Elektron RYTM Groove

Alex · 2014-10-24T04:14:39.000Z

great machine… Just wish I could get it to groove with more vibe

Why do some machines have such great groove / vibe (mpc3k/tr909)?

stutech · 2014-10-24T10:24:15.000Z

Do you mean that you want instant-gratification groove from a quirky midiclock? I think the Elektron way is a lot more scientific approach, one where the nuances must be dialed in by the operator instead.

The shuffle, nondestructive quantize per track, microtiming trigs not enough for you? If not, then the only solution might be to use a quirky midi clock master with the Rytm.

FWIW I read quite alot of debate about the “magical” timing of vintage MPCs… no scientific conclusions are ever reached. By the time the innerclock dude steps into a thread, I close the browser tbh

Alex · 2014-10-24T12:31:38.000Z

I guess I’m just curious about what it is that makes an mpc3k or tr909 groove so much more organically?

Scannari · 2014-10-24T12:47:51.000Z

If this is any help :

Roger Linn On Swing, Groove & The Magic Of The MPC’s Timing

http://www.attackmagazine.com/features/roger-linn-swing-groove-magic-mpc-timing/

Cheers

Alex · 2014-10-24T13:21:09.000Z

Thank you never have seen this

stutech · 2014-10-24T13:38:34.000Z

Alex, please bear in mind that not everyone is a native English speaker. Perhaps I am unable to grasp the nuances of english so that what I wrote sounded condescending to you?

I just tried to answer as comprehensively as I could. Perhaps I should also have supplied links to these discussions on another forums as well as that Roger Linn interview which gets posted into most of the threads discussing the subject?

You need to not get automatically offended by random posts on the internet. There was nothing personal in my reply. Yor thread title implied that the subject was the rytm instead of “why vintage drumcomputer have more groove to my ears than the rytm?” for example.

Lastly, if you read my posts on this board, you might notice that I generally try to be helpful to people instead of looking down on them. Ok, I admit, Now I was being a bit cheeky

Now then, if we want to more “scientific” on the subject, in the case of the TR-909, I suspect that the discreet electronics contribute to the groove. In the case of the MPC3000, which is 100% digital AFAIK, there are no analog VCAs that might build up charge, and I am suspecting that repeated sample hits also play back identically, so the CPU scheduling is my biggest bet on the timing differences.

Alex · 2014-10-24T13:49:42.000Z

My mistake. I apologize, Tsutek. Your command of the language seemed very strong & I misinterpreted sarcasm for neutral feedback. I appreciate your input

stutech · 2014-10-24T13:52:23.000Z

It’s cool man, I’m also partly autistic so I get that a lot

Cheers

Alex · 2014-10-24T16:31:11.000Z

Yea, RYTM is actually very flexible groove wise. With the right sounds & proper swing settings this thing definitely moves well

stutech · 2014-10-24T16:50:21.000Z

I take it that you are a MPC 3k user? Just curious since you used that as a comparison. I’ve never owned one myself (only the 1k, 2500 and the 4k), and have always wondered abot the timing of it. People who have the 3k seem to really love its timing.

Personally, my fave timing is on the 4k, just atomic precision and stability, with no quirks. The Rytms timing seems to be quite tight as well (have not stress-tested yet), allowing for über-OCD tweakage with the microtiming and the param-locks. Just thinking about it makes me want to fire it up and write some offkilter rhytms

The point with the analog Roland TR’s timing is interesting, and no doubt a very complex interaction, not only tied to the sequencer clock but also to the sound sources as you said. I’d imagine replicating that exact feel to be quite a challenging task? Do you happen to know of any intrnet resources where the finer nuances of 808/909/606 quirks are exposed in detail? I recall some of the quirks being exposed in the big Roland Aira thread on gearslutz, but finding the info from there would be a chore to say the least…

EDIT: Found something that discouraged me from trying to suss this out:
http://hardware.freepage.de/cgi-bin/feets/freepage_ext/339483x434877d/rewrite/raf909/hihatand.htm
I imagine there’d be quite a lot of stuff to digest to cover even the 909’s anatomy

Heck, just thought of something - leaving a bit of silence to the start of samples and using the lfos (lfo to sample start) to create “slop” to a fully quantized stepped sequence might produce interesting results! Need to test… And yeah, you could also modulate it similarily with velocity <3

virtual_flannel · 2014-10-24T16:53:52.000Z

""tsutek"":

I take it that you are a MPC 3k user? Just curious since you used that as a comparison. I’ve never owned one myself (only the 1k, 2500 and the 4k), and have always wondered abot the timing of it. People who have the 3k seem to really love its timing.

Personally, my fave timing is on the 4k, just atomic precision and stability, with no quirks. The Rytms timing seems to be quite tight as well (have not stress-tested yet), allowing for über-OCD tweakage with the microtiming and the param-locks. Just thinking about it makes me want to fire it up and write some offkilter rhytms

The point with the analog Roland TR’s timing is interesting, and no doubt a very complex interaction, not only tied to the sequencer clock but also to the sound sources as you said. I’d imagine replicating that exact feel to be quite a challenging task? Do you happen to know of any intrnet resources where the finer nuances of 808/909/606 quirks are exposed in detail? I recall some of the quirks being exposed in the big Roland Aira thread on gearslutz, but finding the info from there would be a chore to say the least…

Heck, just thought of something - leaving a bit of silence to the start of samples and using the lfos to create “slop” to a fully quantized stepped sequence might produce interesting results! Need to test…

This reminds me, I wish instead of having to add silence to the start of my samples to do this. It would be rad if there was a sample offset knob so you could move the sample ahead or behind the synth hit. You could also mod this with an lfo and get some nice groove going on.

stutech · 2014-10-24T17:07:40.000Z

Yeah, if the LFO to sample start would automatically output silence if LFO mod depth would cause the sample start param to go below zero, that would be sweet indeed! However, with adding the leading silence to the samples, we have sample-accurate control of the silence lenght, which might come in handy as the sample start and end point controls are always quantized to 128 discreet values (ie. not super accurate for introducing timing slop)… For this to even work properly, samples must be short and LFO depth needs to be in the single digit ranges… Just about to commence adding the silence to some drums to test further…

stutech · 2014-10-24T18:21:04.000Z

Well, this is interesting… manipulating past the start 0 position starts to sound an awful lot like it’s reversing the sample…

Success! I am getting a slop effect with the LFO. Needs some fine tuning tho… Used about 1500 samples leading silence on a hihat sample. For this particular sample, I found that moving samp start to “12” was pretty close to the actual sample audio start. After that just modulating with a max depth of “-12” messes with the timing. Sound a bit drunk atm, need to dial down… A depth of “-4” seems to be getting closer. Now just a matter of choosing between the LFO waveforms and the rate (this enables musical measures-based push-pulling as well)

EDIT: Looks like around “-1” or “-2” might be the biggest acceptable mod depths for a sample this long (360ms) So for very very fine timing fluctuations via the LFO, you need to keep the samples super short… Using low BPM ranges is certainly recommended for lessening the slop…

The night’s starting to look quite long

bsp · 2014-10-29T23:01:33.000Z

Yeah, if the LFO to sample start would automatically output silence if LFO mod depth would cause the sample start param to go below zero, that would be sweet indeed!

This is a good idea but using the sample start for this would possibly break existing patterns.

How about this feature request:

"Add a 'microdelay' LFO target."

(delay-only would be fine with me)

I’ve been using this in my own sequencer for some years now. It’s very handy for “naturalizing” drum patterns.

Works best with random LFOs, of course.

p.s.: This also has the advantage that it would work with synth drums, too.

stutech · 2014-10-30T08:49:39.000Z

That would be a very welcome addition! If this would exist, we could have much more usable resolution for offsetting timing, as well as being able to offset also synth voices like you said. Actually, thinking about this some more and it is obvious that the most logical place for this parameter would be in the envelope section (ie. adding a delay value for the env = DAHD)

And speaking of LFOs affecting the timing, the random waveform is good for creating a certain feel, but a whole another world of funkiness can be had with tempo-synced sawtooths etc And when you think about using the perfomance controls for the timing offsetting LFOs, all kinds of interesting breakdowns/stutters are possible