Rytm tips and tricks

Sternenlicht · 2024-11-20T22:25:26.286Z

So, what is your recommended amount of samples for a sample chain (I go with 30, but that is an interval of 4 (120/4)? I mean percussive samples, do you make different chains for synth stuff, or do you mesh these, and hope for intresting results while scanning them? Do you just do sound locks, with sample offset, or random LFO to sample start? Would that work at all? I.e. mod depth to a fixed value, would not scan all the samples in the chain?

(I used the method with base sample, and then plocking offsets - but that is kind a work intensive - so maybe there are better ways to do it?)

matteblacksmoke · 2024-11-20T22:30:41.375Z

stimming is so cool. i just want to hang with that guy.

Skorheim · 2024-11-21T03:11:34.788Z

Don’t know this was obvious or not, but I just figured out that a 2 bar ‘amen’ sample breaks up evenly in multiples of 15, if anybody was wondering

Sleepyhead · 2024-12-07T10:58:49.374Z

Cool trick!

B_LD · 2025-04-18T18:45:19.155Z

Can anyone confirm the above chopping trick by @shortcircuit was working? I just tried it with OS1.72 and can’t seem to make retrigs work as required….

uNAQ · 2025-04-18T20:09:08.116Z

Anyone have any interesting suggestions on what to use the trigs on the FX track sequencer.
How do you usually go about it?

Schnork · 2025-04-18T20:22:29.609Z

I usually use them to duck the reverb to achieve an effect similar to sidechaining the reverb to a kick. Trigs on the same steps as the kick, lfo with exponential wave in one shot mode modulating reverb mix volume.
Use negative depth (-40 to -80 depending on how strong you want your ducking effect and how much reverb you have in the mix). Speed is around 20 (fine tune by ear to get it to pump with the groove) with multipler set to x8.

uNAQ · 2025-04-19T06:11:38.086Z

Cool one.
I will sometimes put trigs on where the kick is and route it to the symmetry parameter.
The effect is to get a type of distortion modulation that can go as far as breaking the sound.
If using a mixer is nice to route some channels to the main outs and use that trick in a techno or ambient context.

Also puting trigs and modulating the delay time, then adding some slides can also get freaky.

Anyone got any other interesting suggestions to try out?

Schnork · 2025-04-20T19:15:56.250Z

uNAQ:

I will sometimes put trigs on where the kick is and route it to the symmetry parameter.
The effect is to get a type of distortion modulation that can go as far as breaking the sound.
If using a mixer is nice to route some channels to the main outs and use that trick in a techno or ambient context.

Nice! That’s actually a really cool idea. I’ve never used the master distortion much, because things get hissy and noisy pretty quickly, but this is fun! So far I tried to target hats and other high freq sounds by putting trigs offbeat or somewhere else inbetween kicks and let the symmetry chop off just a bit of the high freq content.
Could also use p-locks on some of the trigs.

Btw, this reminds me of two things; The video about modulating the compressor on the Octatrack to change the groove/feel of a track, mainly modulating attack and release. Only one lfo on the Rytm, but p-locking is an option, or maybe midi lfos could be used as well (OTs midi lfos work fairly well, even for timing sensitive stuff.

Second one is from an Elektron video (a demo of one of the OS updates) where Dataline used the noise generator on certain steps to trigger the compressor and thus change the groove of the whole mix. I tried it a few times, but couldn’t really get it right.
Not sure how Dataline had set the compressor, but sounds like a potentially useful trick.

uNAQ · 2025-04-21T08:41:11.417Z

Cool ones.
Gonna try them out and experiment

johngredin · 2025-04-21T16:12:49.826Z

Some stuff I love to do on top what’s been suggested:

Gated reverb vibe or ghost rythms with volume automations on reverb.
Playing with the len, tail or the freq or reverb can do a lot for tonal sculpting
Modulating delay time for glitch FX (can do wonder with conditional trigs)
Lock the LFO on different parameters, so you can rythmically automate more than one FX (and do crazy audio rate modulations on the comp, distortion and reverb)

Bitsnbobs · 2025-04-21T16:26:47.938Z

so i found a thing about key tracking the rytm but i could not implement it - can anybody help?

shortcircuit · 2025-04-23T13:20:07.993Z

hey @B_LD, i can’t be of much help as i didn’t install the latest firmware, but i can confirm that it works on the 1.70 os

B_LD · 2025-04-23T13:38:31.495Z

Hey @shortcircuit, many thanks for your reply.

I still have a question that was a bit unclear to me:
If you say “retrig lenght of 20 will have a retrig velocity on 20” I wonder which parameters you are actually referring to.
Because my understanding would be: if let’s say a “chop” is 1/8th note long you want to have duration/retrig length of 1/8th set for it, right? And the retrig rate would be set to anything that makes sense soundwise?

May also be, that I’m completely on the wrong track here.

alechko · 2025-04-24T18:42:42.598Z

oh man, there’s so many, after you’ve done sliding between values of stuff remember that you can also set conditions to the trigs, as well as page length, you can create radical sound effects just with p-locking and sliding between delay time or smooth and barely noticeable changes in atmosphere with reverb filter/shelf or compressor settings, like add compression but reduce the wet a bit.
you can also play a lot with p-locking the distortion symmetry and resample very glitchy but rhythmic noise effects.
also, you can set the fill condition to have reverb tail and delay feedback to go up with the press of a fill button, these trigs need to be reset by the next trig so you can create timed transitions with this approach.

uNAQ · 2025-04-25T08:27:41.206Z

Wooooooo
The last tip with the fill is super useful!!!

Heard a comment on my last set concerning some of my transitions.
Still looking for ways to pass sensibly from a 145bpm to a 110bpm track, without half the crowd cringing from the abrupt cuts and changes of tempo.
Thanks!!!

B_LD · 2025-04-25T09:02:48.764Z

Another time stretching trick with Parameter Slides. Apologies if this had been mentioned elsewhere, didn’t see it while searching…

Start with a 1 bar loop. Sample start to 0, sample end to 0.05, loop=on.
Place a trig on step 1, activate parameter slide on it.
Place a trig on step 16, lock sample start to 119.95 and end to 120. Microtime that trig to the rightmost position.
Hit play. Play around with sample tune and tempo.
It’s also possible to set longer looping fragments. Or set them unevenly.

Downside to this method: Introduces a lot of grit and works better if increasing tempo/tune. But there’s nice spots to be explored.

shortcircuit · 2025-05-04T21:07:24.125Z

@B_LD sorry for the belated reply, i was away and couldn’t check on the rytm. Yes you are right, those are the step sequencer retrig menu parameters. I probably should have been more clear, i made that example to indicate which settings you would choose for the desired loop length that you want to play from a sequencer step. In that example a step that is set to play with a retrig length of 20 and a retrig velocity on 20 would be playing the sample loop for a duration of 20 steps, with the retrig rate set to 1/16. So if you want to set a part of the loop that plays 1/8 of a duration you would be opening the retrig menu on a sequencer step and set the retrig length to 1/8, then set the retrig velocity on 2 with the retrig rate active on 1/16. Hope this clears things up, feel free to ask if you have other questions

B_LD · 2025-05-05T06:06:33.366Z

Thanks for clearing this up.
I think I got a little too excited by the mention of “chopping” and was hoping to get away without locking (trig velocity for) different start points.

Schnork · 2025-05-05T11:12:34.395Z

alechko:

also, you can set the fill condition to have reverb tail and delay feedback to go up with the press of a fill button, these trigs need to be reset by the next trig so you can create timed transitions with this approach.

This is gold! I played around a bit with this, yesterday! Amazing how simple reverb automation can completely transform something. I used 1st trig condition resetting a saw wave one shor lfo on a pattern with no kick to ramp up the reverb and on the next patterns I had some p-locks automating different reverb parameters. Sounds soo much better than without automation (at least to my ears). It’s like there’s a groove within the reverb tail.