Why I returned my Analog Rytm

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
22

[quote=“” mokomo""]

[quote=“Accent”]There have been no new drum modules since the AR was released, right?

I’m really hoping to see ihatederekreed eat his AR. Come on guys, I know you want to see your expensive drum machine grow, but isn’t it worth seeing someone actually consume the thing?

ELEKTRON: I don’t even want an AR, but I will buy one tomorrow if someone makes a video of one being eaten in full because of unrealized expectations. Keep holding out, or make it the sexy drum box that exceeds all our dreams.
[/quote]

Bass Drum FM and Snare Drum FM were introduced in 1.01.
Cenk had also mentioned a ring mod drum synth in early demos but we haven’t seen it yet.
I expect they are lining up some news for winter NAMM at this rate … [/quote]
Fair points-I remember the FM and ring mod drums being introduced at the inception
Still, hush up; I really want to see ihatederekreed eat his AR; I’ll provide the fancy mustard if he goes through with it.

23

you only get +/- 3 steps to shift your hits to, which is in no way comparable to the micro timing on the Elektron boxes. Not even close. Furthermore, it’s very fiddly to navigate around the step /event edit screen, so it doesn’t offer the elegance or immediacy of Elektron’s micro - timing implementation.

Reading manuals is fun indeed, but sometimes, using the machine is the only real way to understand how it operates, its limitations, and how they may affect you.

24

@secretmusic
I fully understand what you say but I’ve idly stood buy and watched individuals say the nord drum 2 is sample based (which is scientifically known as bollocks) on this forum and in a thread topic where it’s all to easy for people to reveal the size of their hardware penises I just had to make a point.
I fully understand the need/expectation blah blah of users, and having owned and sold a Tempest previously but like you I’m sure that some misinformation must be pointed out.
It’s all too easy for threads to become a slanging match and argument.

I just had to say that although yes it’s not micro timing but there are some time skewing features available.that have seemed to have eluded some people available on the Tempest which as a box of electronics has tempted not a small amount of blind hate!

I sadly only have an Octatrack now (only!!!) but Christ on a bike some people don’t know the Nord Drum 2 is 6 mono synths and I just had to come out of forum retirement to address something that irked me.

Respect to you though, I’ve watched to you many times!
This forum has gone a little sour compared to EU!

25

Thanks for this thread. I’m on the fence and this conversation is helpful. If I’m going to drop that kind of coin, I want to love the device.

While I enjoy the analog tone of the A4, I want my drums to be sharp and crisp. If that means only using samples in the Analog Rytm, I can save literally thousands of dollars and get the Volca sample or Electribe Sampler when released. I also have an OT.

Or even an OP-1 and have a music making alternative. But also trigger drum kits from the OT.

Interesting

I’m sure at some point GAS will get the better of my though…ugh

26

I love my rytm and think it’s very close to being a perfect machine for me. I’m disappointed in the input and there’s some wonky response with the pads sometimes but I feel at least the pads could be fixed with a firmware update.

27

Unfortunately right now they won’t even confirm if it’s theoretically possible to add sensitivity adjustment… doesn’t seem unrealistic though.

If the pads were “fixed” tomorrow with an update i’d probably stop wondering and just buy one I think…

28

Hi Jack
I agree with you 100 % on the fact that misinformation must be pointed out :slight_smile: And also that some of the Tempest’s features are sometimes forgotten. I have this love / hate relationship with it, but I will never part with it.

Yesterday night, I did not feel like going down to the studio and turning on all the kit, so I just sat on my couch with the Tempest and some headphones, and realized a few hours later that I had been absorbed, once again, by its captivating sound, depth, and expressivity.
I did not know that you owned a Tempest before, so my apologies for assuming you didn’t.

This forum is very sour indeed, I only visit it rarely, and I do miss the old one. However, a better moderation would help a lot with the overall vibe, and it really baffles me that some posters are allowed to continually derail threads and aggressively attack other posters. All I can say is that they’re lucky I’m not a moderator :slight_smile:

Finally, it’s all too easy to forget sometimes that we are debating about first world problems, that, in the grand scheme of things, have nothing to do with the real world, and the incredible struggles that some people face daily, not so far from our homes. Let’s be grateful that our problems involve expensive music making machines that don’t operate exactly how we dream they would. Our lives could be a lot worse :slight_smile:

Cheers !

29

I did too, I thought it was a little baffling to be honest. But then I went and bought one anyway. (Don’t know why—materialism?)

I don’t really own any other analog gear, I’ve mostly worked with sampling, lots of MPCs, and now computers, and I suspected all the noise about how grand ‘analog gear’ sounded, was mostly snobbery.

But then I started using the RYTM. And maybe it’s precisely because of my lack of experience with analog gear, but I am just completely blown away. It really sounds different. It has a whole other body to it. The way the oscillators sound, not to mention the filter and the compressor, it just all sound so fat, almost greasy, to my ears. The RYTM is out of control. I love it.

1 Like
30

@Secretmusic
Yeah Man! (I liked your thoughts :))

31

I agree that the synth machines are a bit lacking. However, as a workaround, I’ve found it helpful to start with a sample, use that as the backbone of the drum sound, and then mix in a synth machine to provide an extra layer of thickness and/or movement.

With the AR approach, I use the synth snares to add punch to kick samples, or the synth kicks to add weight to sample snares, etc. It feels like a more intuitive layering process than some others I’ve used. The hi-hat synth machines definitely bring some nice movement out when layered w static sampled hats, too, if you’re into that.

My only real gripe with the AR is that I wish there was another LFO per track or the ability to route unused LFOs to other tracks. Would also be cool to have more control over the sample loop parameters, but I’m not holding my breath for that one…

32

Seriously, the one LFO is killing me. I rather ditch the performance mode and get more modulation options.

33

We all are…

34

[quote=““Muddler””]

We all are…[/quote]

I don’t agree sorry. The snipey, smart comments, I would like to see people properly moderated here.

35

I was really really sad when I had to send my AR back due to uneven pad pressure. I paid in full as soon as pre-orders were up in January/Feb so I received a very early unit

I didn’t have more than a month with it but I did enjoy it immensely. It sounds so powerful without any external processing and the filters sound great on samples. the toms really blew my mind, and the bass drum sounds so good overdriven and distorted

I definitely will buy another one in the near future, it just sounds different and has a character that none of my tip-top drum modules, A4, or OT will be able to reproduce.

Of course it isn’t perfect, but to me it sounds so good I can overlook the current limitations

36

We all are…[/quote]

I don’t agree sorry. The snipey, smart comments, I would like to see people properly moderated here.[/quote]
I don’t need you to. Sadly, when I started a thread add about adding Midi; Secretmusic was just one of the loudest and most brash to attack me and my ideas. So No, I would not want him as a mod and i will stick behind that.

37

We all are…[/quote]

I don’t agree sorry. The snipey, smart comments, I would like to see people properly moderated here.[/quote]
I don’t need you to. Sadly, when I started a thread add about adding Midi; Secretmusic was just one of the loudest and most brash to attack me and my ideas. So No, I would not want him as a mod and i will stick behind that.[/quote]
Fair enough - I do think the mods are pretty lax here though…

38

Let me start out by saying that I’m very happy with my RYTM; it provides just the right combination of analog sound, full-featured sequencer, tweakability, and convenient patch storage and retrieval for me.

  1. There’s nothing wrong with how the compressor sounds IMHO. I do agree that the controls aren’t the most obvious and intuitive ever, and that the manual isn’t a great help in figuring out how to make it work for you.

The strangest thing about the compressor is that there’s no “bypass” button to quickly compare your current compressor settings with the uncompressed sound. Right now you have to turn the MIX knob all the way counter-clockwise to get the uncompressed sound.

I don’t think it’s weird that the compressor doesn’t have a dedicated sidechain input. It’s clearly intended as a drum bus or master compressor which makes sense since this is after all a drum machine.

If you wanted to do sidechain compression to get that pumping bass sound, then it makes more sense to use an external compressor since you’d be compressing the bass with your kick as the sidechain input, and not the (sub) mix.

  1. Yeah, the pads suck. I hope they do add some kind of sensitivity configuration settings, but they’ll never be as good as my MPC-1000 Thick Fat Pads.

  2. The dynamic range internally is rather larger and there’s no amplification on the line input, so you can indeed end up in a situation where the level of the line in is too low in comparison. It would be nice if they’d added some amplification here, but I don’t feel that’s a huge issue.

The stereo jack is clearly a tradeoff that was needed to fit all connectors; the same applies to the individual outs.

  1. I love the sounds, and I love how they‘ve created dedicated circuitry for each specific type of sound that’s inspired by classic analog drum machines. It would have been a mistake to give every voice the same generalized “subtractive analog voice” architecture as was done on the Tempest.

Finally, the sample support is of course not as flexible as on a fully featured sampler even though it does go through a pretty nice analog filter and VCA. I still do think it’s a great addition that really helps adding variation and makes it possible to include drum sounds that you don’t expect from a classic “analog only” drum machine.

For example, carefully mixing in 909 CH, OH, Crash, and Ride samples with the analog machines on the RYTM can greatly enhance and spice up these classic sounds.

39

We all are…[/quote]

I don’t agree sorry. The snipey, smart comments, I would like to see people properly moderated here.[/quote]
Start by policing yourself and stay on topic

40

[quote=“” secretmusic""]

[quote=“BeardyJack”]@secretmusic
I fully understand what you say but I’ve idly stood buy and watched individuals say the nord drum 2 is sample based (which is scientifically known as bollocks) on this forum and in a thread topic where it’s all to easy for people to reveal the size of their hardware penises I just had to make a point.
I fully understand the need/expectation blah blah of users, and having owned and sold a Tempest previously but like you I’m sure that some misinformation must be pointed out.
It’s all too easy for threads to become a slanging match and argument.

I just had to say that although yes it’s not micro timing but there are some time skewing features available.that have seemed to have eluded some people available on the Tempest which as a box of electronics has tempted not a small amount of blind hate!

I sadly only have an Octatrack now (only!!!) but Christ on a bike some people don’t know the Nord Drum 2 is 6 mono synths and I just had to come out of forum retirement to address something that irked me.

Respect to you though, I’ve watched to you many times!
This forum has gone a little sour compared to EU!
[/quote]

Hi Jack
I agree with you 100 % on the fact that misinformation must be pointed out :slight_smile: And also that some of the Tempest’s features are sometimes forgotten. I have this love / hate relationship with it, but I will never part with it.

Yesterday night, I did not feel like going down to the studio and turning on all the kit, so I just sat on my couch with the Tempest and some headphones, and realized a few hours later that I had been absorbed, once again, by its captivating sound, depth, and expressivity.
I did not know that you owned a Tempest before, so my apologies for assuming you didn’t.

This forum is very sour indeed, I only visit it rarely, and I do miss the old one. However, a better moderation would help a lot with the overall vibe, and it really baffles me that some posters are allowed to continually derail threads and aggressively attack other posters. All I can say is that they’re lucky I’m not a moderator :slight_smile:

Finally, it’s all too easy to forget sometimes that we are debating about first world problems, that, in the grand scheme of things, have nothing to do with the real world, and the incredible struggles that some people face daily, not so far from our homes. Let’s be grateful that our problems involve expensive music making machines that don’t operate exactly how we dream they would. Our lives could be a lot worse :slight_smile:

Cheers !

[/quote]
On topic?

41

But Anyway
The compressor has not been a problem for me but I don’t use it so extensively. When I do it doesn’t sound like rice crispies. And I have yet to use the input.
Now as for the pads, I like them but would be happy to have a few sensitivity options. I rather doubt this will happen as that would require scene adjustments as well which seem difficult to implement but time will tell.

But the “analog sound”
Come on, that’s just plain personal preference there. It’s big and deep. There are pages of parameters to tweak. It can be manipulated extensively. I’d love some new machines, sure. But to think they’ll change existing is far-fetched. And I’m happy about this.
I love the RYTM.

Actually, I wonder if this thread could’ve just been part of the wish list thread?