Syntakt & Rytm question

Hey folks , Ive Syntakt drum machine and i love it so much . specially Analog kick / snare machines. i love Size and workflow but big red flag is hat / cymbal machines for me . i making hypnotic techno and sometimes xperimental . syntakt hat always sounds bad in my prod( both digital & analog machines ) im wondering if it worth it to sell syntakt and buy analog rytm . whats main differances ? i know about individual outputs and compressor , but to add sample on analog machines sounds so cool . as i know kick machine is same in rytm and im wondering what im missing ? rytm is really expensive and syntakt price so low on 2nd handed market . any advise ? thanks

Add a DTII <3. Probably cheaper than selling ST and getting an AR and youā€™ll have loads more control over samples.

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Itā€™s a good idea and I agree with you :slight_smile:
Main interest of Syntakt (for me) are the four analog tracks.

The only cons about switching from the Syntakt to the Rytm are the fact that you loose an LFO per track (only 1 LFO per track on Rytm) but AR has parameter slides (not the same thing than LFO but it can achieve very similar things in a lot of cases). And you loose the Syntakt FX block with its enveloppes but the Rytm has a stereo analog compressor instead.

But keep in mind that Syntakt has all the machines from Analog Rytm except for the two tom machines (that are really simple). Main difference is 8 analog voices for AR (4 for Syntakt) and the ability to use sample with analog filters and vcas per voice.

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thanks for resposne . thats the main goal what u mentioned about samples with Analog filters & VCA . i really like that idea that i can mix sample with analog machine and plus add analog filter / VCA . i dont know how rytm sounds to be honest but i love the structure idea .

thanks for response mate ! Ive Maschine plus ( native instruments ) and i dont like it . poor perfromance , poor sampler and playback :person_facepalming: i had octatrack long time ago and it was really beast . atm im more into fully functional drum machine ( i love syntakt but i think its not finished drum machine , no chokes , no swing per track and many more but its fun ) 1 option is rytm mk2 which looks so cool and 2. option is jomox alpha base ( i love sound but after elektron sequencer jomox really bad at sequencing and menu diving . :melting_face::sweat_smile:

My humble opinion after having owned Syntakt, Analog Rytm MK1, MK2 and Digitakt I & II:

Syntakt is more immediate, but very lacking in depth and most of the hats are basically unusable in my opinion. Though this depends on the music you want to make of course.

Analog Rytm, either version, is a beast, but much less immediate. If you spend some time making presets (you can use Justin Valers analog 808 kit as a starting point for example) you can get a good workflow going. My issue with the AR is that with a little knob twist you can make it sound shite. This is both a pro (itā€™s very versatile in terms of sounds you can make, 909 sounding kicks and 808 sounding snares for example) and a con (definitely far from immediate, which for me kills creativity a bit).

If I was you Iā€™d probably try going for the AR. The sounds you can make with it are absolutely golden of you put the effort into it. And if that doesnā€™t gel, get a DT2 instead for immediacy (or better yet, have both!).

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Can you explain why AR is less immediate than Syntakt ? It seemed that it was the exactly same machines with same parameters (+ the 2nd lfo on Syntakt that can add more complexity, + the possibility to choose between AHR and ADSR enveloppes on Syntakt, no offense, Iā€™m just curious)

Yeah, youā€™re probably right about that. Personally I ended up using Syntakt mostly for synth sounds (this is where I feel it shines the most), so itā€™s likely my use case shining through here. However I do feel that the newer UI and interface does matter quite a bit too. For example, there are no pattern mutes on the AR so you have to mute the engines per pattern. Things like that make it much more clunky imho.

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i 100% agree with u . hats on syntakt really sucks :melting_face:

ā€¦if ur not happy with the hat and cymbals only, iā€™d say, ur best option is a 2nd hand dt1 or the rytm mk1ā€¦

on the other hand, iā€™m asking myself, ur sure, u have tried hard enough to make the cymbal/hat engines fit to ur tasteā€¦?

before u spent further money, or even get rid of syntakt, give it another go and see if combos of digital and analog engines combined in effort to smash ur personal cymbal/hat issues might do the trickā€¦also the analog filter stage might fix the issueā€¦

as in all elektron devices, pretty much most of us, never see/find their full potential for real, due to catching up and stay with their personal versions of workflows and stopping too ā€œearly onā€ with further experimenting and the will to dig a little deeperā€¦way too often iā€™ve experienced all this little eyeopeners to totally different workflow approaches with just a little twist to shine an absolute different light on it, after iā€™ve thought for quite already, that iā€™ve seen it allā€¦

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i see but ye i tried to explore it really hard but its reallt bad hat engine . :melting_face:

Rytm > Syntakt IMHO. But Rytm isnā€™t without its cons:

  • Samples on a Rytm (both MKI & MKII) have a cramped high freq response
  • Only one LFO
  • Parameter ranges of controls are steppier than on Syntakt
  • Managing samples across different projects can be a PITA

Syntaktā€™s main achilles heel in my personal use is the lack of any sort of samples. But that is easily fixed with something as simple as a Roland P6 running into it.

Agree about the form factor. Small digis are a perfect size for cramped setups.

However, seeing as you dislike the Maschine+, I am not sure I can recommend any gear for you with confidence. We seem to have differing expectations. I personally adore my Maschine+ and if I had to pick either Elektron boxes or M+, Iā€™d probably choose M+. Just like an Elektron box, you need to learn M+ limitations and embrace its strenghts instead.

just my 2 cents (jm2c)

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First rule on the way to amazing hihats on the syntakt: never ever use cy alloy

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I really like the HH LAB personally. My cheat method with it is rinsing YES+SYNTH until the hats sound like they make sense in the current patternā€¦ But this sometimes takes quite a lot of button presses hehehe!

I suppose itā€™d take layering a few tracks for really impressive hihat resultsā€¦ This usually works great on Elektrons IME

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There are 40+ machines in the Syntakt and every single one can be used for hihats.

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im maschine user for years and i love it for some reasons but currently its outdated for me :roll_eyes:specially with that price 1.2 k $ thanks for response šŸ«¶šŸ»

what u would recommend ?

Itā€™s not even funny how much better the CY ALLOY machine sounds on the model:cycles compared to ST. In fact, Iā€™d say its one of the highlights of the cycles

You can use sound locks that effectively do the same thing. Save/load sounds into the ā€˜Sound Poolā€™ and you can change the sound per step. Being a monophonic device, this would do the exact same things as choking.

True. Iā€™m no drum machine aficionado but Iā€™m not aware of any drum machines that do this. It is so dead simple to micro time things though that you can easily and quickly add your own groove to each track. I understand itā€™s not the same but try doing this on a TR8S. Horrible experience.

If I were looking at the ARMKII vs ST, it would be for the performance features of the former. I feel like trading off those features for the FX track on the ST is worth it. The FX track is so grossly underrated itā€™s absurd.

909esque drums on Syntakt, hihats are analog, 2 variants

same thing, ā€¦ played around with tuning there:

More options:

Pc Carbon

Sy Bits

Dual VCO

Sy Tone

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