Electribe 2

come on guys… tell it like it is… just touching the thing gives you a half boner… it’s amazing, inspiring, fun… same kinda fun as op-1 somehow for me…but 16 tracks ! and a well known Electribe workflow… what a setup it’l be when the sampler arrives :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: just the 2 tribes (go Frankie) and op-1… fast, portable, with “endless” possibilities…

mhhh Tribe… and Chardonnay…and something green… happy happy joy joy!

I don’t like the sounds i’ve heard until now. For me - making music is all about sound. that’s why i like to work with synts. And nothing beats the sound of analog . I enjoy other sytems to - I had a Wavestation ( never used the presets ) - and I have a K2500 - witch are both great synts . I Worked with computer and plugins for years. After 30 years of making music it has become clear to me that the essence is Sound. Personnaly I hate using presets - composing allways started with creating a sound of my own. In my ears nothing beats Analog synthesis and I think the main reason is that analog synts are natural instruments. They use electric current - as a guitar uses wood and metal.and some flutes use wind and wood ( or - and metal). The sounds of instruments build with or around natural elements ( electricity - wood - wind - water - or even stone etc… ) are all analog ( witch to me means ALIVE and ENDLESS ) and therefore have a surtain quality or spirit
So that’s probably the reason why analog will allways sound better.
This is offcourse only my opinion.
So it’s great to have all this different instruments and i’ve enjoyed digital and sample-based synthesis a lot - but it can’t touch analog.

You can get good sounds from it if you spend some time with it. Here is a video I did after having it for few days. There are limitations but overall it’s great value. I’ve had mine for almost a month now and I’m still finding good new sounds out of the box even with the limited edit-ability.

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Is anyone here using Korg Gadget? Got any thoughts on how the new Electribe ranks against that?

Or is it blasphemy to even bring software into this debate. Perhaps it is.

The iGadget shares a lot of the samples with the new Electribes and although the Electribe only offers a share of the synth engines from Gadget they sound like quite from the same family.

From the UI I find the iGadget tedious compared to hardware but I’m very biased towards touch interfaces as I believe tactile feedback is essential for these kind of things…

The Electribe also has great sounding filter models that gadget doesn’t - they sound organic, it’s very impressive - from the king korg according to the marketing spiel

That sounds pretty nice, although I tried one in a store today and couldn’t figure out if there was a way to change patterns without a slight gap in the audio. That’s a dealbreaker for me since I like to do a lot of pattern changes when I’m playing live.
ps. hi, first post! Got a monomachine coming soon, hopefully. Can’t wait!

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Definitely agree with this. I’ve used hardware since forever, and when DAWs came along, I felt like an old grumpy man who’s afraid of change when everyone sold their gear, switched to computers and told me it was da shit.
Now, it’s pretty clear, looking at offerings from developers large and small, that hardware really has a strong place in music making, for whatever purpose - sequencing, composing, sound architecture. And you don’t have to take sides - computers do one thing well, hardware another, depending on your preference.
Though I’m still stuck in hardware land. Don’t even use a DAW. I’d fund an Octatrack MKII myself if Elektron was up for it.

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So the delivery date of the new Electribe Sampler has been pushed back to June at my local retailer’s…

Does anyone know anything about what the h*ll is up with Korg?

I’m only speculating here:

A number of early adopters of the E2, the synth (Serial Numbers < 2000) are mentioning chassis issues on the FB group.

This can take the form of the unit not sitting perfectly straight on the table, or as with mine, the jack outs not aligning perfectly with the chassis. (cables sticking out at 87° instead of 90°)

So I’m guessing Korg is taking care of quality control at the moment…

So I take everything back what I’ve said regarding the new Electribe.

It’s bloody awesome. I made a final effort before I put it up for sale and something clicked. Now it’s just pouring. Can’t wait for the sampler version.

I have one and I’m loving it, fast workflow and really inspiring.
I only have 3 complains, lack of arpeggiator, reverb as master effects only, not insert and the gap when switching patterns, which makes it unusable live.

But this shit is real fun to use, it immediately became the go-to drum machine/synth for my alt-rock band and if you run the EMX2 in the audio in of the A4 and add some reverb (you can’t beat the A4 reverb) the EMX2 really comes to life.

Now that you also have a Rytm to compare the Electribe to. Is it still bloody awesome?

Now that you also have a Rytm to compare the Electribe to. Is it still bloody awesome?[/quote]
It most certainly is. They complete each other wonderfully. I can color the sound with my samples from the Analog Rytm, build a foundation or sometimes a complete track within that instrument, and then bring in what’s missing on the synth side from the Tribe. They blend beautifully together.
I’m learning, though, that if you’re clever about how you’re using the Rytm, it can carry an entire song on its own. I’m experimenting with loops now and it’s working surprisingly well, as long as you’re not stretching for that non-available time stretch feature. Which I rarely do.
I’m plugging the Tribe into the Rytm, since I like the way the Rytm’s dist and the comp color the sound. So the Tribe gets an even stronger boost through that machine.

Interesting. I was just thinking today about loading up some pre-warped, BPM-tagged loops in the Rytm to hear how they might sound.
I’ve been using the Rytm for whole song jams. 4 pattern variations plus lots of Scene/Performance/Mute work. But I’m trying to find non-$1,000 Octatrack (or 2nd Rytm) live performance solutions for transitioning rhythms between one 4 pattern song block to another. Dedicating a voice to some thematic loops might be the answer. Or, I could just dust off the Volca Sample.
Also, I was looking at the new Electribe really hard for a couple months but every recording or video of it I listened to online sounded completely generic. I figured, okay maybe its just going to take some time for some original sounds to come out of the thing publicly, but I never found any. In some ways it was a blessing because it led me to the AR/A4 combo.
But I wonder, how can one make the new Electribe sound unique? Any tips?
I think there is something to be said for tools that offer not just instant gratification, like the Rytm, but allow you to follow that gratification into new territory quickly, rather than having to chip away past all the samey-ness until you get to your “own sound”.
For me, the real power of the Rytm isn’t just the Elektron v2 sequencer with p-locks, or even the realtime scene and performance modes. Those features are great, sure. But I feel I can make it sound like what my mind wants to hear, and sound unique thanks to the massive, glued together sonic sweet spot it has, where everything is just a few knob turns away from sounding right, the layer/stack nature of the oscillator/sample per voice, and the ability to get loads of character out of so few LFOs. It is in those features that I find the Rytm’s essence, or soul.
So, I ask… in what features of the Electribe do you find its essence or soul?

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.

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Sadly the electribe sampler has far less filter types. Of course, that hasn’t hurt the Rytm, but when comparing the two electribes, it is unfortunate.

It seems they could have easily released one electribe with both models’ functionality but it is probably a better business plan to spread things thin as they have.

Have you tried running the Electribe into the Rytm’s input? Hopefully the electribe’s output is hot enough to get it to work. Seems like even the Rytm’s compressor could give the tribe some needed flavour.

Well, the Rytm’s input is what it is, and the Electribe’s output is sort of the same. They don’t play well together. You need something in between to amplify the signal. Not always, depending on what you’re doing, but when you find yourselves bringing the track amps down on the Rytm just to get decent levels in the headroom between the Tribe and the Rytm, you know you’re putting patches on a wound that can’t be healed.

So I’d recommend something in between, a mixer or drive or whatever.

I can’t really figure out what the point of the Rytm’s input was. Comparing to the Tribe’s input, that can even make a Volca sing without additional help, you’d wonder why they even bothered. Unless they think their comps and dists are so good, it’s worth a little device in between just to get the most of them.

That could be it, actually :slight_smile:

Just bought an old elektribe emx 2nd-hand- just because i like the synth -part for a certain type of sounds - and i like the sequencer-type and the interface -.maybe strange but i prefer the old elektribe. It all comes down to personal taste or needs.

I think the Analog Rytm input only needs about another 5dB and it would be just fine.

Been playing around with Volca Sample today, going into Rytm’s input. The level is jussst enough to use the Volca as a bridging and backing layer rhythm machine, but needs just a couple more dB to bring it forward in the mix, so I’m grabbing a Rolls mini mixer for live work to input the Volca and other things into Rytm for mixing and using Rytm’s compressor as a mains compressor, of sorts.

I’ve got room in the travel case for another box, but the electribe has yet to convince me. Still waiting on that one demonstration of the new electribe that makes me go “OK!”

I’m wondering how good the new electribe would be at MonoMachine type sounds. Using it only as a self-sequenced synth module, in a mix with analog hardware.

This was the “OK!” that did it for me with the Rytm:

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