This is not an advice post. Nor a post for help. It’s a post about love.
It’s early days, but i think I have fallen in love with the MD.
I grew up on the RM1X and graduated to the RS7000, purchased two and with these two babies, a mixer and external effects created a live set. In those days I would read Sound on Sound and lust after the Machinedrum.
My lust it seems was justified.
After years of tragedy and only just now getting time to peruse music again I decided to make some hefty purchases.
First the Analogue Keys. It’s sitting waiting to be explored. I found a bargain and grabbed it. From the little I have played with it, it seems like I will enjoy this synth.
Then I needed a drum machine to go with the synth so the Analogue Rytm was the natural choice. I was just finishing studying the manual of the Rytm when Elektron heavily discounted the MD. I purchased one without hesitation.
I have just scratched the surface, on page 30 of the manual, and I absolutely love this machine.
I could be jumping the gun here, but am I the only one who thinks this machine is heads and tails better than the Rytm?
Tell me I am getting ahead of myself and I did not waste 2.2K (AU).
They’re totally different beasts. I sold my MD UW MKII to buy a RYTM and somewhat regret it.
The MD is more precise and sits waaaaaayy better in mixes than the RYTM. BUT the RYTM is more fun in a lot of ways, and I like it’s scattyness and by god it sounds BIG…too big though, maybe.
I think my tunes sounded better with the MD but I have more fun on the RYTM…plus black is way sexier
Same here, I bought the MD after Elektron dropped its price…
Initially I thought I would just tweak it a bit, then resell it when I’m done.
The thing is I fell in love with the machine !
The fact that you can tweak all the filters at the same time, that you have 16 independent voices, that you have so many choices to synthesize, that you can resample, that the sounds are beautiful (even the Ground Sine is something unbelievable !).
But most of all, I love it for more that the sum of these parts : there is something about the cohesion of the melting of all the sounds that is above my comprehension.
You know, like you don’t hear each guitar string but a chord ?
Or better than that, you hear the drums part of a song like one instrument is playing, not like one guy is playing each part separately.
I lack of words to express this but, well, there is something about this in the MD that I really love.
Yes Audiotonomy. I agree that one of the things I enjoyed on the Rytm and the reason I purchased it before the MD was the capabilities. Once I got my head through the manual I was looking forward to some serious sound manipulation, at the touch of a few buttons, or should I say pads. The Performance and Scene sound alterations I am looking forward to using.
But as Lying Dalai says, there is something about the MD sound. The range. The rawness. Not sure either. But I certainly love it.
I should confess I am a Sweedish Tech/German minimal type of guy, so that could be reason for loving the sound the MD produces.
I have to agree. I had the Mk2 (not UW), then upgraded to the UW version. Loved it, but thought I’d prefer the RYTM, so sold up again, and bought a SH Rytm … It was OK, fun to play, in an MPC sort of way, but not as responsive as an MPC, and to my ears sounded ‘flabby’ compared to the MD. Sold the RYTM, and bought a SH mint UW Mk2, and vowed it will never leave my studio again !
As mentioned, It’s a very ‘together’ instrument that just sounds great, and has a good balanced feel to it. I can get round the lack of micro-timing if I sequence it from my OT, or when I used to have my MPC. I can also live without a decent reverb in the box, if I run separate outs into my eventide reverbs
Got myself an MDUW 2 months ago to team up with the MM. Big advantage is that using these machine less rely on a computer like the Overbridge boxes. Without Overbridge you have to decode these embedded smart watches screens to see what is going on… Some working with Ableton tips:
You can switch patterns on the silver boxes by sending program changes: just add a program change in an empty midi clip and you can use MD/MM in a more common Ableton workflow
Route a Ableton audio clip to a MD recording track. Add a RAM track with some triggers. Go back to recording track and add/remove triggers: fun guaranteed
Put it this way, I played a set last weekend with a setup I’d never used before, and all sorts of things went wrong.
…but that MD carried the whole thing and made it all ok. Truly an improvised set and sounded great and the crowd loved it. The best part is when I did have moments to breathe, I could reel the MD back in and get it doing what I intended in the first place.
I got the MD UW+ MK2 and it is the center of my setup. Meanwhile i do don’t start my A4 because the synthesis of the MD is really good as well. I can do so much with the GND machines. With 1 or 2 MID-machines i sequence external gear or just sample voices and manipulate them internally. Now it is my one in all machine to do everything. Especially when finished a set and then tweaking with the CTRL-machines. It is all i need. It sounds so goood and makes sooo much fun. I love my MD and i am happy i decided to go for it and not Rytm.
I actually fell in love with the RYTM when I started using it as a sampler/tracker. I loaded it up with some very nice, old school 90s tracker kind of samples and there’s just that special ‘something’ when I put mediocre samples into it. For some reason, a great sample sounds duller in it, but an OK, mediocre sample shines in it. It gives this roundness to the sounds you put into it, and that’s before filtering or overdriving. Just the amp itself, idk.
I do admit that when using only internal synthesis, it can get a little muddy because the sounds are extremely warm… a nice touch would have been to have added a HPF to every channel/lane. Because if I decide I want to use the LPF, I lose the chance to highpass it. I’ve made some very clean mixes using only the internal synthesis engines, but it just felt too weighted sometimes.
I don’t want anyone to assume that I am just playing samples on the RYTM like I could be doing in my DAW… it’s not the same actually. There is a tonal change (a VERY substantial one) that happens when you input samples into it. It’s like putting them into an old-school sampler. I love it.
I haven’t gotten my MD yet, but I know it’s going to be great. It’s a legend! I decided against the UW version because I have the RYTM, whose sample capabilities seem to far supersede those of the MD UW. When I get into a silver Elektron box (like my MnM) I just want to focus on internal synthesis, not samples!
I personally really like the sample implementation in the MDUW.
it’s very close to what you describe with the Rytm in terms of oldschool vibe.
with the UW, you actually would have a sample recorder for your Rytm. You could sample on the fly (for example the Rytm itself), and send the samples back to the Rytm via MIDI straight from the MD.
Boy do I wish the RYTM could do this…!
Yeah, it’s definitely a plus to be able to. Not to mention that the 12-bit conversion adds a very old-school vibe to the sound (on the MD UW).
I’ll just have to see how intuitive and deep the MD can go without sampling!
