Digital Drum Machine with 6 Drum Voices, 16-step Sequencer, Pattern Chaining, FX Section, 4 Mono Outputs, and USB/MIDI Connectivity
Revamped Cult Classic Desktop Drum Synth and Sequencer
Boutique synthmakers Sonic Potions and Erica Synths have teamed up to bring you the Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 Digital Drum Synth. A revamped version of Sonic Potions' renowned DIY kit, the LXR-02 is a highly flexible desktop drum machine, which goes far beyond the TR-style drum machines from which it draws its inspiration. Featuring six drum voices (which are optimized for specific drum sounds), a host of modulators, a robust FX section, and a performance-oriented interface, the LXR-02 is an inspiring piece of kit that has enraptured Sweetwater’s synth enthusiasts. With its high-quality 16-bit/44kHz audio, the LXR-02 has a shockingly huge sound. And, its powerful 16-step sequencer provides eight subdivisions per step, for a massive 128 steps per track at 32PPQ resolution. The LXR-02 facilitates sonic exploration, and you can store custom kits on the provided SD card. What’s more, a unique morphing feature allows you to seamlessly crossfade between presets — perfect for spicing up compositions! And while the LXR-02’s Digital Drum Synth features run deep, it’s amazingly intuitive. You’ll be cranking out killer sequences in no time!
1. Möbius - Electro Clash
"Live-Jam with SP LXR (sequencing, syncing, drums, subbass, arp), MAM MB 33 II (bassline), MFOS WSG (drones, lead) and additional effects from lexicon MX 200."
2. Möbius - The Sketch (Live-Jam with SP LXR, MAM MB33-II and MFOS WSG)
"This is a little live-jam with Sonic Potions LXR, MAM MB33-II and Music From Outer Space WSG.
Chorus and Delay were added by Lexicon MX-200.
The video was edited with Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13 to achieve the pencil drawing and the one-color effect."
3. Möbius - Acid Jam (MAM MB33 II + Sonic Potions LXR)
"Live acid jam featuring MAM MB33 II sequenced by Sonic Potions LXR.
External effects are from Lexicon MX200."
4. Möbius - Neptune's Revenge (Spectral Audio Neptune 2)
"This is a demo track of the Spectral Audio Neptune 2 mono synth (10 x Overdub).
It was part of the "One Synth One Voice" challenge at www.sequencer.de (in german): http://www.sequencer.de/synth/index.p..."
5. Möbius - Time Loop (Electro Jam with Sonic Potions LXR)
"This is an Electro Jam I did with my Sonic Potions LXR.
No external FX was used. Just pure LXR. :)"
6. Möbius - Time Machine (Jam with MFOS WSG + Sequencer)
"This is a little Jam with my dual voice "Weird Sound Generator (WSG)" by "Music From Outer Space" with integrated 8 step sequencer based on the "Baby10" design. I was lucky that everything fits perfectly into an old VHS case. :)
No external effects were used."
7. Möbius - Ambient Jam (Sonic Potions LXR + MFOS WSG)
"Ambient Jam with Sonic Potions LXR triggering a MFOS WSG with integrated 8 step sequencer. For the WSG an external delay was used."
"Last time we looked at programming synth sounds on the LXR. This time we take a synth-heavy custom kit of four synth sounds and two drum sounds and team it up with the Midicake Arp. The Arp plays the four synth channels. Later we feed all four synths tracks into the LXR in one pass over 64 steps. While the Midicake is ideal for this you could use any sequencer or arp that can satisfy a few basic requirements: It needs to be able to send note information on different MIDI channels and be able to act as the Midi clock master - pretty basic powers. One tiny caution if you're going to use a Keystep-37: When you press the stop button for the arp or sequencer it sends a value '0' on Midi CC51 - which also happens to be the Midi command on the LXR for amp envelope decay on voice 1.
Feeding pattern data into the LXR is a good idea imo given how many options there are on the Midicake. One of the strengths of the Midicake is that it constantly saves its state as you work so there's no need to ever actively save anything. The downside is that there's no saved version to revert to in case you wander off on some promising but ultimately unsuccessful adventure. The lesson is to copy your patch to a new slot as you go. Same holds for the LXR - I've lost many interesting sounds in furious twiddles or too-confident "save kit" actions that turned out to be 'load kit' instead. Stay organized. For my honoured Patreon friends the LXR kit used here is available for download.
The synth sounds on the LXR are really starting to grow on me. They're pretty harsh and digital but respond well to effects. They're also not like your standard synth sounds so you tend to end up in odd places. It makes a good partner for the Midicake. Another obvious partner-candidate would be the Roland 4D. Not a fan of the superb blandness of Roland sounds but spec-wise it seems like a perfect fit. I only have one criticism of the Midicake Arp: They're now made in black and I've got a white one :/
As usual there is absolutely no extra effects, EQ, compression or alteration of the sound other than what you see.
0:00 Example arp 2:20 Drum pattern 2:45 Each synth sound 4:04 Midicake tracks demo 6:50 How to input data 10:02 LXR playback
"If you've already watched a some of my videos, you might know that I sometimes like to divert a few electronic instruments from their use 😅
So here the challenge was to make the LXR-02 (which is supposed to be mainly a digital drum synth) act as a drum machine & a polyphonic pads synth 😄
For this, I used the Conductive Labs NDLR sequencer with its polychain feature (on its PAD track) which can turn up to 4 mono synths into a 4-voice polyphonic synth.
(I used this feature on another video, this time with 4 physical analog mono synths: [below]).
Therefore I used 3 of the tracks of the LXR-02 to play 3-note chords by the NDLR. I used the LXR's individual output, through the Strymon Bigsky reverb for the PADS (through the Pill ducking pedal being triggered by the LXR's drum kick).
I also used 1 track of the LXR-02 to play the ARP part (also sequenced by the NDLR). This time the individual output went through the Strymon Timeline delay.
The Erica Synths DB-01 was used to play the bass riff (still sequenced by the NDLR) through the Eventide - H9 pedal (with some heavy modulated Chorus bringing a Lo-Fi vibe to the sound!).
* Hardware used *
- BASS : Erica Synths DB-01 Bassline + Eventide H9 (Chorus)
- DRUMS : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 (individual output 1+2)
- PADS : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 + Strymon Bigsky + Pill Pedal (individual output 3)
- RIFF : Sonic Potions x Erica Synths LXR-02 + Strymon Timeline (individual output 4)
- LIVE SEQUENCING : Conductive Labs NDLR"
"I wanted to use a couple of the nice features of the NDLR for this video, so I went to set up 6 analog mono synths all sequenced by the NDLR, a couple of effects and the Tanzbar drum machine for this video!
The first feature used here is poly chaining, where 1 track (PAD track) of the NDLR sent 4-note chords to 4 mono synths (Erica Synths - DB01, Make Noise - 0Coast, Roland - SE02 and Novation - Circuit Mono Station), considering them as a unique 4-voice polyphonic synth!
It reminded me a bit me my wonderful Vermona Perfourmer, where each voice of the synth can have different setting regarding the oscillators, envelopes, filter etc. 🤩
I needed to make some quite complex routing in order to be able to side chain the pads with the kick of the MFB - Tanzbar analog drum machine.
I also used the 'chord sequencer' of the NDLR in order to play the whole track as a song (it's like a song mode, where sequences automatically change the global chords).
Here are some further details on the setup:
* PAD: DB01 to SE02 to Bigsky (Right Input) to The Pill Pedal (Input 1) triggered by Tanzbar's kick
* PAD: 0Coast to Circuit Mono Station to Bigsky (Left Input) to The Pill Pedal (Input 2) triggered by Tanzbar's kick
These 4 analog synths were set up in order to respond to the poly chain function of the NDLR (i.e. With a 4-note chord, the NDLR will send each note to one the 4 synths).
* DRONE (Bass): The Moog - Minitaur was being triggered by the DRONE track for the bass.
* MOTIF (Melody): The Arturia - Minibrute 1, through the ZVEX - Instant Lofi Junky & Strymon - Timeline
I forgot to mention that the Tanzbär's main output was processed by the Eventide - H9 (Reverse Delay) effect, excluding its kick which was outputted on its separate output in order to trigger the side chain for the pads on the Pill Pedal."
"Time lapse build of the Sonic-Potions LXR digital drum synthesizer and some messing around with it for the first time. All sounds come from the LXR and the Shruthi-1. The Shruthi is slaved to the LXR and is just playing the equivalent midi notes as the drum sounds. The LXR is being run through a hardwire RV-7 pedal (seen directly north of the LXR). I am sure that this is only scratching the surface of the LXR's capabilities."
"Some machines will never deviate from their designated life mission. Others, like the LXR-02, can entirely reinvent themselves with just a modest push. Erica Synth's little digital drum machine is at heart a six-voice multitimbral synth. The controls are optimised for percussion but it's building blocks are entirely those of synths: Oscillators, envelopes, filters and LFOs. So you're not dressing BoBo the Smoking Chimp with rabbit ears and pretending it's the Easter Bunny. The LXR is already a capable synth.
So here I run through the construction of a couple of synth sounds, meander about through the options, get distracted, lament the poor onboard effects, and end up with a reasonable stereo bassy mid-thing. One small technical note of caution: If you're using a Keystep-37's arpeggiator to play the LXR you may need to go into the LXR's config options and filter the incoming MIDI to just be notes (a single 'N' in the display). This is because the Keystep's 'stop' command sends a CC51 message to the LXR which zeroes Voice 1's decay envelope.
If there's one area where the LXR-02 falls a bit short as a multi-track synth it's in programming and manipulating chromatic sequencer tracks. But a possible solution to that is in the next video...
0:00 Music intro
1:06 Why use it as a synth?
2:30 Which voice?
3:36 Config setup
5:08 Synth basics
7:50 Envelope shape
9:30 Second oscillator
10:20 Detune
12:00 Fiddlings
14:21 LFO
17:34 Stereo field
25:20 FX
27:47 Voice 5
29:27 Repeats
31:12 LFO & FM
"Part eight of a guide for the Erica Synths LXR-02 drum machine. This is with firmware 1.2. In some ways this is less of a tutorial and more of a fun exploration with the LXR-02 paired with a DB-01 Bassline and then a Vermona PerFourMer MkII with a Zen delay. The Euclidean triigers come from the LXR-02's pattern generator. In the first example one channel is dedicated to running the DB-01. The interesting sude effect of the triggering is that it adds sustain to the DB-01 sound. This means switching it on and off gives a very different quality to the sound. In the second example four channels of the LXR-02 trigger four different sounds on the Vermona PerFourMer. The fun comes from switching between channels on the LXR-02 to create rythmic variations. The Zen delay gives some extra complexity and dirt on top.
0:00 Technical setup
1:12 DB-01 pattern
1:44 DB-01 triggered
2:37 Changing the pitch
3:37 Euclidean jam
5:44 PerFourMer MkII setup
6:39 PerFourMer sounds
7:20 Fiddling with triggers
9:10 Zen delay
10:08 Overdrive
12:00 Kick fiddlings
13:00 More drive!
"I recently made the somewhat rash suggestion to try an LXR-02 emulation of the DFAM. Here it is, sort of. At first I thought I'd use only one voice of the LXR. So in all five kits demoed here Voice 1 or 2 tends to claim almost all the LFOs and be a clock-synced complex sound.
But the LXR-02 and DFAM are such very different beasts it seemed odd to be so restrictive. Instead I've gone for a two or three voice 16-step kit and pattern that attempts to capture the flavor of the DFAM rather than strict technical parameters.
The speed of all parts is 73bpm, a couple of the kits use the internal ping-pong delay, and where there is definite pitch it's always on C - just makes things easier for sampling and later processing.
The result is not exactly DFAMish. Demo 2 even sounds bit chiptune to me. But I've never yet owned any two machines which could exactly replicate the other. As an exercise though it's a bit of fun! All LXR-02 challenges happily considered.
On the plus side the LXR-02's ability to store presets is a massive bonus but the constant click-and-twiddle is no match for the knob-filled interface of the DFAM/Edge.
All five kits are on my Patreon. Unused voices (typically 4, 5 and 6) are mostly on the default sounds.
As usual there is absolutely no extra processing of the sound. It's all completely raw LXR-02.
"Just a variation on one of the preset kits with some delay applied, I have only had this a week but i am loving it. All sounds are coming from the LXR. I am not sure what is causing the click on the BD at the start"
Sonic Potions LXR 2nd Jam
Published on Apr 20, 2014
"Using the exact same pattern as my 1st LXR video but this time i loaded some samples onto it.The bass is from the LXR and i used ABL 2 for the 303 and a stock pad from MonoPoly vst. The LXR is synced to Ableton Live (Just about)"
First 10:
1. Fireflies | Modular Eurorack Beat | Erica Synths LXR, Basimilus Iteritas Alter #Jamuary2023 01
First Video this Year! I started this Patch trying to use my new Erica Synths LXR Eurorack Module for a melodic voice which I think turned out pretty nice.
Bloom and Pamelas New Workout are responsible for the sequencing.
Main Melody 1: LXR receiving v/oct from Bloom, sent through Mimeophon.
Main Melody 2: 2hp Pluck sequenced by Bloom, mixed with Noise and filtered by Forbidden Planet through Disting Delay.
Bass is Plaits, distorted and filtered by Peradam and XAOC Zagrzeb.
Kick: Basimilus Iteritas Alter
Drums: Erica Synths LXR
Drums: Queen of Pentacles & some additional Hi-hats made with white and pink noise
Main Melody: Acid Rain Chainsaw
Bass: Basimilus Iteritas Alter
Background Texture is Plaits with the model Input modulated.
3. SHORES | UK GARAGE on MODULAR || #jamuary2023 03
I've been wanting to make some kind of UK garage, burial inspired piece on the modular. I think it turned out pretty neat!
4. EMBERS | Drum and Bass on MODULAR || #jamuary2023 04
Here we go again, 4th day of #jamuary2023! I try to keep it as musically diverse as possible, so I tried to make some Drum and Bass this time. I think it's quite alright for the first try!
It's been a long time since I wanted to use the Forbidden Planet as an Oscillator and I never found the place in a patch since it is always almost on regular filter duties. But I managed this time and it sounds very cool!
6. Erica Synths LXR Eurorack Live Techno Jam | #jamuary2023 07
#jamuary2023 lets go! Part 6! I filmed this video when I just got the Erica Synths LXR, wanting to showcase some of its sounds! I think it sounds absolutely massive!
7. Leaving | Eurorack Drum and Bass || #jamuary2023 07
More Drum and Bass! I'm really happy with the drums in this. I stumbled across the melody by accident just fiddling with Bloom.
The LXR-02, a fully-fledged digital drum machine with an integrated sequencer by Sonic Potions and Erica Synths, was launched less than a year ago and it quickly gained instant recognition among sound designers and preforming musicians. Due to the popularity of this design, we decided to create a a compact and great-sounding eurorack module based on the sound engine of the LXR-02. While retaining the core interface of the LXR-02, this module adds the essential eurorack ingredient - assignable CV control over parameters. Introducing the LXR eurorack module - a digital percussion and bassline powerhouse for your rack!
Features: 6 drum/percussion voices 3 voices can be used as basslines Powerful sound design engine Over 30 adjustable parameters per voice 5 assignable CV inputs with 1V/Oct tracking Insert FX section 4 assignable outputs Kit memory SD card for Kit exchange and easy FW updates Kits compatible with the LXR-02 Module width - 28 HP RRP: 410 EUR (VAT excl.) MAP: 499 USD Available summer 22'
"Even the best 16-step pattern gets stale after too many spins. Here I look at a few simple ways to create variations without actually writing any new steps or copying patterns. The LXR-02 helps out in the background. The routing is just the DB-01 into the Boss GEB-7 EQ and then into The Glove pedal. The LXR-02 stereo out is being used as two channels - one into the Boss delay, the other into the Mosky Audio muff clone. The snare sounds are panned mostly to the delay and the bass drum mostly into the Mosky.
The DB-01 is the clock master and one voice of the LXR-02 is simply following the melody from the bassline. The 2-bar LFO on the LXR-02 melodic voice gives it a slow wave effect.
As usual there are no other effects, tweaks or modifications to the sound - only what you see.
ps: Still having some camera wobble issues. I'll solve it next time for sure :/
0:00 No talk variations demo
3:27 Routing setup & FX
6:40 Variation by LFO
8:06 Adding sustain
8:53 LXR doubling
9:32 Key mode mute
10:15 LFO sustain
10:45 LXR tinkles
11:35 Add a pedal
"The control surface hardware and software are working exactly as expected! This is such a useful tool that really opens loads of possibilities for the LXR Drum Synth.
The control surface is technically an 'Arduino Shield'. You simply populate the components on the PCB, modify the LXR Control Sketch to your liking, upload the sketch your Arduino Uno, and plug in the Arduino Uno to the PCB. You now have a very powerful midi controller designed for your very powerful LXR Drum Synth."
"Erica Synths have created a modular version of their LXR-02 desktop digital drum machine. The LXR Module has all of the great features of the original LXR-02, but with assignable CV Control over parameters for better integration with modular rigs."
"Part five of a getting started guide for the Erica Synths LXR-02 drum machine. This is with firmware 1.2. This tutorial looks just at automation. How to automate steps and tracks isn't obvious at first glance and maybe doesn't sound all that exciting but it can add a huge amount of interesting variation to your patterns. It's also very fast and easy to create the automation tracks, change them, erase them and redo them. I think it's one of the LXR's best features.
0:00 intro
0:43 Creating a track
1:04 Choose an automation track
1:36 Real-time automation
2:17 Second track of automation
3:40 Erasing automation
4:18 Reloading your kit
5:11 Realtime example two
5:53 Panning automation
6:51 Realtime example three
9:25 Step-by-step automation
12:20 Trying different kits
"Yo! This is a teaser for new programmer/expander developed by Bastl Instruments collective. It´s called SixtyKnobs and serves as an expansion module for incredibly powerful LXR drummachine from independent diy synth manufacturer Sonic Potions. It has sixty knobs and it lets you to programm most of LXR´s parameters on the fly. Its great for quick editing and jamming. It truly unleashes the beast hidden in the LXR´s synth engine!
Pricing and availability will be announced in early summer 2016."
