Different ways of using the RYTM

[eyeprod]

While researching the RYTM, I noticed, and still notice that most people who own this box are (generally) making purely electronic music and seem to operate within a certain framework. I think it’s a good idea for a thread to show different ways that people are using the AR.

I use a drum machine for backing up a rock band situation or something to jam along with. Sometimes we are improvising and other times there are structured songs. We’re using traditional guitars, bass, and acoustic drums among other things that you can actually hit or pluck, whatevr. The drum machine isn’t always on, depending on the jam. I bought the RYTM because it was the only thing that could do what I required (64 steps and tap tempo). It can do a lot more, but I need something to play. Sure, I’ll spend hours and days programming stuff, but it’s just a means to the end because I only need a solid platform that I can launch things from. The ANALOG RYTM delivers on the drums & percussion! I love it. It’s a real instrument in itself. I can even convince my rock&roll purist friends once they hear it in action. Just sounds so good and easy to make it non-machine-like.

Anyway, I’m going to use this thread to post some stuff. Hopefully, some others can pitch in and make it easier for people like me to find a variety of material produced using the Elektron hardware.

This is a total improv jam with me and two others, using the RYTM in the most simple way. It’s more about the guitars and bass, but the RYTM is ever present and creates a solid foundation for the jam.

[wirrblipp]

Genre based musicians are typically more focused on sounding similar to what they hear on the playlists and charts.

You may find a few drummers making good use of the AR. It has a superior sequencer. I use it as my composition studio on the road. At home i prefer to use my 80’s samplers and really focus on the sound character of musical elements. One grows out of live looping and clattering sound density of tweaking live loops.

[Barfunkel]

Aren’t pretty much all musicians genre based? Some might genre hop a bit, but hardly anyone has the skills and the resources to make anything and everything.

[wirrblipp]

Perhaps just the ones you hear about. I define a musician as being creative musically every day., if not all day. I dont think every person playing around with a DAW or a dj set a musician. Genres are for marketing . A well educated musician finds that there are no such boundaries , just sound.

[Barfunkel]

I only call professional musicians musicians (unless there’s some sort of a prefix like hobbyist or amateur attached to the word). Electrician, police, plumber, politician, lawyer, musician etc. I know I’m alone in this usually, it just seems to be a strange way to use language to call every single person who ever touched an instrument a musician.

Are there examples of musicians who’ve done several, unrelated genres really well? It’s really difficult for me to think of anyone who could make a classical record, a jazz record, a soul record, a hip hop record, a techno record, a country record. There’s just so many skills involved that don’t always translate that well to other genres and the human life is too short to learn everything.

[wirrblipp]

I agree with your points. I would like to say a professional just makes a living doing it. Not all musicians are pro and some just keep to themselves. The point is that there are specialized patterns that dominate the careers of many. Those are the genres that they prefer to limit themselves to. Some genres may overlap. Many have not been invented yet. Others have been forgotten. Melody is melody, rhythm is rhythm, and what you hear now has been stitched together from every genre before.

[cuckoomusic]

That’s a nice example of outside the box use of the Rytm. it’s such a nice machine. And Now with the new engines it is truly an even greater sounding synthesiser, with a sound that can go into many directions. That’s what I like most about it, that it doesn’t necessarily sound as “Analog Rytm”. Therefore it’s the perfect companion to many kinds of music. It’s a music machine. I usually don’t think genres when I’m making music. But listening to my own music I can clearly hear that it sounds like a cuckoo genre. But I don’t care…

[eyeprod]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

[eyeprod]

I do think in terms of genre to a degree, but trying to classify music you make is hard at times. Like if someone asks you what kind of music you make it’s either a short or long answer, depending on the person asking. I never like explaining myself.

The point of the thread is not just about styles of music. I’m using this AR in the most simple ways at times and that’s a personal preference. I think about approach and instrumentation a lot. Right now I’m looking at it like another band member, but I plan to explore other ideas with it once I get some more work done with my current project. I’ll post another experiment possibly this weekend. I want to make some super-duper ping-pongy one-shots and run it through some crazy fuzz pedals.

[eyeprod]

yes, I’d like to see drummers play along with a drum machine more often. I think it sounds cool if someone knows how to use it right. I have no problem playing along with one (on the limited beats I can hold down), but ime most drummers, even some pretty good ones I know, can’t play along with a programmed beat. I’m sure that most could learn how to work with it, but some people are just against a drum machine, period. Electronic drums are associated with genres they don’t care for, or despise. The lines between styles of music are becoming more blurred and it’s a great time to be alive with all the toys we have access to nowadays.

I also love to focus on the sound character of musical elements. That’s part of why I got into a drum machine because it’s easy to control and stays consistent in volume. Real drums are a difficult beast to tame. When you get control of the volume in a room, then you can actually hear the changes when you turn a knob on a synth or sweep a wahwah pedal on a guitar. Playing with tones and timbres while interacting with other musicians is what I’m all about these days. It’s hard to do that when things are too loud. Drum machine solves this problem.

[Geneoart]

Hey Cuckoo
What new synth engine do like most for melodic synth sound?

[bathrobe]

Frequencies enter our body and our brain makes music out of them.
So i define a musician as someone who hears music. It´s about the conversion of frequencies into music.
Not so much about the source of the frequencies.
Just trying to paint a wider brush of what can be called a musician in order to unite the different views.

Back to the Rytm: I also once thought of using the Rytm voices in different and unusual ways.
For example i wanted a long attack on some synth engines but it´s not possible the way i imagined it.
Maybe Elektron restricted the synth circuits so people would still crave the A4 for sound design.
Of cause for percussive sound design the Rytm is nice.

Thanks for the track eyeprod, very relaxing the spectral flower.

[SoundRider]

The other day I met with a guitarist and we wanted to do a little jamming - he on the guitar and me on a synth - if you know your Rytm, a nice groove is programmed in near to now time. Just basic sounds and a basic rhythm fitting to the jamming might already be enough. We had lot’s of fun. But this way the Rytm was used much below its potential

Typically I use it as the rhythm machine it is and for electonic music.

[cuckoomusic]

I don’t even remember what the new synth engines are called! I think a lot of engines are great for tuned melodies.

[Nano]

Hi. I play drums and percussions and at the moment I am producing the record of my band, Kabila. We play mostly World Music which is per se a mix of different genres. We use ethnic instruments, electric and bass guitars, synths and pianos. But I also play acoustic drums and we have a friend playing darbuka and other arabic percussions. We sing in italian and arabic languages, with some english.
What I am doing at the moment in my production is using the AR as the backing of all of the tracks, mixing it with the percussions and, in the near future, my vintage Ludwig drums.
I programmerd all the rythms and at the moment the experiment sounds nice. Hope to post something in as soon as I’ve got it ready or almost ready.

[Nano]

PS at the moment I use a Roland SPDSX live for the samples, mostly made of acoustic percussions and electronic sounds. I am planning to switch to an Octatrack/Analog Rytm set up for the backing tracks as the sound will be far more electronic in the near future

[mattboomdrum]

Here is an improv i did with the RYTM… I just put together a freaky acoustic drum kit and improvised along… I love the sound of the RYTM!! https://vimeo.com/168144579

[Zwolf]

Holy shit, you’re Matt Chamberlain! Excuse my star struckness, but that is awesome. As is your freaky acoustic kit and what you’re doing with it and the rytm. Thank you!

[avantronica]

yep, if that there wasn’t the high-water-mark of user videos, well, i just don’t know, great stuff

[eyeprod]

Thanks for adding to the thread, Matt. I like your kit. Really like the tiny hi hats! Reminds me of some kind of finger cymbals like used in some Arabic music. I also have a collection of ethnic percussion stuff that I use quite often. Right now I have a tongue drum in place of toms on top of my kick and we always use padded mallets for a softer sound. Love to see people doing different things and using simple or uncommon kits and setups. Dude, killer programming on the RYTM! I always tell my drummer friends, you have to play with the drum machine, not try to double what it’s doing. Great example you set. Thanks again.