That preamp costs as much as the whole AR!! 
I’m sure that it sounds nice.
EDIT: no, I selected the wrong preamp of that series. uhm, interesting 
ah yes, the Solo 610 … single channel budget version. still worth a pretty penny good sir! 
i came to the opinion that it was a luxury i did not need, while scaling down my studio, and sold it.
am now on the market for another one.
the hot glass became like a sound shaping unit… driving the tube at different levels via the gain knob on the front, or louder/softer signal at the input.
magnificent as a vocal preamp too.
but what the 610 did to the MD’s internal synthesis kick drums was amazing, really took sound design to the next level, another universe of glowing hot glass presets.
for some people though it is totally unnecessary, as they can gain the same results using simple EQ and light compression in the DAW.
Everybody is talking about the sound, which will be nice no doubt. But what is really important to me are the realtime performance features. The MD is all-out glitch or static patterns to me, nothing in between.
My hopes for the AR are features that enable easy fillins and variations with the press of a button. I have the feeling the scene mode will do this kind of stuff on the AR.
And transferring samples over midi was no fun on the MD. Unhook md from midi cables, insert TM-1 midi cables, upload samples, unhook TM-1, insert other midi cables every time you wanted an extra sample. Not to mention the 2,5mb per project…
Yeah, I really hope it’s USB transfer with the AR seen as an external disk.
@previewlounge: slightly off-topic but interesting info about the 610… the new UA apollo Twin interface presented at Namm features brand new active pre-amp emulations of the 610… wonder if it’ll do similar things to drums!
fascinating! 
also there is a dual channel version of the solo 610.
http://www.uaudio.com/hardware/mic-preamps/2-610.html
but yes the AR is just going to sound fantastic out of the box …
from what few joyous seconds of audio examples i have listened to, the unit really sparkles, is high quality, possesses a deep sonic richness and phatness.
edit: certainly is possible to get awesome, sassy, warm, ground-and-booty-shaking kicks from the Machinedrum without the use of any external gear… it just takes a bit more work, and so often i hear that ‘layering’ is the key to designing new original sounding kicks from the MD. Also, the unit really comes alive in a high volume situation. Those internal synthesis kicks go next level in the mix at a live gig through a big system.
It sure does - no doubt!
I’m really looking forward to the Analogue RYTM, it’s the product that’s gotten me on board with the idea of an Elektron workflow and I’m now carefully studying the rest of the range 
Currently I create my drums using BazzISM (a very basic VST drum synth) and samples layered/triggered together in a drum rack in Ableton, RYTM pretty much puts that exact workflow in a box for me
After looking into the Elektron range more I think an Octatrack and Machinedrum could both potentially be in my future…
AR = Trentemøller
MD = Kraftwerk
Man the MD kicks are among my fave on any drum machine, it does take a fair bit of tweaking to zone in on the sound you are after, but I never found it necessary to layer kicks or do any fancy stuff other than setting the parameters to how I wanted the kick to sound.
IIRC I tended to favour the FM BD and TRX1 BD, and sometimes just using GND SIN to make them.
I look forward to hearing what the AR can do when the proper demos arrive, I’m sure it will deliver though, but probably different enough from the MD that you can choose either or both (or neither!)
I admit though for the first time with the AR it has not gone right to my must buy list, I’m not hugely into pads, and generally don’t have much interest in making basslines on a drum machine and some of the other great features the AR has are not must haves for me, I tend to like quite straight drums rather than balls to the wall wild ring mod or lots of FM pitchy stuff, as I have plenty of other gear that can handle this type of thing on the rare occassion I might want it.
The nature of Elektron gear is that it is so broad and so flexible, that really the best way is to try it in your own studio doing your music with it, so I don’t expect to be wowed by every demo or even by the sounds, but it is difficult to hear things like the general character when all we have at the moment is trade show jams - which are great BTW!
Either way I think the AR will be a future classic like all the others, and a huge success for Elektron.
If it could sample then it would probably be a no brainer, and I think a lot of MPC guys might be interested in it then too, I don’t think it has to have Octatrack type sampling, but a simple drum orientated sampling section with chop would push me over the edge 
^ wise and fair comments. Feel very similar… Sampling would realy set it on fire and I’m not sure it would necessarily cross over too much with the OT being as that’s a much more complex sampling machine.
WHERE TF are the sounds.
Surely we’re not expected to listen to Cenk talking every time wanna try and hear it. Tho he does have a lovely voice.
How patient exactly is patient. 
- maybe there waiting to hear the rhythm wolf first.
thing is…hypothetically, if you were building an analog drum machine with sampling and you had a sampler like the OT in your lineup and you didn’t want a lot of crossover…it does not mean that you would build a machine without the ability…meaning, I would guess that the AR could technically do a lot of what people are dreaming but they don’t want to unleash that at the moment…maybe as an update down the road
that’s just a guess but it would seem like the smart thing to do (build some upgradability in your new machines)
^ yeah i guess its almost certainly possible… Can’t think of a good reason for it not to be unless it takes extra hardware and cost… Same with sequencer midi out, the potential is surely there. Even if they left it a year or two imagine dropping that? On par with the + drive etc in A4 and then the USB streaming of audio… I guess they will keep these things secret.
yep, they are charging a pretty penny for this device, I’m thinking they would have the hardware costs needed to be a full on sampler covered…but it would be better to drop it as a bombshell on people a year or two down the road
It may be too early for anyone to be able to answer this but how do the sequencers compare between the MD SPS-1UW+ MKII and the Analog Rytm?
Also, do either offer any improvisation features for on-the-fly fills or beat repeats, etc?
Does anyone know if the AR will have a kit reset feature like the MD w/ Function+Extended?
Best I can tell the sequencer is like an A4.
The scene feature should cover on the fly fills and such.
The one thing the AR has that I wish the MD had is the chromatic scales. Why can’t that be implemented on the MD? I love the MD and I can compose a complete song with the MD alone but that missing feature always bothers me. That being said the AR and MD are going to be great companions.
you can use multiple machines tuned differently and then use the ctrl-all to transpose them all at once?
it would be a cool feature though if you could play the pitch control with the trigs or something, it doesn’t respond to MIDI notes does it?
the way the nord drum 2 does tuned percussion is very cool. i’d like to see them one up clavia. 
… it would be a cool feature though if you could play the pitch control with the trigs or something, it doesn’t respond to MIDI notes does it? …[/quote]
This is an annoyance to be sure. One reason I can think of is that as some of the machines are tunable to standard pitches while others are not, HQ figured the space in the OS was better allocated elsewhere. Or, once the UW models came out, possibly they thought making easy melodies with the MD would be too much overlap with the MnM. Who knows.
( @jonah - The MD doesn’t respond to pitched notes via MIDI. )
I get around this issue using a MiniCommand, but if you have the patience this document can help. A trick: Assign the same tunable machine to a lot of the MD’s trigs and tune each to a different pitch you like, making it into a crude keyboard. Once you bang out a melody you like, you can consolidate it to a few machines with the notes tuned via plock. Not ideal but it works.
