How to make music with a sequencer

This is Cirklon 2, Aphex Twin's favourite hardware sequencer. Cirklon is notoriously hard to get since current waiting lines for it are about 3 years now. It is very complex and feature rich sequencer, so I will do my best in showing most of its features.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:48 Drums & Bass
05:12 Lead & Chords
09:54 Aux Events
15:05 Drum Patterns
20:21 Adding Samples
22:12 Final Jam

⏺ ⏺ ⏺

EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE
USED IN THIS VIDEO

AUDIO
– Sequentix Cirklon 2 with Vortex M0110
– Access Virus TI2 Desktop Whiteout
– Roland R-8M
– MAM MB33
– OTO BIM & BOUM
– Chase Bliss CXM 1978
– Zähl AM1
– RME UFX III
– RME M-32 AD/DA Pro II
– Teenage Engineering CM-15 & OP-1 Field
– iConnectivity mioXC
– Korg CA-2
– Renoise

VIDEO
– Leica SL2-S, APO-Summicron-M 1:2/35 ASPH.
– Leica SL2, Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-70mm f/2.8
– Arri Orbiter, Open Face Optic 15°
– Licht Technik Bag-o-Light
– Blackmagic Design Video Assist 7" 12G HDR
– Deity TC-1 & TC-SL1
– DaVinci Resolve Studio
– Video Village Filmbox

Fonts:

© 2024 Advanced Research GmbH

[toslinked]

it started brilliantly and then turned into rocket science pretty quickly. this thing is tight.

[insipid.dreams]

watching someone familiar with a synth work their way around is truly a wonderful experience. fantastic video

[bwest]

That 303 programming is so much easier than the actual 303 haha. That alone sold me :D

[xani]

No wonder so many people want it, looks like a joy to work with when you get the functions into muscle memory

[aaaaaaaaa-s]

Great job, for me it s super helpful to see not only a tutorial on a device, but also a strategy of how people approach the process of making a track. Keep doin!

[kristianmock]

your fluency makes this video so fun to watch

[klinkske]

It took 4 years to arrive. I don t think i will ever be so handy with it like you. Buying was the easy part 🤭

[illGatesMusic]

I can’t thank you enough. There are VANISHINGLY few high grade Cirklon videos out there. You are a saint!

[martinquadode]

Der Sequenzer Cirklon von Sequentix ist der beste und komplexeste Sequenzer, der mir bekannt ist. Es macht unglaublich viel Spaß mit diesen Gerät zu arbeiten. Wer immer nur vor einem Bildschirm gesessen hat, kann meine Begeisterung vielleicht nicht nachvollziehen. Ich will Potentiometer und Schalter zum anfassen.

[vveerrgg]

this is everything I wished the QY700 was when I was using it as my music brain in the studio. VERY sweet workflow and looks like it would lead to a VERY interesting performance experience. Great video !!! ... thank you for hitting record and sharing it out. inspiring even !!!

[Farold_Haltermeyer]

As someone who loathes sequencers and the homogenised rhythms they seem to draw out of users this was still a fun watch, thank you!

[LukeKillen]

Good to see someone is spending quality time with a Cirklon. Your video makes me think i should put a mechanical keyboard onto my Cirklon.

[ccorcos]

I love how there's clearly a recipe for making a song like this. It would be cool to construct this recipe in SonicPi or Overtone to generate more songs like it with different variations.

I also notice that the OP-Z was clearly aspiring to make something more like this, but it's just much less usable than Cirklon.

[kylen-unixowy]

nooo way xD, this is the best session I've ever seen, the whole flow is in my style, mechanical keyboard, hardware synth and one hardware sequencer, it's amazing, I love it. For the same purpose and to achieve the same work flow, I use MPC One+ with many hardware synth (midi+usb with hub) for the same thing, but your solution is much better and even more convenient.

[Cohabitor]

This is the best Cirklon video on YouTube. It tremendously helped my workflow, Please post more!

[HarryKelvin]

Bless you for helping demystify the Cirklon! I love mine but you’ve totally inspired me to dig deeper. Thanks!

[MatsueMusic]

As a newbie to synths you had me thinking this was “vintage” gear. But the more you showed the more I was blown away.

I will say I experienced enough to know that you make the entire process of music making look like second nature. Bravo! The way you showed the process simply appears like a masterclass, even though I know nothing about this.

If this is not “programming music”, I don’t know what it is

[LlewynDaviesTheThird]

This is great. Please do more. I like your use of accumulators especially

[Lordxfx]

Just beautiful your control of the unit.

[johanneshej]

This machine is so nice with its tactile buttons and mechanical feeling. It’s great to see modern machines with buttons like this, because it seems like the whole world went to horribly untactile membrane buttons and mushy pads from 1985 on. Remember how Roland and others used to have such great tactile, clicky and satisfying buttons back in the 70s and early 80s, like the CR-78, 909, the MSQ and CSQ sequencers (probably my favs) but most companies had much more satisfying hardware back then. Until Yamaha dropped the DX7… (which I love btw, but not for its buttons).
Now we’ve got machines like this one, Elektron’s Digi’s and Syntakt and recently Melbourne Instruments who just dropped a very nice midi controller (also with rotor knobs) that’s got super nice and satisfying buttons.
Great demo btw!