Mine’s stuck in the local depot , prob until monday…
how are you getting along with yours?
Just an hour or so of playing around with it so far, after loading a bunch of my samples. I like it a lot, and will likely sell the M:S now because all the extra features are worth it. It sounds excellent and the interface is easy (not too many menus like the Octatrack).
Mine has the Mute pad issue, which others have mentioned on the forum. Occasionally muting one pad will mute a specific adjacent one too without touching it. But I don’t play live gigs so it doesn’t bother me much. Plus there is a workaround - if you hold FUNC it will let you select multiple pads to mute, and they won’t actually be muted until you let go of the FUNC button. That’s how I would do it if I wanted reliable performance in a live setting.
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I’m glad your stoked with it but I would not settle for a unit with the mute issue for a device that costs so much, maybe something that would be fixed with software but the hardware should work perfectly… You deserve a working unit and Elektron should take those ones back and set things straight…
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They’ve got some weird stuff going on with misplaced buttons, improper labeling, hardware faults, other random quirks, all since the digis and MK2’s… I love em but they got some stuff to sort out at the ol factory, or rather the new one maybe… I think Ess said they upped quality control but I bet there’s older ones at retailers still getting sold with issues…
Sorry to hear that it’s faulty. Hope it gets sorted without much hair pulling.
Of course I will check into it, but from reading the other thread I’m not convinced that it is a fixable issue. Some people have gotten their back from “repair” and it has the same problem?
So, what do you think so far?
I’m still thrilled with mine, and I’m mostly using samples. I’ve barely looked at the synthesis part. The End parameter for samples instead of Length is the one thing I’m not sure that I like. Length made it easier to jump around within a long sample and only have short bits playing. So now I’m using the Amp Envelope to work around that. But if I want to move loops around within a sample I have to move both Start and End, instead of just Start by itself.
I’m using Chains and Song Mode quite a bit, which is another reason why I wasn’t completely happy with the M:S or DT.
I’ve not gone into song mode or chains yet. I’m just messing about with loops really. Playing with the synth engines and loading up my own samples. Basically doing what I do on the M:S for now and learning where everything is.
I’m finding it confusing, I keep on losing where things are down menus and getting confuzled with bits from the other device. I’ve spent the last 10 minutes trying to load my own samples from the Kit and Sound menus and wondering why they aren’t there, completely forgetting you load from the little cog icon. Also looking blank at the panel trying to find the %chance setting is for each track when it doesn’t exist.
Also I keep getting myself into a hole which I can’t get back out of so I hard reset the machine back to blank state to fix it.
Give it time. It’s not that I don’t know what each function does, it’s just they’re placed in strange places.
edit: Just going to add. It lacks a bit of oomph compared to the bottom end on the M:S and when you run the two of them together it sounds pretty amazing. I think I’m going to have to keep both.
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I’d give it some time… I get bass tones so low out of AR things in the room vibrate and you can’t hear the note… 
I mostly use the analog engines…
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If you mean a Factory Reset, instead check out all the Reload shortcuts (holding the “No” button and choosing Kits, Sounds, Patterns, etc.) I’ve made a test project and just named it “Trash”, and I’m using that to learn all the features. I don’t save it so I can always reload and start over.
Regarding the sound, I’m convinced the Model:Samples has a tiny bit of compression inside there’s no control over it. Either that or maybe it uses cheaper/dirtier-sounding components in the analog output section. I’ve recorded tests on the M:S, DT, and AR mkII using the exact same clip of audio. The DT is the cleanest, pretty much exactly “what goes in comes out”. The Rytm is very close to clean with the compressor mix at zero. The Model:Samples has the most color.
We recently fixed a small issue in M:S which made the distortion kick in way too early, 1.02 should be as clean as DT. No compressor or anything like that, it was most likely the distortion you noticed.
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Thanks for the info, makes sense. I did my comparisons befoer 1.02 was released.
I got my Rytm mkii in November. Stay with it. Once you learn the little tricks to get the sounds that you want, you won’t want to part with it :).
I also have a Digitakt alongside my Rytm. They have some overlapping features, but I love using them both on every track I make. You may find the M:S complements your Rytm well. It’s also much more portable too.
Many people don’t like to do this, but it helped me a lot to grab a few packs online and explore the sounds other people made to reverse engineer them in order to learn how to make a particular sound. I find the elektron machines especially great for this since all the parameters are clearly laid out on the screen.
I wasn’t 100% happy with my kicks on the Rytm for the first few weeks, but after some practice I’m able to make weighty, punchy, kicks and snares that are just as good as any sample in my library.
Once you get the sound close to how you like, you can resample it right back into the machine which allows you to filter again to get it JUST right and add even more mojo to it…
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I’m quite good with making funny noises, I sold a Vermona DRM 1 recently, which is quite similar to the machines inside the AR2 , and I sometimes knock up drum kits on my modular so there’s nothing really new to learn with the synthesis part.
But that OS … I just can’t remember where anything is, I need to memorise it. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old , ha
I’ll have a pop at resampling tomorrow , along with actually stringing together songs n stuff.
What synth/sample packs would you recommend?
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Having that modular base will go a long way, as evidenced by your video.
To be honest, I absolutely hated the Elektron (Post SID Station) approach. I admired the power for sure. It’s really second to none (Spectralis notwithstanding). However, I couldn’t get it to click with my brain for the longest time spanning MANY beautiful devices.
Finally, I said, eff it, I HAVE to sit down, and drill into it, and MAKE it stick. The A4 MkI was the device I decided this with. I decided, I had to make a full, multi-pattern track using as many features as I could. (I made an Elektro version of Saria’s Song from Zeld Ocarina of Time.)
Anyway, after that, bits and pieces started remaining in my brain, and I expanded it over a short time.
I had to sell the A4 shortly after to fund a big modular design I was working on. Later, I got my first Digitakt, which was night and day in immediacy and ease of live tweaking. THAT was the epiphany moment, and I will absolutely have at least one Elektron if not three in every future setup.
It was a road that spanned every device (except the Octatrack) from the SID Station to the Model:Samples that has made me a solid Elektron fanatic (in addition to my modulars and Roland bits) for the foreseeable future. If I pull one, I will replace it with one or two more. 
It can take that little extra effort, but I feel it’s worth it.
It looks like you’ve got an amazing start.
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Oh, and as to your sample pack question, obviously you won’t need anything TR X0X like you would if it was a Digi or M:S. I’d grab anything with classic digital machines (Linn, DMX, etc. and classic modular . Buchla, Serge, SID, NES, etc.). They may seem chippy at first, but those make excellent base sounds and cycles for more synthy stuff.
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Oh wow, the Vermona’s been on my most wanted list for a long while. For sound packs I found the AR808 pack and the New Blood pack were fantastic. Plenty of sounds between those and the factory sounds to get me familiar with the system.
Can you still set track levels to 100% without distortion kicking in–if not whats your recommendation for track levels?
The Volume+Dist parameter has distortion that kicks in after about 60, but the Track Level itself simply attenuates the final output of the track and does not distort anything.
You could see it as: Volume+Dist parameter set at 60, Track Volume at 100 would be the maximum loudness you can get out of the sample without distortion. Note that it depends a bit on the volume of the sample itself - it is preferred that it is normalized or at least reasonably loud.
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