I got Rytm - 1st Impression

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
22

i recently got a RYTM. its my first piece from Elektron.
i was torn between it and a octatrack.

so here are my thoughts.

i pretty much like the analog drums, they do what i thought they would.
some of the engines are pretty simple. but ive never used an analog drum machine that had MORE editing.

limited build in effects, that are only global. sorta bla on that. but effects weren’t a selling point. bit reduction is pretty useless to for me.

i have an MPC 1000 that i just never got a long with (with jjos free)
i didn’t get the octatrack, cause i wanted to make sure i stayed away from doing anything glitchy. plus the analog side. ive loaded it up with samples of some of my favorite drum machines. and a ton of break beats. so it takes care of all that also.

having never had an elektron. their way of thinking is totally new to me. but i took to it way way faster then the MPC. (with a little help from the cuckoo tutorial on youtube) i wish on the sample side. there was more detail on the in and out of the play back. also stereo.
but other then the stereo. Strom helps out.

so for me its filled a HUGH hole in my set up…
it seem like people expected it to do more then it does. im not use to elektron so maybe thats the way its suppose to be. but it seems to do what it says it would do. sounds good. is pretty easy to use.

i haven’t even gotten into scenes, and performance stuff yet,.

the pads are weird. i dont know if they are bad. or if there is some way to adjust the sensitivity? or if they are just to hard. still playing with the velocity setting.

i wish “songs” held on to the BPM. verse only projects. but i can live with that. names song with the BPM. or use a notebook. no biggy.

ill be interested to see what overbridge brings to it. i haven’t been paying any attention cause thats not why i got it. id prefer to not have to turn my computer on. but if its an easy way to resample, or sample management. more so then Strom. then cool.

wish it had midi out. but i have an MPC and mmt8. witch are good midi machines.

cool machine.

23

Always good to hear your thoughts Daren!

Have to say I’m sailing on a different boat to some of people here.
I scarcely add samples out of necessity, more to create a killer compound sound than to compensate for something that’s lacking.

Kik drum whilst being fairly hard is most definitely modern sounding with tons of low end
Tun at 0, SWT at 0 peaks at 63Hz, a good 8dB above anything else!
Tun -8 is 50Hz whilst -22 makes the old guy next door crap himself as 31.5Hz slowly works it’s way into his diseased colon :slight_smile:

Hats whilst being limited I find very useable, filter to taste & get the LFO working the Dec. With odd Track lengths & some ReTrig over straight Kik n Snare it can sound lovely!

I agree the Synth engines need expanding but there’s a surprising amount in there, often tiny changes can’t produce great results.

One thing definitely worth exploring, if you still have the OT, is using the LFO’s on the midi Seq to drive additional params on the AR, really brings it to life!

24

[/quote]
[/quote]
this is a bold statement… and I really like this statement… I am on yamahaHS8 and would like to hear from some guy in this forum who spent 10 times as much as I did on speakers how he thinks about inaudible sub low bass from the AR .,…
tbh: this would suit Elektrons style. invisible awesomeness[/quote]
This is true, even more so with the MD which on domestic systems seams light in the bass dept but in a club with some big Infrasubs its the business :slight_smile:

25

Very similar to my own first impressions.
After some time I have come to find the magic is in clever scene/perf assignments, p-locking the FX track, and going head first toward sample chains and discarding single shots in the sample ram (this alone makes for a far less limited “sound lock”-ish functionality when p-locking sample chains).
.
A good practice for me was forcibly hitting the lock limit on performance mode for each kit. This made things come alive more than anything else and soon I was writing whole tunes with just 2 or 3 patterns on the Rytm.

26

Had another half an hour today, and coming around a bit to some of the sounds, but I still think that the analog machines could be much better, some of the ranges and parameter choices are a bit bunk, and the machines with only 3 parameters just feel a bit lazy/unfinished. Given that the AR is based around a FPGA I’m pretty sure that there is a bit more scope available.

Just to expand on what I said in my OP in case anyone misunderstood about the BD comment, yeah lots of punch and power - no argument there, and yes already tried the Bass Tom and funnily enough the FM snare as bass drum too. But still not found the smoothness I’m after yet, I have a few ideas on how to go about it, but it would be nice to have a dedicated smooth type BD rather than workarounds. Something like a twin t type bass drum, I can make one with 2 transistors and about 10 passive components, so it should be a walk in the park for the AR to do it.

And just a thought to consider, it is pretty easy to make a soft sounding sound harder by driving it and adding harmonics, but to make a “out of the box” hard sound sound soft it is a fair bit more difficult, filtering will remove harmonics but also the body and desired aspects of the sound and can lead to dullness rather than smooth and buttery :slight_smile:

I think the Rytm being a flagship type analog drum machine could reasonably be expected to have a few more and varied machine types, and it probably will in the future (assuming Elektron’s continued track record of improvement of their other machines)

The hats and cymbals yes are quite pleasant and with filtering and drive can be shaped into a fair range of characteristics, but still it would not hurt to have those empty parameter spaces filled, right? Like for example noise would instantly make a lot more sounds possible.

BTW I’m on 1.02F and noticed a few bugs with the machines so far, the SNP parameter on SD CL does not do hardly anything, and the Rimshot (I think it was the CL one) the tuning seems to continuously descend in certain instances - anyone noticed these?

Looking forward to digging deeper with it, messed around sending samples by SDS from my old Yamaha SU10 today, nice for the lo-fi sound.

Thanks for all the comments and continued discussion :+1:

27

I think the Rytm is the best freaking drum machine I have ever used… for sound quality, liveliness, flexible character and ease of use.

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[quote=““The Marx Trukker””]
Been testing the Rytm for the first time mid last year, wasn’t overly impressed with the analog machines either and skipped it for then.

Now i got me one 3 months ago and i must admit even if it’s not perfect it comes very close to the ultimate (analog) drummachine.

I owned several bits over the years (e.g. DSI Tempest, Vermona DRM1Mk3, XBase 09 & 888) and they all lacked something, be it in terms of workflow or flexibility (or sound).

But i think (at least from what i experienced until now) you can tweak it (even the limited hihats for example) into several different directions (thanks to the filter and sample options), which i didn’t experience with most of the other drummachines i owned.

Though Tempest was similar in that terms, you had to have a very clear idea before you started or you easily got lost (which can be great but is not always).
What i like about the Rytm is that it gives you an instant usable drum-kit when you turn it on and initialize your Kit but then gives you the option to go wild if you like to.
Tempest was always going wild in the first for me (which is really not bad and funny as nearly all i did with it the time i owned was released later on).

But just having some good sounding basic drums ready in a second is highly valuable for me nowadays.
Exactly this was also great with the Vermona DRM1Mk3 though having used it for 7 years i felt i wanted to move on from there - and actually the DRM1Mk3 was and is very limited in how it can sound and usually needed some postproduction and /or more additional drums to complete, nonetheless a good companion.

With the XBase (for me) it was always a bit too much of the good, always sounded a little too fat (yes that is possible) and too punchy.
And the workflow, well yea, skip that… :wink:

So now the Rytm somehow easily combines all the good bits of nearly all the drummachines i was allowed to use (maybe except the complete madness the Tempest could produce but you can also get that elsewhere)

So the Rytm can go wild (as the Tempest), has a good basic usable drum-set (as the DRM1Mk3) and can sound pretty fat & punchy (but it doesn’t always have to and that’s the good difference to the XBases).

And on top you can include your own samples in a usable way (though it could be better but having imported samples to the Xbase 888 which is a pain in the ass this is really hands on already as it is).

So far, hope that’s useful to somebody :slight_smile:

[/quote]

1000000% agreed. This is SPOT ON.
I’ve been producing and DJing since 2005 & I, too, have also seen and tried my fair share of drum machines over the years. I’ve seen all the trends . MachineDrum MK1 was my first drum machine… Along with a Monomachine (back in 2006). I absolutely LOVED this combo. MD was the shit… It was in everything (before the revitalization of analog gear). I then moved out of my house & had to sell all my gear in order to survive. I slowly built my studio back up with a cheap Electribe (blue) & soon after a Vermona DRM MK3 & Maschine (2009). Loved the Vermona, very tight but the kick wasn’t enough for me even though it was great. So, I sold it and purchased an XBase 888 / MachineDrum MK2+ (2011). This was a fantastic combo but it wasn’t elegant enough for me so I sold both and got a TR909 (2012). TR909 was obviously amazing but required a lot of post processing to really get it where I wanted it (plus there was the typical leakage of sound between tracks). Loved the TR909, but it just got boring honestly, I found myself recording it into Ableton and just looping samples after I edited them. Not an elegant process. I missed the Elektron workflow but I really wanted to give Dave Smith’s brand new Tenpest a shot, so I picked one up (2013). I loved the sound of the synth, but for drums it was an absolute fucking headache. No elegance whatsoever… The user interface was OK at best… I REALLY tried to like it but I just couldn’t convince myself. Not after having gotten used to Elektron gear on and off for years. I always felt that the Tempest was incomplete. Like it had been abandoned by a company too small to truly support it fully. It had so much potential too. I wanted so badly to love it because it came very close. I just found myself forgetting my musical ideas once I actually got to the point in the menus where I could make those edits. The mind-machine latency was very high… The opposite of Elektron gear…
I sold the Tempest after a few months and still didn’t want to go back to the cold MD sound (I had been wishing for an Elektron analog hybrid for years). Picked up an XBase 09… LOVED THE KICK. But that’s all it had. Sold it in 2014 and got an AIRA TR8… Which is actually a great 909 “clone”. 808 on tr8 is ok… Not great. I should also mention that my best friend had an acidlab Miami / tanzbar which are both very good… I didn’t want an 808 clone (limited) or a tanzbar (sounded off to me… Like minimal house ish). Finally got RYTM and haven’t looked back.
RYTM is the best all around drum machine on the market. Hands down.
Love it. Has everything I want and then some… There will be updates, too… A4 didn’t have polyphony until 1.5 years after it was initially released, remember? Rytm is only a year old. It’ll get there.

Also… A common theme on a lot of online forums is that RYTM is difficult to use… Then these same people rave about Tempest… This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Elektron gear, once learned, is so ridiculously elegant and easy to use. I always thought Tempest added extra unnecessary steps …

I might still get a Tempeat to combine with RYTM for its synth voices… How well do they mesh? Anyone tried this? I feel they’d compliment each other well… Actually almost bought a Tempest this afternoon

29

That’s exactly what i noticed the first time i turned my Rytm on :slight_smile: I expected smooth and round Bassdrums with a solid “boom” in the bottom end but was quite disappointed that even the Classic machine cant deliver this sound.

But you should definitely check out the Basetom mate. This is the real Bassdrum of the Rytm in my opinion. It has plenty of lowend and it is soft and smooth, you can add a click and the 808 Kick is there :slight_smile: Still a shame though that the actual bassdrums are close to useless if you want to produce modern electronic music … :thinking: [/quote]
Are you serious? You can get cutting edge kicks out of the Hard Bassdrum machine… Definitely sounds modern to me, are we using the same Rytm? It’s like a mix between the 909/808 kick and then so much more! I get massive lowend/bass out of the Hard Bassdrum machine![/quote]
Yep we surely use the same Rytm. The lowend is in the kicks, sure. But it is not nearly as powerful as the lowend in the Basetom and - it is way too low to be heard on regular hifi systems. You need a good Monitor System to really hear it. And honestly … when i produce music i dont want that almost all of my listeners cant feel my damn bassdrum because they dont have Monitor Systems installed - which is what most listeners out there will surely not have! And listen to modern contemporary electronic music - you surely wont find any hard 90s style kicking bassdrum in there ^^ This time is just over, period![/quote]
Not sure I agree with you about the kick not being a modern sound. I can get some nice IDM/Elektro type future sounds out of the Hard Kick Drum, mainly by using the 3rd waveform, tailoring the decay, filtering the high end, and tastefully adding overdrive.

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Yeah, the problem is that we all have different tastes of how such an analog Bassdrum should sound.

I know Bassdrums from the MBase and the Vermona DRM1 and especially the latter one is the sweetest, roundest and most tasteful bassdrum i ever heard from a more recent analog drummachine. Creamy, soft - i LOVE this thing :slight_smile: I live in germany and Minimal/Techhouse is what i like most. And makes heavy use of 808ish style Bassdrums with a decent lowend but even lots of IDM/Electro tracks dont use harder kicks as well. I managed to get something close to what i want (you can hear it in my Analog Rytm track i made last year, is also available in the player in the signature). But i had a hard time getting there and its not really perfect. Cant remember the settings anymore but im almost sure i used the classic model there.

The missing lowend on rather cheap hifi systems is something that bothers me most however. I dont produce for clubs, i want to reach “regular” listeners on YT and wherenot that just enjoy the music i make. If i have the time to produce something new :slight_smile: And none of the recent analog drummachines i used so far had this problem. Neither the MBase nor the DRM1 - the BD’s on those still had noticeable lowends on cheaper systems, but the Rytm’s lowend on the Kicks can really only be heard on Monitor Systems or bigger Club-style Systems and car-hifi systems. And this - in my opinion - is a problem, bad calibration or whatever i dont know. And that should not be on a 1500 € drummachine.

At the moment the Basetom fills this gap, its lowend can be heard on cheaper systems and it is a bit more round in its sound. You can layer it with the BD itself (put a HP Filter on it) to vary its sound and you have a great variety of sounds for a BD with a lowend that is just always there. But you already need 2 tracks now for a BD and this also doesnt work if you want to use the BT as a bass. I really think Elektron has to get into it’s BD models again and do some work there. In my opinion they are just not “right” yet.

31

interesting thread. i actually have gotten good results with the classic bd machine but it usually involves the filter a lot. totally agree, a smoother type bd machine would be great.

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This is a great idea, never occurred to me.

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This is a great idea, never occurred to me.[/quote]
I’ve used free LFOs from MonoMachine to do this as well. Breathes quite a bit into A4 too.
My MnM is basically just a crazy LFO machine.

34

If you’re using a computer, Numerology is great for this also - basically unlimited LFOs and envelopes, step sequencing, etc.

As for the Rytm, I personally came for the analogue machines, but stayed for the sample player, filters, overdrive and general playability.

I should say as well that using chains was a game changer for me, right now I’m experimenting with chopping samples in Recycle and setting up the chopped sample as a chain for mangling in the Rytm. Big thanks to Adam for opening my eyes to this workflow.

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Yeah, the problem is that we all have different tastes of how such an analog Bassdrum should sound.

I know Bassdrums from the MBase and the Vermona DRM1 and especially the latter one is the sweetest, roundest and most tasteful bassdrum i ever heard from a more recent analog drummachine. Creamy, soft - i LOVE this thing :slight_smile: I live in germany and Minimal/Techhouse is what i like most. And makes heavy use of 808ish style Bassdrums with a decent lowend but even lots of IDM/Electro tracks dont use harder kicks as well. I managed to get something close to what i want (you can hear it in my Analog Rytm track i made last year, is also available in the player in the signature). But i had a hard time getting there and its not really perfect. Cant remember the settings anymore but im almost sure i used the classic model there.

The missing lowend on rather cheap hifi systems is something that bothers me most however. I dont produce for clubs, i want to reach “regular” listeners on YT and wherenot that just enjoy the music i make. If i have the time to produce something new :slight_smile: And none of the recent analog drummachines i used so far had this problem. Neither the MBase nor the DRM1 - the BD’s on those still had noticeable lowends on cheaper systems, but the Rytm’s lowend on the Kicks can really only be heard on Monitor Systems or bigger Club-style Systems and car-hifi systems. And this - in my opinion - is a problem, bad calibration or whatever i dont know. And that should not be on a 1500 € drummachine.

At the moment the Basetom fills this gap, its lowend can be heard on cheaper systems and it is a bit more round in its sound. You can layer it with the BD itself (put a HP Filter on it) to vary its sound and you have a great variety of sounds for a BD with a lowend that is just always there. But you already need 2 tracks now for a BD and this also doesnt work if you want to use the BT as a bass. I really think Elektron has to get into it’s BD models again and do some work there. In my opinion they are just not “right” yet.[/quote]
Well this might be shameless promotion, but check out the lowend/bass at 1:47 into this track. I do agree that the BT serves as a more round kick, it is smooth and definitely more 808ish than the Hardkick. However, tell me how this bass drum does not sound modern? This entire track/jam was composed entirely on the Rytm with some samples, but the analog synthesis laid down the ground work:

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Dtroy wrote

Well this might be shameless promotion, but check out the lowend/bass at 1:47 into this track. I do agree that the BT serves as a more round kick, it is smooth and definitely more 808ish than the Hardkick. However, tell me how this bass drum does not sound modern? This entire track/jam was composed entirely on the Rytm with some samples, but the analog synthesis laid down the ground work:

Ok now i see what our disagreement is: We have completely different definitions of modern electronic music :slight_smile: I actually meant EDM, not IDM - sorry. I thought this is the same but i did research and found out it really is not ^^

Well, here in Europe we generally like electronic music like this:

https://soundcloud.com/spinnin-deep/sam-feldt-show-me-love-edxs-indian-summer-remix-available-june-1

This is a rather commercial one but on the more non commercial styles like Minimal, Techhouse - also Deephouse and stuff - its more or less the same. You have solid and round Bassdrums and nothing sounds like a 90s Kickdrum anymore - THANK GOD IT DOESNT !!! I never like this type of kicks. And i really think that the Bassdrum of the track you linked sounds close tho 90s kicking - really - not nearly modern to me. But yeah, tastes are different.

37

Ok now i see what our disagreement is: We have completely different definitions of modern electronic music :slight_smile: I actually meant EDM, not IDM - sorry. I thought this is the same but i did research and found out it really is not ^^

Well, here in Europe we generally like electronic music like this:

https://soundcloud.com/spinnin-deep/sam-feldt-show-me-love-edxs-indian-summer-remix-available-june-1

This is a rather commercial one but on the more non commercial styles like Minimal, Techhouse - also Deephouse and stuff - its more or less the same. You have solid and round Bassdrums and nothing sounds like a 90s Kickdrum anymore - THANK GOD IT DOESNT !!! I never like this type of kicks. And i really think that the Bassdrum of the track you linked sounds close tho 90s kicking - really - not nearly modern to me. But yeah, tastes are different.

8c4b7aa93ab6f5469a3e3bbd1832b23a.jpg236×251 34 KB

Europe is big, I hope not everyone there listens to this stuff! but yeah, those previous big resonant kicks are old hat for sure but i wouldn’t say it’s just from the 90’s but the drumstation was responsible for a similar sound back then… A Rother epitomised the massive kick sound through the 2000’s with his jomox uber kicks and that was the benchmark for BD fatness for the decade. now the new breed of analogue drum modules and machines is left to imitate the classics once again. I had trouble getting a smooth 808 style kick from the tempest and i’m sad to hear the rytm struggles with that too… its been overused surely but its not a difficult thing to design an 808/cr type BD, it must have been a design choice

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[quote=“” subbz2k""]

Yep we surely use the same Rytm. The lowend is in the kicks, sure. But it is not nearly as powerful as the lowend in the Basetom and - it is way too low to be heard on regular hifi systems. You need a good Monitor System to really hear it. And honestly … when i produce music i dont want that almost all of my listeners cant feel my damn bassdrum because they dont have Monitor Systems installed - which is what most listeners out there will surely not have! And listen to modern contemporary electronic music - you surely wont find any hard 90s style kicking bassdrum in there ^^ This time is just over, period!
[/quote]

So now The low end being too low is a problem? :slight_smile: It certainly sounds like there’s something wrong with your setup if you can’t hear it at all but saying that’s a bad thing is nonesense. You make music to sound great on all systems with production not by loosing low end. (Edit- this is there for the clubs and systems that can handle it)

If you need to hear lower (edit-for referencing in your studio) you need a sub… Buying more expensive monitors won’t necessarily get you down there but a bit of treatment in your room will go a lot further per £ than on monitors IMO… Unless your listening through your built in ones obviously. (Edit-Use hi fi speakers etc for referencing how the outside world will hear it)

The 90s is over but the sound has stood the test of time for a reason, it’s classic and will always be a point of reference in electronic music as is stuff from the 80s… So called “modern” changes every few years and fade’s as quick as it comes.

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[quote=“” subbz2k""]

Ok now i see what our disagreement is: We have completely different definitions of modern electronic music :slight_smile: I actually meant EDM, not IDM - sorry. I thought this is the same but i did research and found out it really is not ^^

Well, here in Europe we generally like electronic music like this:

https://soundcloud.com/spinnin-deep/sam-feldt-show-me-love-edxs-indian-summer-remix-available-june-1

[/quote]

Maybe if your 15 and just starting out… :wink: Jeez. Thankfully we have the underground here in Europe too. :+1:

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it actually doesnt have something to do with the age mate. It has something to do with the sound and if you like it or not. And tracks like this work in the Club, thats for sure :slight_smile: And every serious electronic music producer will produce stuff that sells. There is no exception for this rule its just the way business goes. You deliver what the people want to hear. If you do it for fun you will adapt to what is most widely heard as well - if you want to reach an audience.

Apart from that it was just an example. Where is soooo much electronic music of different genres out there and as i said: It is always subjective, personal taste, nothing more. But i really noticed that Hard Kicks like in the 90s arent used anymore today. Not in the classic electronic genres most people in europe (or even the world) listen to. Like EDM, Minimal, Techhouse, Deephouse - and even Trance (at least the Progressive Trance) does not use them anymore. But really, this is something we could argue about forever :slight_smile: It is a fact though and you can be sure that a lot of todays electronic music lovers are far older than 15 :wink:

In terms of lowend problems with the BDs of the Rytm i could refer to the post i made in another thread here already but i repeat again: It is noticeable that the lowend of the BDs on the Rytm are far too low compared to the BDs of other analog Drummachines/Modules. I can directly compare them to the Vermona DRM1 and the Jomox MBase and no matter how i pitch those i always have a lowend that is noticable on cheaper audio systems. Which is what’s good because not everybody always has a nice audio system when he/she listens to music. The Rytms lowend can really only be heard on good Subs or Monitor Systems or in the Car Hifi System. Which is bad because people that dont have this will miss the bottom end completely. And a good production takes care of this. But you cannot accentuate whats simply not there. You could pitch up the BD to move the lowend in higher ranges or us a highly resonant filter to boost the problematic range. But this generally also changes the sound of it and if you dont like it that way or if you wanna use the filter for high cuts … you have a problem :slight_smile: Anyway, the BT can solve it, its lowend is already in higher ranges and sounds sweet. The BDs however need to be tweaked from Elektron, thats for sure.

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Such a generalisation about what are typically mainstream styles of music. I agree the masses are listening to this stuff… I’m certainly not arguing tho it’s just a discussion but I wasn’t commenting on who uses hard kicks and what nots… If what your saying is true tho, I guess the person that uses the “hard kick” first will come up with something new. go get em I say. :wink:

I’m curious tho, are you saying you can’t get RYTM to reproduce the same frequencies as with other DMs?