for me it’s a kind of process. i had it for the first time and when i only used the internal synth drums without much tweaking, i thought what a crap sound. then i screwed a lot more into the sound and was never completely satisfied until i finally sold it.
for some reason i bought it again and now that i deal more and more with designing sounds, i like it better and better. the hihats e.g. i never really liked it, but when i got the idea to turn up the decay completely and to drive the complete signal into the filter of the rytm via filter env, to then shape it from there with the filter ADSR, i love the hihats. i never liked the kicks either. since i shape them with an analog mixer eq, i love this one too. right now I’m busy checking a neat snear alla 808, of course it shouldn’t sound the same, but it should be so full of character.
all in all, i believe that you should first deal with the individual sounds in order to be able to draw a line only then, and on the line i never gave them up again. I hope there will be more surprises.
I don’t care about the few lfo s because I can simply assign those from ot.
by the way, if someone can share interesting snears, I would be extremely grateful - claps too !?
ok so we had our first gig in almost two years, and did a livestream of the start of the show… We played four hours on top of the recorded part, and the AR is mostly out of tune in the video (think it’s an error on my part, didn’t get to do a soundcheck to confirm the tunings of the parts). The funky electro in the last 5 or so minutes in the clip is the highlight. The kick is layered from the Sensory Percussion and the AR, the rest is a mixed bunch, when Peđa (the drummer) plays the spd sx (black thingie) then it’s the AR, the rest (white mash pads) is Sensory. He’s got an expression pedal going into the AR as well for more control
There are a lot of things to improve, transitions among the first. We are at around 35%, and am happy we are there already. Will post new stuff in around a month or so, time to focus on other obligations. The rest of the party was way wilder, but not recorded.
What I really don‘t get is why Elektron is not giving us the Option to shape the ADSR envelopes exp or log. If I do anything on the modular I would almost never go for straight linear. I can‘t understand why there is no update for that. If the amp envelope would be really flexible then it would be a whole different story and it really shouldn‘t be hard to do.
This is my problem. I like the Elektron stuff but there are always things thats seem so obvious and they are not adressing it. But maybe I am alone on this.
And I can not understand why this machine doesn‘t have a proper noise machine. I mean a proper one where you really have lots of options. And now think of Korg one slot for a digital user oscillator and this thing would really fly just dreaming
My guess is that the variable curve envelopes in the modular world are there because the envelope has to be versatile to work well with a variety of other modules and cover many usages. Like VCAs, you can chose exp/lin on those too in the modular world too, but I can’t remember a time it was changeable in a synth.
But since a synth is a whole instrument with a specific intention behind the design, the envelope curves are also a way for the designer give it the behaviour they envision, instead of leaving it to the user. And I can totally get that, as a user you want to be able to change some things about the sound, but I think you don’t want access to everything, first because it would become a huge pain to design sound from such low level every time, but also because you want to buy an instrument designed by engineers who know how to tune elements with each other so that the end goal is reached.
You can not Tune the noise, there are no different noise charakters. For percussions there should be all kinds of noise really. But at least you can sample.
The rytm noise seems to be simple white noise with extra filter but thats it.
No of course not but on the 808 you are not really welcome to design your sounds in the first place where as on the rytm if course you are encouraged to design your own sounds. Its nice that they simplified the process but they also restricted it in many ways they should not have. Also there really should have been room for digital machines. Shure there is the machinedrum and maybe they will bring another digital drum now but to be honest I am pretty feed up. Iam willing to pay chunks of money but Iam not willing to put one machine after another on my desk just because everyone is lacking something.
I know some of you want simple Machines. I want a Box that can do it. If the rytm whould have a few more interesting analog machines. Proper sampling with enough space, pads you could actually play and digital machines that you could swap you could charge me anything. If you would design it smart it would almost look exactly the same just with better funtionallity.
Honestly the AR needs a second lfo. Or at least one for synth, one for sample. The amount of groove u could make with one track and 2 LFOS / 2 samples layered…
That’s what I was thinking about just now, if for some reason they could not add a second LFO to analog destinations, they could easily work around the situation adding a samples only LFO… I honestly don’t know what they were thinking when they decided to move from 16 freely assignable LFOs on the MD to one fixed LFO by track on the AR… awesome…
Its the Apple Design Problem when you become bigger. Apple had the same Issue people loved their stuff and then they started designing new stuff and stopped listening to their customers which resulted in bad bad stuff the last Years. Hoorible Keyboards, Touchbars, no Ports.
Apple turned 180 this Year and gave people everything they wanted. They even made their laptops bigger again to put ports back in. They made them expensive as fuck und faster as they have ever been but they are a massive hit and Apple Stock is going up.
Elektron seemed to be on the same Page. Very good Stuff but then all those bad design descisions. Always crippling the machines to make customers buy them all. Obviously the company got unhealthy which is a shame because they have some of the best stuff on the market. But they never really got in touch with the community. And they still don‘t.
Build the new Macbook Pro of Elektron Machines…
Why is no one coming foward with a machine that can do analog, digital and sampling. Its always one or the other. But it 2021. And I bet my Ass that if the new Elektron box is a Drum machine. It will only be digital.
It’s the thing which make me laugh a bit about the Analog Rytm.
I like this box ! And I have two of them !
This box is definitely better at thing it is not so designed to do !
And yes, I mostly do track a bit like “Hooger” ambient stuff with AR.
The filter/overdrive on sample make it definitely enjoyable ! And the DVCO is completely useable and fun.
I wish Elektron would release a machine like this one with more possibility with sample and with Analog voice, more like the A4 can.
I mean AR, it lack some LFO, sample start, and possibility to trig different part of a sample, to make them non repetitive.
And I would really like to have more DVCO kind of synth voice.
Something a bit like the A4 with 8 track polyphony which can have a sample player on each track.
And this sample player would be as deep as the DT ( which goes way above the AR ).
not true! They asked me if they are in my eyes “sustainable/ecofriendly” in a survey!!
The AR+A4 are a shadow of theirselves since the latest DT+DN updates … a huge update has to come for those “flagship” models to keep me as a happy customer.
According to my reading (see, for example: Roads, C. 2015. Composing electronic music. OUP (p. 103)), most “colored” noises are basically filtered white noise. For instance: pink noise = LPF 3dB per octave; red/brown noise = LPF 6dB per octave; blue noise = HPF 3 dB per octave; purple = HPF 6 dB per octave
Exception: “grey noise” = random noise subjected to a psychoacoustic equal loudness curve
Edit: I also find that being able to set HPF, LPF, LPF resonance, and LPF filter sweep depth/time makes the noise engine quite powerful.
one slot for a digital user oscillator and this thing would really fly