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This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Elektron Model:Cycles MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Elektron Model:Cycles: what it answers to, and the 30 controls it offers, on firmware 1.13.

At a glance

Firmware
This page describes firmware 1.13.
MIDI channel
Any one of 1 to 16.
Parts
Track, 6 of them: each on a MIDI channel of its own, taking notes and controls, with 1 voice each.
Delay and Reverb: on a MIDI channel of its own, taking controls.
Voices
Each part's own, under Parts.
Note range
0 to 60: C-1 to C4, counting middle C as C4.
Velocity
Sent and received.
Aftertouch
Not recorded.
Pitch bend
Not recorded.
Program change
Received and sent, with 96 presets.
MIDI clock
Sent and received.
Start and stop
Sent and received.
Control change
30 controls, in the tables below, 1 of them with a fine half on a second controller number.
NRPN
Supported.
System exclusive
Not recorded.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by part and group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("elektron/model_cycles") has loaded them.

Track

Track parameters

Control CC Values
Note
note		 3 0-127
Mute
mute		 94 0-127
Track level
track_level		 95 0-127
Pan
pan		 10 0-127
Pitch
pitch		 65 0-127
Decay Time
decay_time		 80 0-127
Color
color		 16 0-127
Shape
shape		 17 0-127
Sweep
sweep		 18 0-127
Contour
contour		 19 0-127
Delay Send
delay_send		 12 0-127
Reverb Send
reverb_send		 13 0-127
Volume + Dist
volume_and_distortion		 7 0-127
Swing
swing		 15 0-127
Chance
chance		 14 0-127
Machine Selection
machine_selection		 70 0-127

Playback

Control CC Values
Punch
playback_punch		 66 0-127
Gate
playback_gate		 67 0-127

LFO

Control CC Values
Speed
lfo_speed		 102 0-127
Multiplier
lfo_multiplier		 103 0-127
Fade In/Out
lfo_fade		 104 0-127
Destination
lfo_destination		 105 0-127
Waveform
lfo_waveform		 106 0-127
Start Phase
lfo_start_phase		 107 0-127
Reset
lfo_reset		 108 0-127
Depth
lfo_depth		 109
fine 110		 0-127

Delay and reverb

Delay and reverb

Control CC Values
Delay Time
delay_time		 85 0-127
Delay Feedback
delay_feedback		 86 0-127
Reverb Size
reverb_size		 87 0-127
Reverb Tone
reverb_tone		 88 0-127

Where these facts come from

Source documents

How they were read

User Manual, OS 1.13, 56 pages: the foreword on p. 9, the sound architecture and the channel-sharing rule on p. 16, external MIDI and the note map on p. 19, program change on p. 20, the machines on pp. 35-37, the MIDI menus on pp. 43-45, the technical information on p. 51, APPENDIX A: MIDI SPECIFICATIONS on p. 52, and APPENDIX B and APPENDIX C on p. 53. The downloads page is cited for which OS is current and the release notes for what it changed, because the manual says neither.

THIRTY CONTROL CHANGES, IN THE APPENDIX'S OWN FOUR GROUPS: sixteen track parameters, two playback parameters, eight LFO parameters and four effect parameters. Every number is distinct and inside 0 to 127, and the generator that wrote the block below checks both.

WHICH PART A CONTROL ANSWERS ON COMES FROM THE CHANNEL MENUS AND NOT THE APPENDIX, and the manual draws the line in one sentence each way: "T1-6 IN selects the dedicated MIDI channel that is used to receive parameter data to a specific track" (p. 44) and "FX IN selects the dedicated MIDI channel for the DELAY and REVERB parameters" (p. 44). So twenty-six of the thirty answer on a track's own channel and four on the effects' channel. Delay Send and Reverb Send stay with the track, because they are a track's amount of an effect rather than the effect.

THERE IS NO BASE CHANNEL AND SEVERAL TRACKS MAY SHARE ONE. "Any MIDI channel can be assigned to a track and several tracks can share the same channel. If several tracks are assigned to the same MIDI channel the track with the lowest number has priority regarding parameter conflicts" (p. 16). That last rule is this instrument's own and no field here holds it.

SIX MACHINES, NAMED ONCE AND NUMBERED NOWHERE. The foreword says what they are - "six different machines: Kick, Snare, Metal, Perc, Tone, and Chord" (p. 9) - and "Any machine can be assigned to any track and can be parameter locked" (p. 35). CC 70 selects one of them and the manual gives no number for any machine, so machine_selection below has six states and no mapping. The order above is the order pp. 35-36 print them in, and the manual nowhere says that is the order the menu uses.

AND THE PAGE THAT WOULD ANSWER WHAT CC 16 DOES IS NOT IN THE TEXT LAYER. The table on p. 36 sets the six machines against their four macro controls, and only the Chord machine's row can be extracted - that row is moreover left in the file invisibly on two other pages, which is what a reader of the raw text sees instead of the other five. Read by eye off the rendered page, the four controls mean: for KICK, soft square-like modulation, triangle-like modulation and feedback, pitch sweep depth and time, modulation envelope depth; for SNARE, inharmonicity amount, modulation amount and feedback, pitch sweep depth and time, modulation envelope depth; for METAL, tune offset A, modulation amount and feedback, tune offset B, modulation envelope depth; for PERC, inharmonicity amount, modulation amount, pitch sweep, modulation envelope depth; for TONE, modulator ratio, modulation amount, feedback amount, modulation envelope depth; and for CHORD, "Chord: Interval mix and osc balance. Unison: Detune" (p. 36), unison or chord, wavetable sweep, filter cutoff envelope depth. Those twenty-four readings are the one thing in this file that a second method could not corroborate, because no text engine can see five of the six rows.

THE INDEX STILL CARRIES THE SAMPLER'S PARAMETERS, which is the plainest evidence of where this document came from. It lists "SAMPLE LOCKS" (p. 55) and, on the previous page, "LOOP" and "REVERSE" - and LOOP and REVERSE appear nowhere else in these fifty-six pages, because this instrument has neither. The Model:Samples has both, at CC 17 and 18, where this one has Shape and Sweep. The body slips the same way once: p. 18 offers to "backup up your projects and samples" (p. 18), on an instrument whose own foreword asks "how do we accomplish that without using samples?" (p. 9).

AND FOUR CONTROLS CHANGE MEANING WITH THE MACHINE, which is the thing that most distinguishes this instrument from its sibling. "The four parameters, COLOR, SHAPE, SWEEP, and CONTOUR, affects the sound in different ways depending on what machine you have selected" (p. 37) - so CC 16 is six different parameters depending on CC 70. The Analog Rytm in this corpus has the same shape and more of it; there is nothing in this format to express it, and the labels below are the appendix's.

NOT RECORDED: WHAT SHAPE DOES UNDER THE CHORD MACHINE, although the manual lists it.

APPENDIX C names thirty-eight settings in order - unison spreads and then chords from "minor" to "Fifths" - and gives no number against any of them, so they cannot become choices.

A THIRD CHANNEL IS AN ALIAS RATHER THAN A PART. "AUTO IN selects the MIDI channel for the AUTO channel that gives access to the currently active track" (p. 44), so it addresses no fixed part. A fourth, PCH, carries program change alone.

AND ONE DIRECTION HAS NO AUTO CHANNEL, as on the sibling. The input menu has nine entries, six tracks and FX and AUTO and PCH; the output menu has eight, six tracks and FX and PCH. So the AUTO channel receives and does not send.

TWO MODULATION DESTINATIONS HAVE NO CONTROLLER AT ALL.

APPENDIX B names Fine Tune and LFO Trig Mode among the things the LFO and velocity can reach, and neither has a row in APPENDIX A - so they can be modulated from inside the instrument and not set from outside it.

NOT RECORDED: aftertouch, pitch bend and system exclusive. The manual mentions none of the three anywhere, in either direction, so all three are silences rather than checked absences.

NOT RECORDED: any range, and the reason is the sibling's. The appendix has two columns, Parameter and CC MSB, and nothing else. The parameter chapters do give ranges, but in the instrument's own units: Pitch is "(-24-+24, equivalent to four octaves.)" (p. 37) and bipolar, and both sends are "(OFF, 1-127)" (p. 37), whose bottom is a word. And two of them a single controller could not carry: Delay Feedback is "(0-198)" and Delay Time "(1.00-128.00)" (p. 41), "relative to the current BPM and measured in 128th notes" (p. 41), each with one number in the appendix and no LSB - exactly as on the sibling, whose own Delay Feedback is the same 0 to 198. Nothing says how any of those becomes a controller value, so every control below keeps the format's default of 0 to 127.

NOT RECORDED: the kind of MIDI socket. The specification gives "3.5 mm dual polarity TRS MIDI In, Out/Thru jacks" (p. 51) and the output's polarity is a setting; there is no field for a connector, so it is here.