Flyback

Tutorials · Elektron Syntakt

Play Flyback from an Elektron Syntakt.

The Syntakt keeps the time, sequences the notes and turns the knobs. Flyback is a voice on one of its tracks, follows its clock, and puts the picture and the sound on its bar. This tutorial goes from the box's settings menu to a patch the box plays, in about ten minutes.

01What you need

A Syntakt, a USB cable, and Flyback on Windows, macOS or Linux. Nothing else: the Syntakt is a class compliant USB device, so no driver is installed, and Flyback ships knowing what a Syntakt is. Its MIDI OUT works too, through any MIDI interface, if you would rather keep USB for something else.

Everything below assumes the box is at its factory MIDI channels: tracks 1 to 12 on channels 1 to 12 and the FX track on channel 13. If you have changed them, keep reading; the last section is for you.

02Set up the Syntakt

Eight settings on the box, all under [SETTINGS]. Most are already right on a fresh unit; the two that matter most are that it sends its clock and that its knobs send what they do.

MenuSettingSet it toWhy
SYSTEM › USB CONFIGUSB CONFIGUSB MIDI or USB AUDIO/MIDI Either puts the Syntakt on the computer as a plain MIDI device. OVERBRIDGE talks to Elektron's own driver instead, and Flyback does not hear it.
MIDI CONFIG › SYNCCLOCK SENDon The clock is the whole point: Flyback's Clock In follows it.
MIDI CONFIG › SYNCTRANSPORT SENDon Play and Stop on the box start and hold Flyback's beats. PRG CH SEND is up to you.
MIDI CONFIG › PORT CONFIGOUTPUT TOUSB or MIDI+USB Where the clock, the notes and the knobs go. Over a MIDI cable, MIDI and OUT PORT FUNCTIONALITY at MIDI.
MIDI CONFIG › PORT CONFIGOUTPUT CHthe track channel Each track's knobs send on that track's channel, so Flyback can tell track 3's filter from track 4's. On the auto channel every track sends on one.
MIDI CONFIG › PORT CONFIGPARAM OUTPUTCC Flyback listens for control changes, not NRPN.
MIDI CONFIG › PORT CONFIGENCODER DESTINT + EXT On INT a knob only changes the Syntakt, and nothing reaches the cable.
MIDI CONFIG › CHANNELSTRACK 1–12, FX CONTROL CH1–12, 13 The factory layout, and what Flyback's Syntakt profile expects. A track set to OFF sends nothing.

The MIDI tracks' notes go out on the channel set on each track's SYN page (CHAN), whatever the CHANNELS menu says. Leave those at their track numbers too and everything lines up.

03Check that Flyback hears it

  1. Plug the Syntakt in and open Flyback. Open Settings → MIDI. The first line names the plugin doing the hearing, Windows MIDI, CoreMIDI or ALSA MIDI, and the last says Known by name: Syntakt.
  2. Press Space over the canvas to open the module list, and add a MIDI In from under Sources. Its listens to field lists the Syntakt beside the computer keyboard. If it does not, the box is in Overbridge mode or OUTPUT TO is off; fix that on the box and add the module again.
  3. Add a Clock In the same way, from under Timing. Its follows field already names the Syntakt, because the box is the one instrument plugged in that sends a clock. Wire its running output into the Output's color, then press [PLAY] on the Syntakt: the preview turns white while the box plays and black again at [STOP].

You can delete both modules now. The next step adds them properly.

04Add the whole box

Start a new patch. Press Space over the canvas: while the Syntakt is plugged in, the module list opens with Instruments › Syntakt at the top, above the groups. Pick it.

A Clock In named Clock and thirteen MIDI Ins named Track 1 to Track 12 and FX track, in two columns of seven, with the Output beside them.
What one pick adds: a Clock In following the Syntakt, and a MIDI In per track, each named after its track and listening on that track's channel. Fourteen modules, wired to nothing yet.

They arrive selected. Click the background, then delete the tracks you will not use: the rest of this tutorial needs Track 9, Track 11 and Track 12, and the Clock. Select one and look at the inspector: listens to is the Syntakt, and channel is a list of its tracks rather than a number, because Flyback knows the box.

05Sequence Flyback from the box

This is the one that makes Flyback an instrument in the Syntakt's set. A Syntakt track running the MIDI machine makes no sound of its own: what it sequences goes out over MIDI, on a channel of its choosing, to whatever is listening. Flyback listens with a MIDI In on that channel and plays a voice.

On the box, take a track you are not using for a drum, say track 9:

  1. Select it with [TRK] + [TRIG 9], then press [FUNC] + [SYN], pick the MIDI machine and press [YES]. The track's drum sound is gone; it is a MIDI track now.
  2. Press [SYN] and set CHAN to 9. That is the channel Flyback's Track 9 module listens on.
  3. Enter notes as on any track: in grid recording mode, hold a [TRIG] key and turn NOTE on the TRIG page, with VEL for how hard and LEN for how long. Or play them in: [FUNC] + [TRK] for keyboard mode, then [RECORD] + [PLAY] and play the [TRIG] keys.

In Flyback, the Track 9 module from the box you added carries the notes: pitch is the note, gate is high for the trig's length, velocity is how hard, and trigger pulses at each note. Wire them into a voice, or press F2 and paste this over the text, then press [PLAY] on the box:

# Track 9 on the Syntakt is a MIDI track, and this is the voice it plays.
let keys  = midi.in(device: "midi:elektron-syntakt", channel: 9)
let pitch = keys.pitch |> note(note: _)
let pluck = keys.gate |> adsr(gate: _, attack: 5ms, decay: 200ms, sustain: 0.5, release: 300ms)

saw(freq: pitch) * pluck * (0.3 + keys.velocity * 0.7)
  |> filter(cutoff: 400 + keys.velocity * 3000, resonance: 0.3)
  |> out.left

out.volume = 0.5
  • Every trig on track 9 now plays this saw, at the trig's note, for the trig's length, as hard as its velocity. Parameter locks, trig conditions, retrigs, micro timing and the pattern chain all work, because they are the box's and the box is what is sending.
  • A MIDI track holds chords of up to four notes, and a MIDI In is one voice. For chords, add MIDI Ins on the same channel with voice set to 1, 2, 3 and 4 and give each its own oscillator, or leave voice at 0 and Flyback hands each module the next free voice.
  • Two MIDI tracks on two channels are two voices in Flyback: a bass on track 9 and a lead on track 10, each its own MIDI In and its own sound.
  • The track's knobs on the box still send, so its filter and amp pages can turn Flyback's knobs, in step 08.

06Keep to its clock

The other way round: Flyback's own sequencer, kept to the box's bar, so the two can share a pattern without the box having to send every note.

The Clock In's beats count from the moment you press [PLAY] on the box, at whatever tempo the box is sending, and hold when you press [STOP]. Anything that takes a domain, a sequencer, a Tempo, an LFO, takes beats in place of time and is then on the Syntakt's bar:

# The Syntakt keeps time; the sequencer steps four times a beat.
let box   = midi.clock(device: "midi:elektron-syntakt")
let bass  = notes(in: box.beats, rate: 4) [ C2 ~ C2 G1  C2 ~ D#2 C2 ]
let pitch = bass |> note(note: _)
let pluck = bass.gate |> adsr(gate: _, attack: 2ms, decay: 180ms, sustain: 0, release: 60ms)

saw(freq: pitch) * pluck
  |> filter(cutoff: 900, resonance: 0.4)
  |> out.left

out.volume = 0.5
A Clock In's beats wired into a Note Sequencer's in; the sequencer's out through Note into a Saw, its gate through an ADSR, the two multiplied, filtered, and into the Output's left.
The same patch on the canvas. The only wire that makes it the Syntakt's is the first one: beats into the sequencer's in.
  • The device is the port's name as an id: lower case, hyphens for spaces, after midi:. The modules you added in step 04 carry the right one already; if yours is not midi:elektron-syntakt, press F2 on that patch and read it off a MIDI In.
  • rate is steps per beat. Four is sixteenths, which is the Syntakt's own grid; one is quarter notes.
  • Change the tempo on the box and the bass follows within a beat. Press [STOP] and it holds; press [PLAY] and it starts from the top, with the box.
  • The Clock In's other outputs: bpm is the tempo as a number, running is high between [PLAY] and [STOP], and reset pulses on [PLAY], for restarting an envelope or an LFO with the pattern.

07Light the picture from its tracks

The picture is played the same way the voice was. One thing to know: a drum track's trigs stay inside the box, and only a MIDI track's go out. So give the picture two MIDI tracks as in step 05, on tracks 11 and 12 with CHAN at 11 and 12, and enter the kick's trigs on 11 and the hat's on 12, beside the drum tracks that make the sound. Then:

# Track 11 doubles the kick, track 12 the hat: each lights its own part of the picture.
let box  = midi.clock(device: "midi:elektron-syntakt")
let kick = midi.in(device: "midi:elektron-syntakt", channel: 11)
let hat  = midi.in(device: "midi:elektron-syntakt", channel: 12)

(rings(freq: 3 + kick.gate * 2, offset: box.beats * 0.25) |> remap(-1..1, 0..1))
  * (0.25 + hat.gate * 0.75)
  |> color.hsv(value: _, hue: fract(box.beats / 16), saturation: 0.8)
  |> out.color

out.volume = 0
  • The kick tightens the rings while its gate is open; the hat brightens them. The hue turns once every sixteen beats, which at the box's sixteenths is once a bar of four, and the rings drift with the beat.
  • A trig's gate is as long as its note length on the box, so a short trig is a flash and a long one holds. For a decay that outlasts the trig, put the gate through an ADSR with a release, as the bass does.
  • The knobs and the clock need no MIDI track: every track's knobs go out on its channel whatever machine it runs, and the clock is the box's own.
  • Both patches together are one patch: keep the bass under out.left and the rings under out.color, sharing the one box. Set out.volume back up.

08Turn its knobs from the panel

A panel knob follows a knob on the Syntakt, and because Flyback knows the box, it never has to be learned by ear.

  1. Open the knob panel and add a knob. Click its name, then the filter's cutoff socket, so the knob sweeps it; press Esc.
  2. Open the knob's menu and choose Bind to › Syntakt › Track 3 › Filter Frequency. Under the knob it now says Syntakt · Track 3 · Filter Frequency. Turn the filter knob on the box with track 3 active and the panel knob turns with it.
  3. Or learn it: choose Learn MIDI controller and turn a knob on the box. The binding is named the same way, and it keeps the track's channel, so the same knob on track 4 does not move it.
  4. For a panel of several knobs, choose Learn this and every knob after it on the first one. The light walks the panel; turn one knob on the box per step, and Esc when done.

A bound knob is saved with the patch. Settings → MIDI chooses whether a knob jumps to the box's position or waits to be picked up.

09Play

Double-click the preview for full screen; the panel's knobs come with it. [PLAY] on the Syntakt starts the beats from the top and the notes with them, [STOP] holds both, a pattern change changes what Flyback plays, and every trig you enter on a MIDI track lands in the patch as you enter it. Flyback's own play and pause (Ctrl+P) stop the picture and the sound, not the box, and on resume the beats jump to wherever the box has got to.

Save the patch and it remembers the Syntakt by name. Open it on a machine without one and every module says so, and plays again the moment a Syntakt is plugged in.

10Another box, or a Syntakt set up differently

What Flyback knows about the Syntakt is a file: its port name, its tracks and their channels, its knobs by page and the control change each sends, and that it conducts. Settings → MIDI lists the instruments known and the folder where a file of your own goes, one .json per instrument.

A Syntakt on other channels is the shipped file copied there and edited; a file with the same name replaces the shipped one. A Digitakt, a Digitone or a controller with a printed CC chart is a new file of the same shape, and then everything on this page works for it too: the whole box from the module list, tracks by name, knobs from a menu.

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