i too have noticed a bit of AR MkII users mentioning odd performance issues. not that you’re asking for advice but i will say the Mk1s are pretty consistent from my personal experience and what i’ve read from others, might be worth considering if stability is more important than the few extra bells and whistles the MkII tacks on. i’ve had the MkI crash maybe once or twice (i think it was related to new firmware, years ago) in my~4-5 years with it, and i have had to send it in to Elektron to replace the screen a year or two ago…but otherwise it’s been a workhorse.
i’m sure replacing with a Digitone could be interesting as well, lots of great percussive sounds out of them that i’ve heard.
I’m still running 1.50a on my ar mk1. It’s absolutely stable and I’m afraid to risk losing that stability by updating the firmware. You see everyone post about problems after updates but only a few folks post saying they’ve been resolved. Stability is paramount.
Overall, I like the Rytm MKII very much, and would rate it a 7 out of 10. My primary complaint about the Rythm is the lack of SD card storage for samples. The Drive+ is rather limited for the amount of samples I prefer keep installed. Otherwise, a solid drum machine.
I discovered the performance-section on my old Mk1 from a different point of view: i use the Electra.one controller instead of the pads … far more better than expected - because i love knobs and i have my hands free for the mute-pads
Also mk1 user for the same reasons. And have a billion places I can sample and then drag. I feel like generally the mk2 devices are unnecessarily giant. The mk1 are just a perfect form factor. The only exception I made was for the a4. I exhaustively tried to build the same simple patches on both boxes and the mk2 just sounds way better every time. I wish it was in a small black box. Would also 100% suffer a big ole mk2 if it had a big ole battery handle on it.
Pretty darn happy. I’m using my OT to control performance macros, not missing anything really.
AR feels so immediate compared to OT and AK, such a joy to play with. OT, AR and a simply mono synth like a 303, 101 or Shruthi XT or something like that is the techno dream team it seems^^
Just noticed I haven’t used any samples, yet, only synth machines.
My mk1 came with quite a few soundsets, gotta try some 909 samples today.
Adding to @Airyck’s summary, there’s not as high a resolution for choosing sample start/end points. On AR, you only have whole numbers between 0-120. This is fine for the most part. One example of it failing is: a 16-step breakbeat can be divided in half a few times but eventually hits a blocker. Halfway through the sample is 60, a quarter 30, an eighth 15, but a 16th is 7.5, which isn’t possible on AR – you can only choose either 7 or 8. Also, there are no separate loop points on AR. None of this bothers me. It’s my favourite Elektron by far and sounds great.
