While I’ve only owned a Rytm for two days now, that’s actually how I feel about it too. It’s like putting on an old record where you can tell that everything just went right in the studio that day.
As for the Electribe, I’ve had it since January and was close to selling it. What stopped me, and not only that but turned me, was two things - the synth oscillators specifically and the filters. There’s lots going on inside the Tribe, such as great drum sounds, decent samples, effects and so on, and the live features aren’t bad either.
But I decided to dig into the actual pure sounds, the saw, triangles and sines and all the variations within, and see how far I could take them with the limited feature set that the Tribe offered. And that’s where I found what you’re talking about, in this case for the Tribe a very classic sound that reminded me of soft vintage sounds from the 70’s. They follow your tweaks very smoothly even when you work with them as the sequencer is running, creating nice, long tails, soft transitions and atmospheric soundscapes. And due to their non-aggressive sounds, they blend very well into a mix and adapt fine into whatever you’re working on for the moment.
So if you’re considering an Electribe, I’d try out the pure synth oscillators, build up a nice sequence, throw in an insert effect and play with the filters and the amp in real time.
It’ll be interesting to see what this approach will do with whatever you put in the Electribe Sampler, when that comes out. I’m wondering if that maybe could be my perfect future companion for the Rytm.