I never really considered the Rytm. Didn’t care much for the A4, and many people seemed to like that one better as a drummachine than the Rytm, so it drifted off my radar for many years.
A few weeks back, a mk1 showed up locally, at a price I couldn’t ignore, so I got it, thinking I might sell it on. My, oh my… What a wonderful machine. We just clicked instantly, and the more I explore, the more I love it.
Just wanted to share. Guess the moral of the story is, that you never really know a machine, before you sit down with it
I love mine too. One feature I neglected for awhile and absolutely love now is the “Velocity Mod”. You get up to 4 parameters to modulate. If you are going for a “realistic” vibe this can really help to emulate timbre/tone change.
I have had a long and tumultuous relationship with the RYTM, but it has been worth it. We’ve settled down now and have learned to accept one another for who we are. There’s nothing else like it, and I don’t want to be without it.
I only got my Rytm MK1 a few months ago after owning and selling an A4 and Digitakt in the past. Absolutely love it as my only hardware drum machine connected to Ableton Live via hardware mixer. Thick and heavy sound, lots of versatility in the different machines, great delay and versatile reverb. Not too keen on the overdrive or the compressor but I use Ableton Live for those things anyway. Absolutely killer box of tricks.
the AR is the rytmic core of my current setup and it’ll probably be this way for a while i think; being able to route each track is something i like and use when experimenting with sounds…sampling would be a really nice to have but well…for that there’s the MKII
I never looked elsewhere. It’s easier than it sounds. Just double tap either the “trig” or “synth” button (can’t remember which right now) and select “velocity to mod”. Then just assign the parameters you want and the amount you want to modulate (similar to hiw you set LFO settings). Now just use the regular trig page to p-lock the VEL (velocity) value per trig.
For realistic-ish sounds I’ll put a very slight mod on the pitch that increases with higher velocity and also the filter to slightly brighten to mimic the natural timbre of a real drum head.
Or, I just add a little overdrive and reduce the level slightly on a snare to make it crunch at higher velocity.
The most common track I vary velocity on is the hihats so they don’t sound so machine gun all the time. With those I’ll modulate the send to the delay/reverb so it doesn’t get masked.
Lastly, I’ll get wacky and modulate whatever like lfo rate, huge pitch changes, specific track parameters and resonance to make things get crazy.
Just play with it
All makes sense, thanks. The only thing I dont get is this:
Say I use 100 as my usual default velocity. On a snare with 2 hits, I go to the mod and set the pitch to +2. I keep the velocity at 100 in the mod menu but I set 1 snare to hit at 99 in the sample velocity and the other at 102. So my thinking is the 102 should bend the pitch to 1 but 100 should keep it at zero. Instead they both play at the +2 pitch. So I must be looking at this wrong.
Hmm, I’ll have to get in front of my machine and take a look later. Off the top of my head, maybe it has to do with the 100 value in the mod section.
I’ll get back as soon as I can
