Here’s a track I made even with it’s limitations it’s a pretty awesome machine I need to try make another on just the Rytm again
There’s an mk1 local for 720 bucks. Looks like it’s in great shape, latest firmware. I’m tempted to grab it, that seems like a good price!
Alpha Base, Jack of all
It’s all opinions of course. I sold my RYTM MKII didn’t do anything for me personally.
Rytm jack of all trades ?
None sense it sucks for hats so ha ha!
DnB not my style of music, but I really liked that, mastery of the machine right there.
Reminds me of some old moving shadow stuff……niice…
I’m so so hoping for a second lfo. Got the AR next to the DT and I’m missing that one a lot.
This is great!
Very beefy. nice work, I don’t see a lot of DnB on the analog RYTM.
I do agree with many that with some pieces of gear it doesn’t really matter the specs, it just the way you mesh with it. Someone else said this above, but I spent way more than I ever thought I would on a Pulsar 23. Super limited in voices, features etc. But it’s the most fun piece of gear I own. I look forward to using it and I never want to part with it, unless it’s for a repair etc. I feel similarly about my op1 and lyra8. On the other side of spectrum, I sold my MPC Live, Deluge and Maschine Plus, even though they can do more than all my other gear combined. Reason? I simply didn’t have fun using them. I don’t get paid for this shit. If it’s not fun, I don’t want to use it. If I don’t want to use it, I won’t make music with it and it’s a waste. Everyone is different and that’s ok. Also, when I got rid of the gear I didn’t want, it actually helped me get creative again.
It’s not always immediate and sometimes you might circle back to something you hated and love it again. It’s a fun hobby we all have, but sometimes it can get frustrating because we live in a time where we have so many choices and all the choices have glorious YouTube videos and glowing reviews and most if not all the items we want can be delivered to our door in a couple days and when you have this luxury, you second guess your gear all the time.
Very well said. I feel the exact same way. I am a very “bang-for-buck” / “10 hours of desk pre purchase desk research” kind of person. And I’ve just decided to try out everything, since the second hand market is huge and you’re not losing money by just buying and selling.
I came to the same conclusion pretty quickly. The AKAI force is a great example. Does so much but it inspired me so little. The digitakt kept being the device I came back to and loved exploring.
For me it’s not about efficiently finishing tracks, it’s a meditative hobby sort of and in that the elektron range has never failed to spark that joy (unintented Marie London)
PS. I got the rytm now, barely a week, but I agree that I find it harder to live with some quirks for a machine of that price than I would with the same quirks in a digitakt. Especially since the quirks from the rytm are not present in the Digitakt…
Now I’m thinking about that Pulsar 23 again………damn ]
Yeah this new Akai line does nothing for me in reality.In theory its amazing.Very static\clunky and vanilla sounding to my brain/ears.Compared to Elektron and many other new entries.
I’m making techno on it, playing live, and I think my output is fairly broad. Some tracks are very bright and euphoric, others are hard and dark, some are very melodic, others straight forward loopy techno. In fact I went the other way and bought another to simplify my live setup so I am expert in the machine and can focus solely on what’s coming out of the speakers.
Each pattern has more than enough space to store all the sounds for a complete track, which can be jammed out on the machine in a single take. This includes more complex techno tracks with different phases and breakdowns, that might be ten mins or more long, not just four mins loop tweaked.
Some sounds I am getting out of it, without using samples from other noise sources:
- ringing, jingly and bubbly acid stuff from the rim shots
- pure tones from the cowbell, clear, bell like. But, also those oldschool rave/london acid techno noises with the detune, there’s a lot of different noises like that in the detune
- a wide variety of basses from the dual VCO (there are 80 wave pairs, 20, 20 ringmod, 20 FM, 20 ringmod + FM) some phat stuff as well as smoothy siney stuff (good for leads, probably too)
- chords using the sampler
- all sorts of interesting percussion using the sampler
In fact, the only major sample import was a set of chords I recorded from a standard synth, because the it’s easier to construct them and cleaner with basic waveforms. Maj, Min, Aug5, Dim4, M7, m7. That set as clean as possible in saw, square and triangle, a few seconds long each has given me a lot of chord sequence possibilties.
I also actually like that there’s just one delay, reverb and LFO per track. Firstly they’re one page interfaces, but better it makes me really think and pushes me towards being impactful in the right place. Less can easily be more with all three of those.
Here’s a couple of examples of sounds - they’re private but the link ashould work - this wasn’t intebnded as a promo post:
Synths are all Rytm, there’s a break with pads, kick is some FM outoput that I can’t remember:: https://soundcloud.com/mxtls/epic-space-message-from-planet/s-I5ko7bwio38?in=mxtls/sets/the-start/s-dlw8xORDhnj&si=d50910ab5eb8411b97d2574317887386
Chords, A4, acid bass: plastic kick: https://soundcloud.com/mxtls/name-me-for-a-prize-part-one/s-RpPm63lNBrR?in=mxtls/sets/the-start/s-dlw8xORDhnj&si=d923e0bdacf3418ebea075683a9c9cc3
Detuned stuff is cowbell, hardcore bass sound, plastic kick: https://soundcloud.com/mxtls/living-in-a-london-bassbin/s-oQDfZXqiPXS?in=mxtls/sets/the-start/s-dlw8xORDhnj&si=ce98f843a4344d64a52a53a73a55b7e8
love my rytm to bits. had the mk1, had some issues, Elektron replaced the unit with an mk2, wow. The magic that happens with the performance macros can be hardly replicated with any other device… After a gig at a festival, a guy comes to me and says, “While you were performing something happened with the bass… it was… incredible” and there i was, looking at him with love in my eyes. That incredible part was due to me finding sweet spots with the performace + control inputs… Just a magical device for live performance and tweaking. Atm, preparing new stuff with a drummer + sensory percussion, the expression pedal in just opens up a new world of expressive playing… What a device.
Can you elaborate on the control inputs? How do u use them? Are u using a pedal.
Yes.
It’s 8-voice polyphonic. That’s two voices more than my Juno-106; three voices more than a Sequential Prophet 5 (which I don’t own, I’m just using hyperbole); neither of which are multi-timbral or have a 12 track p-lockable sequencer with arrangements. The Octatrack is 8-voice multi-timbral and people seem pretty happy with that - and It doesn’t have a full analog drum machine in it allowing you to make original sounds from first boot.
You can play three of the DVCOs at the same time. Copy the same sound to each of those tracks and you have up to 6-note chords and 5 voices left for drums, bass (on the BT track) or samples.
The choke groups let you add melodic variation to a pattern by using the mutes: such a left-field solution to “there’s not quite enough variation in this pattern yet”.
If you view the choke tracks (the “higher precedent” ones) as if they are a kind of sound-lock on their tied choked track, it means you can have a choice of sound lock per step for four of the tracks. Couple with the trig conditions and mutes you’ve got all sorts of interesting ways of controlling variation. And that’s before you bring in sample chains.
You first have to do the guesswork which of the 12 pads hide the DVCOs
I do believe that machines, and Elektron grooveboxes especially, are to be considered as a whole, with the features and limitations they have (we’re in a physical world). I mean, you’ll always get way more pleasure trying to understand what it does, accept it doesn’t do all, and use it to your benefit, rather than trying to circumvent limitations with awkward workarounds…
This said, if it’s not for you, it’s not for you.
But this is really a personal thing IMO.
It’s pretty capable on its own, as many said above.
As for the sound, it took me some time to get a snare I was OK with. I guess it requires a bit of work, same could be said for A4.
The lack of modulation is a thing, but p-locks and as a last resort resampling overcome this most of the time, in my case.
I really love this drum machine.