RYTM Side Chain questions

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Is it possible ITB? I read some people saying that you can run the Kick out of the external input back into the “audio in” but no instructions on what settings are needed.

The manual is a little confusing in regards to the SEQ (side chain eq)

• “OFF lets the sidechain signal remain unchanged.”
(So where is the “sidechain” signal coming from? Are they referring to the main/only signal coming in or some other source? If so, then how is this different from the “Mix” parameter?)

• HIT results in a balanced equalization of the sidechain signal,
making the compressor react similarly to all frequencies
of the signal.
(I understand the “low” and “hi” settings but how is “HIT” different then “OFF” when used with “MIX”? I guess I’m confused because I still don’t understand where the sidechain signal is coming from and how it differs from the regular signal)

Mainly I’m just trying to get the classic “pump” effect. I’m hoping to use the audio from a Korg Electribe into the “audio in L/R” so I hope I don’t need to use up one of those inputs for the side chain kick…

Thanks!

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AR Analog Rytm feature request thread
#2

The Analog rytm side chain is not a classical side chain, but a side chain like the RNC or RNLA.

A part of the signal is filtered to control the threshold, so you don’t need an external input like on classical side chain compressor

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#3

Could you explain how you would set up a mix to get that classic pump sound?
Of course, in normal SC comp, you would have the compression on the entire track except the Kick (and whatever else you don’t want comp on) and the Kick would be the only thing controlling the comp.

The closest I can come up with in my head would be to use the “low” SEQ setting. However, wouldn’t that trigger the COMP when I use a Bass Tom or say a Bass Sample or anything with low freqs?

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#4

Also, I have the FMR RNC and I can do classic Side Chain on that no problem (half jack into the SC input works great). I honestly don’t know any other way to do it either on the FMR or pretty much in general.

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#5

FMR RNC and RNLA compressors both used an “FX sidechain” TRS send/return for sending to an EQ, like the Rytm compressor’s.

If you put a kick on the side chain of the RNLC or RNLA, it won’t work normally.
They are not design to work like this.

AdamJay Feb 16
The important thing to understand is there are two types of side chain inputs on compressors.

The RNC/RNLA use an FX loop type. The other type, for daft punk style squashing and rebounding is a “KEY” input type.

I actually prefer the FX loop type, as you can get heavier gain reduction without artifacts when using an HPF like the FMOD, or an EQ with heavy cuts in the low end (A mono bass eq pedal also works, by the way). The big bass of dance music won’t trip up the compressor (which is a usual complaint on the RNC), and the result is not unlike an L2 or Ozone master limiter.

I use this live with the RNC, in Super Nice Mode and you can hear it doing its thing on the entire mix here: https://soundcloud.com/adamjaylive/adam-jay-live-pa-louisville-ky-12-31-154

#6

Okay, I’m still confused.

How exactly do I use one of the AR individual outputs to control the compressor? I would assume I would need to plug the output from the individual channel into one of the “audio inputs” but how would I make the compressor look to that signal? Also, wouldn’t plugging into the the “audio in” just double the loudness of whatever sound it was sending?

I wouldn’t mind hearing how you use the filter too if you can spare the time :slight_smile:

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#7

Would like to see a video tutorial on the side chaining effect via AR.

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#8

How exactly do I use one of the AR individual outputs to control the compressor?

You can’t.

You control the compressor with a filter or an eq (like on RNLC or RNLA) but it is integrated with the analog rytm, you can only choose some settings of the filter/EQ (LOW, HI, HIT)

#9

It is far more effective to just plock the compressor in AR’s case

#10

What parameter would you plock? The MUP?
How would you get the kick pumping sound when the kick is also running through the comp too?

I would love it if someone would just share their favourite parameter settings for getting the classic Daft Punk-esq kick pump.

#11

to simulate compressor key action, you want to control the threshold with the LFO

try plocks too with param slide?

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#12

Cool, I’ll give it a whirl tonight.

Thanks!!

#13

Hey done it yesterday with plocks on the cymbal.
Just set every two steps. Then plock the amp volume in 1 5 9 13. Had normal level 90 and plock on 73.
Then made parameter slide on every step. Works really nice!

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#14

Why do you think it’s like the rnc?

It’s not like the rnc, the rnc has a separate side chain input that you can plug anything into.

It’s designed to be used on the inserts of your mixer.

The analog rytm doesn’t have a separate input, only an eq of the incoming signal.

I don’t see any eq on my rnc, what features am I missing here?

#15

I can’t see a way to get a solo’d kick drum to trigger the compressor for a pumping effect.

Given this compressor effectively sits over the drum bus, why would you even want that? Most commonly, you don’t want ducking or pumping of your drum track. Most often you want to keep the drums’ dynamics fairly intact. The most common use of a compressor pump is over a bass or instrument track, driven by a kick. The AR isn’t designed (primarily) to allow the compressor to pump a bass or instrument track. Instead you have a drum bus compressor that lets you mix between direct insert and parallel compression. It’s mainly for controlling your transients or gluing your sounds together - almost the opposite of making the bass & kick stand out against one another.

The AR does have synth features, yes. You can set it up to play your bass or leads as well as your drums. I can see why you’d hope it could duck or pump your synth tracks.: but it’s an insert over the whole bus, not iver the bass track.

If you want to pump your AR generated synth tracks, you’re better off taking the individual outs for the BD and whichever track you’re using for your synths and using an external compressor for that. You could probably feed that back into the AR and use its compressor to glue everything together again, if you were careful with routing.

Before you say “but they should have thought of this”, remember than the 2VCO was added in software several years after the hardware was designed.

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#16

This what I do - my signal chain is basically Rev2->Virus->Octatrack->NABC+ compressor (side chained to Rytm BD individual out)->Rytm ext in. Loving this setup, the Rytm compressor is great gluer.

Edit: Ahh I didn’t see the part about pumping internal dual vco stuff… but you probably could do it with an external compressor as you outline :slight_smile:

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#17

I like to sidechain most of my percussion to the kick, especially hi hats and cymbals. On the DT you can select which trigger will act as the sidechain input, and I believe that trigger is not effected by the compressor. This gets me the pumping sound within the DT, and some flexible compressor routing.

I am still new to the RYTM, but like this group I am trying to get a handle on the best way to use the compressor. Adjusting the mix gets me closer to the sound I’m after, but is there any hardware related reason it doesn’t (or couldn’t) function the way the DT compressor does? I know its analog, maybe that’s the issue when it comes to specific routing flexibility for the sidechain?

#18

It’s simply not wired that way.

It looks to me that Elektron decided early on that they didn’t want to add the complexity of the necessary routing. If they had added it, it would have meant many new audio lines within the circuits, little sub-mixers or de/muxers, fiddly UI and control circuits and yet another pathway by which sound might not come out of the channel like you expect (there’s already three or four of those).

People keep asking why it doesn’t let you apply the compressor to just one of the 2VCO tracks for ducking baselines. The 2VCO machines weren’t even in the original OS release, so I don’t find it surprising the hardware routing isn’t present.

The SEQ setting in the compressor might help you, however. The label is short for Sidechain EQ. There is a side chain circuit, but it’s only set up to allow EQ-based filtering of the main mix as the control signal. The LPF value for the setting makes the compressor “listen to” just a low-passed version of the source, so it’ll respond to bass peaks, but not high peaks. You could approximate your kick-driven ducking using that.

If you have a separate compressor, you could pass the main output signal through that, and use the BD individual out drive the external compressor’s side-chain.

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#19

What sort of cable are you using? I am not sure which will be the best since individual outputs on AR mk2 are balanced. I am thinking of isolating my BD through FMR sidechain but I am not sure which cable to use:

  • TS to TS (mono-mono) with half jack sticking out from fmr sidechain input?
  • TRS to TS (stereo-mono) with half jack sticking out from fmr sidechain input?
  • TRS to TRS?