'Smash the Machines' featuring Hexdrums, Nightverb & DB-01

video upload by Richard DeHove

"A one-take song featuring Hexdrums, Nightverb and a DB-01 from Erica Synths. The entire thing was played in live switching patterns on both machines. No overdubs and editing restricted to cutting it down from five minutes to about three. Of course the vocal samples were added later - they're from the 1930s movie 'Heroes for Sale'.

Routing is Hexdrums stereo out to Nightverb stereo in. The Hexdrums compressor is cranked and Nightverb is on a very aggressive gated reverb. The DB-01 is raw as you see it. There was no further processing of the sound in the DAW.

Originally I'd intended to program both machines in song mode so I could play with the sounds a bit more but had to abandon that idea because I wanted to switch off Hexdrums and play the 'reset' button. Hitting that instantly restarts the pattern quantized to the clock speed. A fun feature but not usable in song mode. I also played with the solo function which was fun, just picking out a single sound in a pattern.

Although the DB-01 seems to have a slight echo it's actually the LFO giving a little rhythmic cut to the release.

I was very tempted to start multitracking in a higher riff and EQ and distort the DB-01 but in the end raw is best."