AR's 1GB and sample management

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Hey-o.

So I’ve been having a grand time using my ARmkI with my modular.

Sample playback has been interesting too. I haven’t gone full hog converting stereo samples (ie field recordings) to mono to see how it works, but for the one shorts and fxs and such its been going well: individual outs trading off samples for engines including noise and DVCO into Beads. Good times.

What gives me pause about investing fully into it, however, is the 1gb limit and sample management. Unlike the OT, the AR offers no clue as to what sample was used for a kit.

So my question is to those who regularly have to perform sample management on their Drive and kits? Is this cumbersome? How do you get around knowing what you used when?

I appreciate any insight into your workflow and ways. Thanks in advance.

#2

I am not sure but with the latest Transfer 1.4 you should have the possibility to backup whole projects (including used samples). So as long as you have those on your computer you are more or less safe deleting all samples on the +Drive. Maybe check that if that works for you. Kits are part of the project

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#3

Maybe I missed then the new Transfer’s skillset. Honestly I haven’t perused it much…

Does the backup make note of which sample you used? For example the OT, if a used sample is deleted or moved, will say something like “missing ‘piano chord C’”, “piano chord C” being the name of the sample.

#4

For me, it’s all about curation. When I first got my DT about 3 or 4 years ago I made the decision that I didn’t want to replicate that old problem with the computer where I end up scrolling aimlessly through gigabytes of samples. I use the same curated sample library for ARmkI too.

The idea is that I only put on samples that I have a particular resonance with and that appeal to my particular tastes and for each ‘category’ of sample I tend to have relatively small selections to choose from. For example, in the folder ‘D_x0x’, I have 3, 4 maybe 5 variations of each of the sounds from the 909, 808, 606 etc - different tune/decay settings, maybe some processed with tape or what have you. I don’t need to have every last nuance of every last sound on hand - but my library is organised in a way that I can quickly get a variety of sounds that work for a wide range of styles quickly (and my music taste is all over the place like a bad suit).

It does mean that I don’t actually know which samples are used and which aren’t but then, there aren’t many on there that I think are wasting space - they may come in handy some time. And, it’s only very occasionally I add to to the library and in those circumstances it would tend to be a few Mb here and there.

An important thing though, is that I didn’t try to build a curated library overnight - I started off pretty small and have slowly added to over time.

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#5

Very good insight.

I have too found large sample library are not that useful with AR.
It all depends what you have around it: all the atmospheric samples are stored on my OT CF card.
I try to have samples that sound nice chewed by the AR, and leave some room for resampling.

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#6

You can view the contents of the backup file (IIRC Winrar worked), but it’s just a file on your computer.
You could use backups to switch between different projects including all samples easily and thus use more space for your projects, because no worries about sample slots, making lists etc. like it used to be.

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#7

Thanks everyone!

It’s these two ideas that’s giving me pause about using the AR as main sample playback machine.

My concern is that the long, atmospheric samples that are often far bigger than one shots is going to eat a lot of space of that 1gb. So inevitably then I would be required to do some reshuffling of the +Drive which would require I delete files that I may or may have already used elsewhere. And without any indication as to to which file was used (unlike on the OT), I can see it becoming a huge hassle.

I have an OT. The OT is obviously the answer here, but Ive recently found myself disinterested in hooking it up and have had a much better time with just the AR and my modular.

Which is why I’m asking for people’s experiences shuffling around their +Drive, feeling out whether its just too cumbersome to rely on as main sample playback unit.

I’ll take a look at Transfer, do some tests…we’ll see. Thanks everyone for the insights!

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#8

Yeah, longer atmospheric samples is where it does fall down a bit. It’s the one area of divergence for my AR and DT libraries exactly because the wider tuning range of the latest DT firmware means I can take advantage of the old pitch samples up 2 or 3 octaves before transferring to the +drive. It would be great if that got added into an AR firmware update…

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#9

Same here, I focus on short oneshots. You can have a shit ton of short 50kb oneshots in the space of one long pad sample.

Longer samples, pads, textures etc go to OT.
Plus I find weird joy in cutting miniature half-second bits out of pad/texture/synth sounds, to use looped with Rytm.

#10

Where I think it falls down, for my purposes, is the 128 pool size limit. I find the analogue machines too limited for my purposes, so use samples for pretty-much everything.

In an ideal world, I’d have a different sample set (12 pads) for each kit, without limits - or at least something like 32 completely different kits, based on samples. Currently, the 128 gives me 128/12=10 kits with all-different samples.

Which is kind-of why I’m not really using my Rytm much these days.

#11

On the model:samples you can have as much as (number of tracks) x (number of patterns) samples per project.

#12

Hi, it’s called Analog Rytm not Sample Rytm. :slightly_smiling_face:
My understanding of it’s concept is that samples can be layered on top of the analog sound design / synth. The sound pool of a single project comprises 128 Kits with 8 voices / 12 tracks and each track can be supported by a sample. Though there are “only” 127 samples in a project.
There are quite comprehensive tutorials that explain sound design using the different analog machines per track. I think that’s where AR shines. If you don’t compose sounds using it’s analog capabilities then imho Digitakt or Octatrack or M:S fit better for you.

P.S.: I’d love to see a successor / modernized Octatrack “MK3” with the same form factor.

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#13

Yeah - I know what the unit is and what it’s for. I’m no beginner. My samples are almost all produced by myself from various other hardware and software - and quite heavily processed.

All I’m saying is that if I could use my own samples more flexibly, it’d be more useful Ito me. As-is, I mostly use other units which are more sample oriented.

The 128 samples per project limit, is an arbitrary limitation in software. It should be hypothetically possible to increase that number.

…and the “analog” bit of the architecture, isn’t just source sound generation, it’s filters too. Samples with the analogue filters is what I’m really after.

#14

No limitations on the Akai kit too, which is why I mostly use MPC and/or Force. Quite often with my DSI Tempest too.