[noctambulance]

Both.

I have both, and don't plan to get rid of either. I like using them together.

[exper]

Both.

I have both, and don't plan to get rid of either. I like using them together.

Ditto.

[maudibe]

Metropolis fed by a Moskwa (or two!) is a great thing. Use one Moskwa to alter the pich shifting and the other to control gate or div.

Result: Uber long related grooves.

[Multi Grooves]

I have had Rene in the past and now own Metropolis (and PP+Brains, which I sold the Rene to fund).

I think other wigglers have basically said all this already, but I'd sum it up as follows:

They're fundamentally different approaches. With Rene, it's capable of skipping through the voltages in a hugely varied manner, and paired with a powerful gate pattern sequencer you'd be able to get very "metropolisy" things from it. I found there was always a sense of the unexpected with it, which is great in many ways - with the right thought you could make specific patterns but it would require fair forethought to do so (and to own the appropriate extra modules). You could also get very long progressive 4 bar patterns and there's Logic built in too - it's insanely deep. For me maybe a bit too much so, I wanted something simpler, so got Pressure Points in its place.

Metropolis is ostensibly a 'trad' sequencer, but it isn't at all - the key thing with it so far I've found is a sense of total control. I know exactly why it's doing what its doing and how to get it to not do that, or do something else specific, immediately. With Rene I'd say a gate pattern sequencer pairing is essential and with Metrop you don't need additional modules to make it work best, it's built in. Of course if you do have other modules you can transpose and further modulate the sequence, which is ace.

The kicker with Metropolis is a sense of total electro badassery. It's excellent at quick, immediate sequencing and the USP of it, the stage-mode-switching-thing allows you to very easily elongate and rhythmically vary a pattern so it ends up sounding like something you'd only be able to make on a piano roll, but that can be made very easily, with the flick of a few switches.

Last night on my Metropolis (and Trigger Riot):

Good post. You mentioned pairing René a powerful gate sequencer but what would you recommend? I'm guessing it'd preferably be 16 steps a lá z8000? I'm hoping there are cheaper options to go with a $500+ module.

[sushiluv]

if you´re into ableton/max4live you could check out the ml-185

http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=75

it has more or less the same functionality as the metropolis, while this isn´t hardware it´s probably a good way to find out you like the concept or not, before you get the real thing.

persnally i enjoy this patch a lot.

[tuj]

Rene. Extremely powerful, rather easy to use to get going and get some sounds out. You can keep it in snake mode and have a conventional sequencer or clock the grid. Built-in quantitizer with saveable scales is nice.

For comparison, I do not have metropolis, but I have a bunch of other sequencers, ER101, SQ8, PP+Brains, SEQ02, Kilpatrick, etc.

[nearly ghost]

I was stuck making this same decision a few weeks ago. I decided to go with metropolis and don't regret it one bit. Instant access scales and very easy to get killer riffs going with it. Things can easily get crazy if using random clock scources. I'm considering ditching my expert sleepers set up and getting a second(or maybe rene). So hands on I'm having loads of fun with it.

[Multi Grooves]

Any other suggestions for what hardware can be paired Rene with to get it closer to individual step control?

[narwhal]

those electro metropolis patches sound like great fun. I make melodies on RENE with a quantimator which when used with pressure points lets you have CV control over transposition and scale type which is v nice. I'd love to hear some less loopy metropolis examples.

[holovicc]

I prefer the functions of the Metropolis. Plus - i don't know if it applied to other people - but i'm just not happy with those touch sensors. most of the time it does not work for me (but for everyone else around).

The Aux inputs on Metorpolis makes it really special.

[austinedward08]

rene is fun to play. 4 presets is sweet.

metropolis has a clock, swing, gate time & the pitch can be cv'd so you can have very long progressions. especially when paired with rene.

metropolis is a great package. if you're concerned about bpm or clocking with other devices - this eliminates at lease one clock div/mult module you'll need with rene. so it's more expensive, but more value.

rene is a lot of fun to play & can be quite unpredictable. personally I need those presets so that's my winner. but I love both & they compliment each other very well. so... get one now & one later.

[FatRocky]

both

[L.C.O.]

i am deciding between rene and Metropolis.

BUT

While i was able to audition the rene, thanks to the good folks at Foxtone, I really have no way of actually trying out the metropolis!

i am bummed out by the fact that these are not being distributed to dealers. i have been waiting for this now for weeks, and i think i will just go ahead an buy rene, simply because i was able to test-drive it, and know what would be spending my money on, as opposed to blondly forking out hundreds of dollars...

i am sur metropolis is great, but whenit comes to gear (especially beyond certain price point), i ama firm believer of "try before you buy" philosophy.

i wish intellijel would ship some units out to dealers other than AH.

oh well.

:-(

[exper]

i wish intellijel would ship some units out to dealers other than AH.

:-(

They are being shipped out now. AH and Control had some and sold out already! Ask Foxtone to get some in.

[L.C.O.]

i wish intellijel would ship some units out to dealers other than AH.

:-(

They are being shipped out now. AH and Control had some and sold out already! Ask Foxtone to get some in.

Oh, believe me, i asked! :-)

BOTH: Foxtone AND Intellijel!

Unfortunately, weeks go by (I sent my first inquiry in November), and shipment is not happening:

Foxtone guys are eager to get these, and intellijel, while answering my email inquiries is quite vague and non-committal about shipping to Minneapolis.

i have purchased modules directly from Danjel before, and never had problems with that. But, like i said, both of these sequencers are expensive enough for me to want to audition them before committing to a purchase. So, this is bumming me out.

[exper]

Ah, too bad. Strange because I didn't realize Foxtone even started carrying Intellijel. Well, you can always buy one and try it out, its not not you couldn't sell it on the forum for nearly new price in record time!

But I doubt you'll want to! I have't heard anyone yet want to sell it...

[L.C.O.]

yes, they do carry Intellijel since last year.

i know there is always the possibility of buying then selling, but seriously, i feel that i should not have to spend/lose money just so that i can actually try an expensive piece of equipment before purchase.

i don't think that it's unreasonable of me, no?

[exper]

yes, they do carry Intellijel since last year.

i know there is always the possibility of buying then selling, but seriously, i feel that i should not have to spend/lose money just so that i can actually try an expensive piece of equipment before purchase.

i don't think that it's unreasonable of me, no?

Definitely not. You're lucky you have a location to even try stuff out at. I've yet to make the trek up to Control.

[Multi Grooves]

If there is a better place to leave this PM me the location and I'll delete this post otherwise:

I need a sequencer to liven things up and am down to choosing between a Rene and Metropolis.

I was swaying towards former based on my (possibly flawed?) understanding that it has a bigger potential range, though at a greater cost when supplemented with extra modules that could take it closer to x0x programming style.

These bits have left me confused:

"What it can't do (or not that I'm aware of), is alter/control pitch over CV, which is one of the Metropolis innovations. You can shift the scale pre/post quantize."

"You aren't able to adjust gate length per step (though you can control the sequence step timing via clock obviously). It also doesn't have a slide option. "

"They're fundamentally different approaches. With Rene, it's capable of skipping through the voltages in a hugely varied manner, and paired with a powerful gate pattern sequencer you'd be able to get very "metropolisy" things from it."

"why not rene and stg graphic sequencer? you get the best of both worlds"

"There are a few options, for example the Intellijel uStep and DinSync.Info Amnesia are small and simple ones.
There is the STG Soundlabs Trigger Sequencer, or the Acidlab Robokop. These are all step based, for percussion.
The Acidlab Autobot is a tb-303-like sequencer, for pitch."
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I thought it'd be a good idea to learn more on sequencers and watched all of Raul's excellent Doepfer A155/A154 youtube tutorials, which posed no problem yet I'm still struggling to understand the above clearly.

In terms of layouts, size and costs I like the look of the STG stuff which has been mentioned twice but:

surely they will not give the same operation and output? So what is the difference between the devices (there is so little info of STG mods)?
Exactly how are the potential 'add-on' modules combined with Rene? i.e. what gets plugged in where?
How would they interact?
If the Rene has knobs for each step what do they alter if not pitch or step length as commented?


Finally would/could a machine drum cover any sequence duties for the boxes mentioned here?


Thanks in advance.

[exper]

I need a sequencer to liven things up and am down to choosing between a Rene and Metropolis.

I was swaying towards former based on my (possibly flawed?) understanding that it has a bigger potential range, though at a greater cost when supplemented with extra modules that could take it closer to x0x programming style.

Its a choice I don't envy! They're both centerpieces!

These bits have left me confused:

"What it can't do (or not that I'm aware of), is alter/control pitch over CV, which is one of the Metropolis innovations. You can shift the scale pre/post quantize."

True, but keep in mind the metropolis still needs external cv sources for this as well. You can still transpose Rene's output after the fact with a mixer and cv source. Metropolis' benefit though is that the external cv will be quantized.

"You aren't able to adjust gate length per step (though you can control the sequence step timing via clock obviously). It also doesn't have a slide option. "

The Rene does have cv controlled glide. But it's externally controlled. I've never tried but I guess you could use y gates to turn it on and off on the x channel.

"They're fundamentally different approaches. With Rene, it's capable of skipping through the voltages in a hugely varied manner, and paired with a powerful gate pattern sequencer you'd be able to get very "metropolisy" things from it."

True. Actually, was this my quote? Just the same as metropolis can get really weird and random if you want. You'll eventually want a good amount of triggers and clocks/dividers anyway.

"why not rene and stg graphic sequencer? you get the best of both worlds"

More the merrier. Stacked sequencers are great. Layers of seqs at different lengths and timings sound great. Or using one to transpose the other is really useful. Check the depth on the stg stuff. Depending on your case it might be deep.

"There are a few options, for example the Intellijel uStep and DinSync.Info Amnesia are small and simple ones.
There is the STG Soundlabs Trigger Sequencer, or the Acidlab Robokop. These are all step based, for percussion.
The Acidlab Autobot is a tb-303-like sequencer, for pitch."

Depends how complex you want, how many trigger outputs you need, etc.

In terms of layouts, size and costs I like the look of the STG stuff which has been mentioned twice but:

surely they will not give the same operation and output? So what is the difference between the devices (there is so little info of STG mods)?
Exactly how are the potential 'add-on' modules combined with Rene? i.e. what gets plugged in where?
How would they interact?
If the Rene has knobs for each step what do they alter if not pitch or step length as commented?

No, simpler seqs like the stg or PGH sequencers have a far simpler operation. No quantization, memory or stepping modes usually. But those are great for simple sequences or for transposing the output of complex seqs.

Add ons for Rene? There's so much! You can clock two ways x and y. Then there is cv for c and y, which determines the snake patterns, and then x and y mod, which covers all sorts of fun things from slide/glide to logic/rests, resets, etc. So cv sources or sequences and gates go in to these spots.

Rene's knobs alter pitch. Not gate length. Although that would be a great addition if there ever was a firmware update.

Finally would/could a machine drum cover any sequence duties for the boxes mentioned here?
Thanks in advance.

With a Machinedrum, you have those individual outs that you can assign to gnd-imp machines for triggering. might negate the need for something like a Trigger Riot or Grids until you get further into your system.

[rasseru]

With a Machinedrum, you have those individual outs that you can assign to gnd-imp machines for triggering. might negate the need for something like a Trigger Riot or Grids until you get further into your system.

apart from lack of polyrhythm/odd pattern lengths. (which i wish they'd implement!)

[exper]

With a Machinedrum, you have those individual outs that you can assign to gnd-imp machines for triggering. might negate the need for something like a Trigger Riot or Grids until you get further into your system.

apart from lack of polyrhythm/odd pattern lengths. (which i wish they'd implement!)

Yes, in a way. A little Maths or software visualization can give you some good Euclid patterns and odd rhythms that will fit within the steps nicely.

Either that or just go ahead and grab a Pamela's Workout! More fun in 8hp than should be allowed. Regular or Euclid mode. Both are great. And you can easily clock it from the trigs on the Machinedrum.

[Multi Grooves]

Pammy, PT or ADDAC?

[noctambulance]

further to the point of "both" - if you have multiple oscillators in your system, you'll want multiple sequencers to run complex patches with voices running over each other simultaneously rather than having to multitrack everything separately/sequentially.

Here's a simple example of Rene running one osc in the DPO, pressure points running the other osc, and Metropolis running an e350, with clocking and triggering of various things coming from the Trigger riot.

http://soundcloud.com/kingnimrod/quick-calculation

[L.C.O.]

FWIW

... after waiting for two months, i was unable to actually test Metropolis in store: they were never shipped. I understand that intellijel is focusing on selling from their own online store, but, as a result of this strategy, i simply decided NOT to buy it.
i love intellijel, have multiple of their modules, will likely get more in the future. But i was quite dissointed in the way this played out.

BUT
I was able to test run Rene instead, and was thoroughly impressed and inspired.
Bought rene:
very happy!