I've always wanted a Monomachine SFX60. I wanted one back when it was new, though the price tag had put it completely out of reach of my admittedly low budget back in 2007.

I've seen (heard) some really crazy stuff come out of these in the hands of LA's Sleep Clinic and if you haven't, tracks of his appear on Norelco Mori Episode 057 and Norelco Mori LTD 001.

I'm a late to the party convert to the Elektron way of doing things, having finally pieced together my own “Dark Trinity” just 4 years ago. But after recently getting into both the Digitakt and Digitone, I realized the depth of the older devices was just not present. Not like it is on the Octatrack. Even the seemingly crippled Analog Four and Rytm both offer pretty extensive performance-mode customization. The challenge of adjusting your gait to the steep learning curve was not really a thing with these two new boxes. Not to say that's bad, but I wanted more flexibility.

The +Drive versions of the SFX60 MKII don't come up for sale all that often so I jumped at the opportunity to pay a premium for one in great condition. I have to say, the aluminum faceplate is growing on me. I have always been a fan of the custom-made black Dick Malibu panel. Years back, I was just minutes too late to buy Richard Devine's black panel Monomachine for sale on Muff Wiggler and, even now, I am still mad that I deliberated about spending $800 on that thing for long enough to lose out. If you have a spare black panel (why would you?) please reach out!

I'm thrilled to have a new (to me) machine with a big, fat, ringbound manual to spend some time with. I've also printed out a copy of Tarekith's Monomachine tips compiled from the old Elektron forum. I'll be posting some more here to share my progress along the way.

It might also be time to dust off the old' YouTube channel.