Hi, I have ton of gear (amongst which the OT, Analog Keys, Digitone, SP16, several monosynths) but am not entirely satisfied with my drum creation workflow. I have GB’s of samples and chains but I figured out that I not a huge fan of samples, they are too static and I like making my own sounds, also I find sample management very annoying. I fact, I find that I like it more to use the AK and the DN to make beats, than the OT or the SP16. I am very fond of my AK: the design, the sound, the workflow, I like evrything about it (I bought it in perfect shape for 700€ a year ago: best money ever spent on my rig so far). So I started to look at analog drum machines: The only two I like the sounds, from what I heard so far, are the Tempest and the AR. I pretty familiar now with the Elektron workflow so maybe a AR would save me some precious time. My budget however has suffered from the Covid episode, as most of my paid gigs have been canceled or postponed until next year. So I decided that buying new is not reasonable at the moment, and even a used Tempest or AR MkII represent a painful punction from my savings. I know this is a recurrent question, but, in 2020, is the AR MkI, used for around 600€, still a good buy as opposed to a used MKII which go for around 1100€ currently? Or should I just continue to make beats on AK/DN (I love the multimap function for triggering patterns with the direct jump!)? Looking forward hear from you guys. Thanks!
Sure, if you can find one at that price, don’t hesitate.
If you like A4 drums synthesis, you’ll like AR for sure. Limited sound control compare to A4, I miss envelopes / lfos, but machines do the job. Overdrive, Distortion, Compressor also makes the difference with A4.
I don’t especially like the Perfs compare to A4, or OT. 12 tracks for 8 voices, the choices are not easy, can warp my head. Sometimes I think about Digitakt + A4 instead, sampling what I want. I really like DN drums with Multi Map too. But I played AR loud with speakers recently and thought wow, keep it !
I find I can get reasonable drum machine duties out of my octatrack, however, only if I use all three LFOs, per voice, to emulate analogue drum sounds. This means subtle LFO mod of pitch, Filter, and Amp Env. Then the sounds come to life a bit more and if they are fed into the OT master compresser, not bad at all.
The flip side of that is, I really love my TR8S… sounds seriously crispy, punchy as hell, and so fun to play.
An ARmk1 still taunts me from time to time they do sound good. Nuts to the mk2 though… I had one, nothing but dramas so I sent it back.
Would a MK1 solve your problem? Man only you can answer that one.
I own and love OT MK1, A4 MK2 and AR MK1. I never used an AR MK2, but from what I understand, the only “real” difference to MK1 is the ability to sample.
AR MK1 is an absolute joy to use (for me), sounds great and is very intuitive to use when you are used to the Elektron workflow (way easier to get your head around than the OT in my opinion!). The workflow enhancements between MK 1 and 2 are negligible (as far as I can tell from my experience with AR MK1 and A4 MK2…).
So if you don’t need sampling capability - get an MK1! I’d say in good condition, it’s still a very good buy even up to 800€ (600€ would be a no brainer!)
if you can get one for 600€ go for it, normally mk1 are out for 800€
I think I will 
I find AR mk1 tempting too. I use tracks 1-4 of OT currently for basic drum kit, and 5-8 for samples or synths/thrus, sometimes with 8=master. AR would add drum synthesis which is missing in my setup, then I could dedicate 4 OT tracks each to samples and synths/thrus. Plus I just sold some things… Was supposed to by buying modular envelope generators though… 
I have an ARmk2 and tbh I am not impressed.
The analog drum synth is nothing special and I end using moe the samples than the analog engine
I’m in the same boat.
I have tons of great samples, and find the OT to be a great drummachine but as you, I hate sample management and filling up my hard drive with sample pack after sample pack.
I love the drum sounds of the A4 and digitone, and especially with the A4, I think they often sound more alive than static samples.
But soundlocks, as great as they can be, are also a bit messy, and I often loose overview over all the single drum sounds. Options to create them are endless, but this can be also very time consuming. Filling the soundpool all the time can also be tedious
I got the AR as a first analog drummachine, but it didn’t work for me (at least at the time point I purchased it). On the one hand, the analog sound didn’t give me the much awaited wow effect, I thought the A4 sounded more alive and punchier regarding drum synthesis, on the other hand, I recognized I was looking for a more limited, sweet spotty drummachine and not another deep elektron where you have to put in quite some work to learn sweet spots etc…
So I’m still looking for a less costy analog style drummachine, but I find flaws in all of them
The mfbs all sound great, but are said to have a strange workflow
Roland boutiques might be a bit to limited and fiddly
Roland Tr8s is said to be quite menu divy
Roland Tr8 - straightforward, but ugly and sound not as good as the boutiques or Tr8s
Arturia drumbrutes - great sequencers, but don’t like the sound of them
TT606 - seems nice, but I read several complains about quality issues
Acidlab Drumatix/Miami - could be a candidates, a bit limited for the price maybe
Behringer RD8 - well not sure about Behringer, and in comparison videos I actually preferred the Tr08
Jomox is quite expensive for what it does and the quality control and support is said to be horrible.
Haha. Sorry for this lengthy digression
I sound picky, I should just try them all, or just shut up and be happy with my samples/A4/DN 
And did you think about a couple of Eurorack to complement A4?
That was part of my hesitation, selling my AR for DT+Eurorack for drums. Today I set A4+AR again, once set : instant gratification, cool groove with guitar. Have to record this!
I wanted to control Perf with A4 Perf knobs, but I didn’t find it great. @nionmu, some advices? I may key A4 Perfs and use another controller…
yes, but in my experience, no matter how simple it might be what you’re going for in eurorack, everytime you set up a rack on modulargrid, you realize that it’s waaay to expensive for what it does. And that you’re probably better off with a standalone unit, if you don’t want to go all in
If you like to create your sound, as you wrote, I think AR in not for you.
It’s a good drum machine but the synthesis possibilities are too limited.
And, as someone wrote, the drum synth in not too impressive.
If you like the sound design way you can create interesting percussion from A4/Ak or DN as you wrote.
AR is an instant gratification drum machine but not a so experimental drum synth.
Just my opinion…
do you use a4 and a4, or is it a typo? i have set it up in a way, that ar and a4 perf controls trigger both devices at the same time… so i can choose if i want to use the (momentary) pad on rytm or the encoder on a4, or i can reset the encoder value by tapping rytm pad… like on the video i posted… i think it is encoder destination, ext and internal… did it not work or do you just did not like it? i also play ar autochannel via a4 keyboard on cv track…
also to stay on topic, i have ar mk1 since many years and still love it. it is a groovebox, not just a drum machine… i do like the sound of the synth machines, but also mix and match with samples…
edit:
regarding sound design: it is a thing of perspective: for a drum machine… the oldschool drum machine was pretty limited with a few parameters per voice/drum static for all ttiggers…
but the rytm has different machines plus samples plus per step sound change and insane sequencer with scenes and perf macros… of course it is no fully fledged synth, but to say the sound design is limited, is, at least for me, not true…
Typo. A4+AR
Worked perfectly but I probably didn’t setup the right Perf values for AR, filtering A4 and AR similarly. I’d also like to invert knobs values.
That video? Couldn’t open it.
Share something
Nionmu, yes.
If you compare with classic analog drum machine AR has tons of possibilities.
Sure.
Agreed. It might not be like the A4, an all rounder, it certainly has its own unique sound. But that sound can be monstrous, wild, cutting, soft, all kinds of designs.
Owning a RYTM Mk1, this is the only device I’ll never sell.
Simple, immediate and with the standard elektron sequencer features it makes easy to make tracks with just one box (see John Tejada album made only with RYTM linked somewhere here in the forum).
The distortion with the compressor are the key of this machine in my opinion, sometimes i like to push them to their extreme limits only to hear the crunch comin out of it. Nasty.
For 600€ I would take it as a 2nd unit to pair.
What about the model cycles?
I’m not too fond of most of the AR synth engines, especially kick, snare, clap, rim, BT and cowbell, which I don’t like the character of either the envelopes or the tone. I really like the noise, imp, vco and hat and cymbal machines though, the sample section is great if a slight bit limited with the way loop is handled (compared with DT). I’m not overly fond of the distortion or compressor myself, but the delay and reverb are very nice.
On balance though the Rytm remains one of my favourite drum machines of all time, the pattern sequencing is great, song mode is just ok (when compared to OT) sep outs are a bonus.