for me too 
Was way too lazy to set up performance macros. Same on the A4, I rarely use them, despite knowing how powerful they are.
I use scenes on the OT though, they are more fun to set up somehow
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I went, I think, quite deep with the AR (MK I) and found out after several years that the sound, as mighty as it is, was not the one I liked best. Kicks are massive and all, but can be hard to fit into a mix (I think some people made the same remark about the Moog sound - very big on its own, but hard to play with others). So I moved to a MD instead and have been finding myself more than satisfied with its digital character and much larger sonic flexibility (16 assignable LFO’s and many available machines). The new sequencer tricks are not essential to me, though, and I’m really into early 2000’s glitch sound. This being said, to my ears, the MD kicks sounded immediately good and I find them easier to tweak according to the needs.
Regarding the AR MK II (and DigiTakt), my biggest gripe is why on earth did they remove the record-trigs for sampling? It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to do real-time sampling (and mangling), which the 2005 MD UW (and OT) supports.
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Interesting that you rate the hats and cymbals over the other analog voices. Just goes to show how it’s down to personal aesthetics. 
The stuff I do tends to be like Pye Corner Audio (lots of analog drums - often a 606) or Boards of Canada (more samples and loops).
Having proper envelopes for filter and amp feels like a big step up from the MD. Quite often I have to use the exponential LFO on the MD as a makeshift filter envelope. Spent a little bit of time demoing an AR mkII the other day and I did really like how it layers samples and how they sound through the filter.
I get what people are saying about CTRL-AL. I’ve used it a fair few times but I can see how the perf/scene combination could work better for me. If I’m honest, most of my realtime tweaking is directed at the modular if I’m playing out. Setting up scenes in advance sounds very useful.
YES x1000!
I almost always keep the last four tracks for 1 recorder and 3 players ^^
And abuse retrigs and pitch for glitchiness + filters on top (with LFO as envelope) for acidness 
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I might be a bit radical here, but I don’t see the point of a sampler in 2020 (or even 2017) if it does neither real-time sampling, nor auto-region.
Yeah, I like 606 sounds too, but I find the cymbals and hats can get 606/808ish yet the kick and snare don’t really cover that ground as easily 
All good and well, but I just really enjoy having MD and AR side by side. Here’s a live set practice recording. Drums are MD and AR. I challenge you to pick which is which.
Acid basslines are Circuit Mono Station. Other synth sounds also MD and AR. Expect for the outro soundscape, which is the Borderlands iOS app.
External fx used, of course.
Also, having 2 drum machines side by side has been key to finally reaching my dream of being able to play live sets with fluidly blending and overlapping parts. I had a hard time doing that with only the MD.
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Damn, I can no longer see this video in that context.
Every discussion about the comparison MD - AR leads to this bashing. I own an MD UW + and an AR MK2. I love both instruments for their different uses. The interface is different. The sound is different. And everyone may see it the way they want, but a Max Marco who walks a few times in the synthi shop and plays around on the AR MK2 and then publishes such an condensed statement about it on youtube shouldn’t be the guide line for anyone who really wants to find out something about the instrument.
The MD has a different sound quality in my opinion. If you want to create hard, powerful kits that don’t sound crispy, you should use the AR. The MD is ideal for minimal or IDM experiments, because it is more flexible due to the interlinking of the LFOs, the use of the control all function etc…
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the md ctrl machines can’t be touched by the rytm imo.
ctrl all as in the hands on feature vs rytm performance n scenes is down to personal taste.
ctrl machines are down to personal taste too now that I think about it 
but they rule.
I should mention I was talking about Rytm mkII, the perf knob and 2 exp/cv inputs are a huge part of the equation, it definitely isn’t as good using pads IMHO.
There are some great moments in this, and excellent argument for using the MD and AR together. The digital tightness of the MD and the dirty analog beef of the AR really fill in the sonic gaps for each other. A bit heavy on the 909 ride, but that’s just a subjective thing.
Oh and that drone outro is amazing.
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Yes, indeed the two complement well. Good idea to have them both to play live.
Yeah, the presentation in that video makes it difficult to take seriously. It’s so absurdly one-sided. It’s not like we don’t know what a great instrument the MD already is.
Far more valuable than that video is Omar’s comment here that, having dug quite deep with the AR, the MD is often easier to fit into a mix.
I do wish that I could afford/justify having both… but then you get into the situation where how many Elektrons can you juggle at once? It’ll be 100% alongside an A4 mk1, which sequences and processes the modular stuff along with its own voices. When I tried it before, I found a third Elektron was just too much.
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The pads seemed ok when I tried one recently but the perf knob definitely gave a lot more precise control. How do the pads compare between the mk1 and mk2?
Unsurprisingly this isn’t turning into an easy choice. 
MkII pads are fine, I found MkI pads a little stiff, but there are some who don’t like either. I don’t require nuanced velocity most of the time as I mostly grid program, although I do use them chromatically quite a bit.
Same here. I’m not much of a finger drummer. I enjoy x0x-style rhythm programming.
I agree with you. Personal taste (thoughts) shouldn’t be involved in product comparison, but I think that certain parts of the video are relevant.
A few things I miss a lot on MD on my everyday life
- Direct Jump for easy fills and breakcore
- Sounds (a long with tags) for quick recall of prepared sound
- AR analog distorsion stages
Having both is pretty fun indeed ^^
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direct jump is a big Rytm plus 
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thinking out loud couldn’t the midi note in pattern trigger START feature be a work around to achieve this. You’ve got a “sick” loop, you then copy the same loop across 16 patterns and shift the trigs for different start points. Edit each kit to taste, then trigger chosen points of loop via midi notes, treating the MD as a (kind of) sampled loop. I need to try this myself, until the midi in phase issue is resolved it might be nice to use my rytm (with weighted trigs) to trigger MD patterns, haven’t really exploited before.
i’m not even sure if when using pattern START triggers you need to turn off midi start stop in, probably do otherwise it would keep trying to play the pattern, and you could put the md on a completely different tempo for “da mad beats son”.
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