(Not interested in using samples, obvious answer is Digitone)
Any smart ideas on how to pair chords / pad with an Analog Rytm? As simple as possible, driven by the sequencer.
Constraints:
The best I’ve come up with so far is Dreadbox Nymphes chord mode, driven by 1 Rytm track.
if I’m not mistaken, Digitone can play chords from single note when set from the keyboard menu
roland j6 ?
Minologue has chords from single note
Check this demo out. The Roland SH-01a can do this.
And so does the cheaper and somehow so much more powerful Roland S-1.
For 160€, don’t think twice.
I think you can set fixed chords in the Blokas Midihub as MIDI effect so you can trigger chords in every polyphonic synth by playing only one note.
Edit:
Yes, note to chord function on board. 
https://blokas.io/midihub/
Analog Rytm- 8 Voice Drum Computer and Sampler.
Big clue in it’s title that shouldn’t be overlooked for chord duties… pick any synth you want, sample it, use the Rytm’s internal processing and sequencing.
This approach just got even better with OS1.7’s increased resolution of sample points and quantised sample recording lengths.
If you take this approach (sampling/resampling), you can really get your sounds into another realm with any of the suggestions (SH01a (all the boutiques), Arturia Microfreak, Blofeld, Volca’s, etc, etc).
I haven’t tried S1 yet, but SH 01a has a great interface that seems more fun and straightforward to me. They can be had used for around 250-280€. Both versions are not ideal for pads imo as SH 101 was originally a mono synth, can sound a bit too beefy.
Nymphes is an excellent suggestion for an alternative, you might wanna check how the interface handles chords though and see if that’s to your liking.
Korg Minilogue (XD) has chord modes as well if I remember correctly. Not too many chords stored though afaik.
There is utility hardware and software solutions for splitting midi into channels per voice. The Rytm can function as a 3 voice analog polysynth on its own.
I realised that the Chord is a modulation destination on Nymphes, including from Velocity - the only thing that Rytm can send.
So you could sequence chords from a Rytm track, with Note setting the root of the chord e.g. A or B, and then Velocity to select one of 7, such as Major, Minor etc.
A bit fiddly, but should be manageable for genres like dub techno or house, where the chord repeats a lot.
Do our resident Rytm masters have any chord partners?
@George_Michael @Sleepyhead @pokk
the monophonic constraint is difficult. my god if this machine was capable of even just four note polyphonic sequencing it’d be game over.
I was literally thinking of tackling chords again yesterday, but internally, although for sure you could use the midi out per track and get quite a-lot of miles still.
The way i used to do chords when limited sequencing back in the early 90’s, was just playing them live. I used to have a Juno 60, back when they were £200, and it only has a arpeggiator, and although eventually i got a Kenton convertor to use midi to DCB (the Juno’s port at the time) i still used to play them manually. Loads of early electronic music the chords and pad sounds were played live, and id say it often sounded better because of it.
All pads played live on this (Juno 60) with a simple beat in the background:
I feel chords are less the problem, it’s more the polyphony when moving from note to note using a pad or sustained notes, although i feel both can be done the same way. Arguably you could do 3 note polyphony and still have quite a few free tracks for other stuff.
What i was going to try was using the top choke tracks for the chords and also maybe the MT and HT.
Each track with a single oscillator/sound and slow-ish envelope, all the same settings although obviously you can make deviations to create more movement, and then play across the pads the chords or single long notes.
If using single notes per track, you can use single oscillators but pitched differently like with the SY DUAL OSC or similar. So between that and 3-4 dedicated pads, you can probably create enough chord movement, using a combination of setting trigs for oscillator pitch changes, actual track pitch changes and across each track.
It’s a but like granular, just rotate around the tracks to allow that track to finish its longer release before it’s triggered again, or just using all tracks combined with the sacrifice of abrupt release times on chord changes.
I can imagine it getting fiddly but i think starting with one note, getting that sequence down and the copy the sound and track, and then start adjusting it, could work relatively well. I used to do this often after hearing the early Autechres Incunabula and also the remixes of Basscadet. The pads on that were often a few note variations just rotating in interesting ways.
You could also use a combination of SRC and SMPL maybe the first few notes created on the SRC, sampled and put into the SMPL to free up the SRC again. That should help with some interesting texture too as the combination of samples and oscillators blending together will give the impression of a chord sound more.
The only video i have that sorta does some of this is using a chord sample spread across two tracks, 9 and 11, panned, slightly pitched differently and then i used the PERF dial to pitch them as a slide, kinda to get around the whole polyphony thing. It worked really well i felt, as the fx are somewhat tailored to the chords primarily and then added to drums where workable after. This allowed for shorter release times on chords as the fx pick up the bulk of that sustained job. Aphex Twin did this loads in his early stuff, really quite short sounds but with a ton of Alesis Reverb+Chorus to blur the edges giving it a chord like quality.
I can see some techniques benefiting some styles more than others, but with a few choices to pick from, i feel it’s likely to work in most tracks you want chords in.
If you need chords and plenty of drums, then obviously using a drum per trig, which has just got a ton easier now being able to save sounds from trigs.
I will see if i can put something together myself and do a video on it this week and explore the synths more.
Hopefully something in here is helpful or triggers and idea.
Here is the pitching/slide chord sketch i did:
Microfreak?
If you use the sidechain function in the Rytm, then you can pass anything from the DAW through the Rytm and even use and lock the effects from the Rytm.
I use the Rytm with a midi keyboard and the retrokits rk002 smart midi cable. It can send round robin midi to the AR allowing you to play it like a 3 voice polysynth on the first 3 tracks.
Sounds amazing. The downside is you have to copy the sound to 2 other pads each time you change it, the upside is that you can make it sound truly wild because you can change each of the 3 voices completely.
I have a Digitone and an A4 MkII for this duty. Sorry its the obvious answer.
That’s how I feel about Syntakt
Confirming, AR works great with micro + minifreak chord mode.
Also, if you don’t mind sacrificing some more AR tracks, you can set multiple tracks to the same midi channel and output individual notes from each of them to create chords. Its a bit fiddly, but depending on your goal this can work
Still hoping for a midi machine + a higher midi out note range in AR 1.80 for the 15th anniversary edition in 2028 