I recently acquired a RYTM and an Octatrack, and been having fun learning the Elektron way. As a preface, I appreciate that a company include a printed manual with their products. I think in the age of youtube videos, this is commendable.
What frustrates me though is that the videos are really good and clearly explained, yet the manual sometimes feels like its been translated by a web translator (no offence intended, i appreciate english probably isn’t your first language). Also certain basic things that should be blatantly obvious are not listed clearly (eg. compatible audio sample formats for importing - this should be in a reference section clearly listed!).
This leads to poor readability and user comprehension. I even try to search in a PDF program and that just comes out more confused… In the end it makes the process of learning much more difficult than it ought to be. Maybe I’m out of date and all the kids these days want video eye candy… Or are there others out there who actually RTFM and have also found this confusing?
Either way, i won’t be too grumpy about it, but it would be nice to maybe get the PDF manuals sorted out a bit better.
I still feel like there are some big updates coming for the RYTM, perhaps they are waiting to test and release the new features and functions before printing a more detailed manual
This is just my guess… the RYTM is a straightforward machine, much less complex than the A4 in my opinion. The only area that I found slightly confusing was transferring samples but there’s been lots of guidance on that since release.
I read the OT manual a lot before getting a unit. Read it front to back, no skipping, no jumping around, and no machine in front of me. When the OT arrived, I read it again with the machine on and tried every setting and every example, again front to back, whether I really cared about that functionality or not.
The Result is that the manual becomes more useful when i need to look up a particular function. It’s much better as a reference when you generally know what you’re doingand it’s not so great as an introduction when you’re clueless.
The videos plus Merlins write up are a better intro to the OT.
I couldn’t agree more on the video and manual complementing each other, and i’m glad to hear i wasn’t the only one who read certain paragraphs three times over… Maybe it is an engineer / user thing.
But then again it is not all that great as a reference either: The FAQ page on elektron website contains information that really ought to be in the manual (eg. audio sample format for importing files in RYTM). I’m 99% sure i read it in there somewhere, but when i try to find it again to confirm it’s buried in some obscure subsection. Surely this kind of info should be in a reference section for any sampler?
FWIW, the Rytm can take different file formats but converts internally back to 48Khz / 16bit. I’d still like to know just how flexible that is (8bit / 32bit, sample rate ranges, or are there really no limitations?).
I just recently bought some friends for my Octa to round out the elektron trinity. some consistent elektron themes are becoming clearer to me now after reading all three manuals and using the machines. Really starting to gel with these things now.
I have 2/3 of a trinity, and what’s bugging me at this point in my learning is how the panel layout differs enough between the AK and the OT that certain buttons are not where I’m expecting them when I go back and forth.
I find it to be a case of not knowing what questions you have.
If you read the manual early on- prior to using the device, you really get very little from it.
But - If you turn the machine on with the intention of writing a song, you suddenly have questions which can be found in the manual. Use it like a reference.
Try to get as far into using the machine as possible, and then the stumbling blocks will crop up - Use the manual to answer your issues.
I found Cuckoos videos completely useless until I spent some time with the AR. Then watching them I saw all sorts of little things he was doing. They drew my attention because I had been there…and struggled. They became “aha!” moments.
Previously the video was like listening to a sine wave for 55 minutes. Same with the manuals.
I’ve got an AK and AR.I haven’t even read the AK manual yet because I spend most of my time playing and sequencing what I need out of it.
The AR was my first Elektron and before I got my AR I read the manual ahead of time. This didn’t do much. What I do now is select a chapter and go through it with the AR on hand. I put a 1 hour block and I slowly understand each concept. The Cuckoo tutorials are better used once you’ve put in time on your Elektron box. Then you can compare what works and what doesn’t work.
i think the reason why the manual is written in “this” way is:
elektron has 3 people who initially understood the OT … one of them was Cenk,… but since he is a half god, he couldnt be bothered writing for the muggles … the other 2 people are a rainman type of figure , who cannot be talked to directly. 3 rd person might be a time traveller who shows up on occasion and trades future design concepts for swedish virgins…
I rather like the manuals for the MD and MM. They are intended as reference manuals and encourage experimentation, but they include lots of useful little tips and explanations for some of the esoteric functions.
Because they are written as reference manuals, then they generally list the functions in the order that they appear in the menu structure. This became a problem with the OT manual, because that instrument has SO MANY interactions between menus in different places that you sometimes have to read the whole manual in order to understand one function. And, of course, the OT manual is way longer than that for any other Elektron instrument. It adds specific tutorials for specific uses of the OT, but these are buried in the middle of the manual.
One of the main complaints about the OT was that it is so complicated, with so many different potential uses, and a whole range of options in the PERSONALIZE menu that affect how it operates. I wasn’t surprised that the AF and AR omit some of the functions that the OT has, simply to make them more instantly accessible.
The AF and AR manuals could do with some reorganization. The AF manual has some (useful) additional descriptive material about the synthesis engine thrown in awkwardly in the ‘More on oscillators, filters, …’ section. The AR manual will seem better when more machines are added.
I would love to write a tutorial manual, probably for the Octatrack, in the style of Anu Kirk’s ‘Definitive Evolver guide’ and jumping of from Merlin’s ‘Thoughts on Elektron’s Octatrack’ but I know that I will never have time to do so.
I’m getting a bit old now and have the attention span of a goldfish, so the Elektron manual seemed a real challenge, poorly written, badly organized and unnecessarily cryptic. Then I got the TB3 and TR8…suddenly the A4 manual is the most complete, informative and helpful document I have ever read!!
Yes, it could be better, but most of what you need is there…somewhere. Roland ,look and learn!!!
My RYTM only came with a thin “Getting Started” manual, not the full manual that can be downloaded. That’s what you guys also got, right?
I found the (full) RYTM manual rather inaccessible and incredible dry, except the foreword. But this is my first Elektron box and I have zero prior experience with drum machines or similar hardware, so I’m not complaining about it. Making progress too and will get an A4 down the road, and probably an OT. But yes, the manual wasn’t written by a writer.
