Hi everyone!
So I keep reading online that samples loaded on, and played through the AR sound ‘better’ because they are going through its analog circuitry.
I wonder; is this truly the case? whats your experience?
if so, what plays the biggest part here; is it the filter? the compressor?
On the flipside, its all mono samples…and there is still a AD convertor, are these better than on the octatrack?
curious to hear your thoughts/experiences!
I shouldn’t comment because I rarely use drum samples on my AR (I sample my synths and speech from film/tv). My Matriarch sounds amazing sampled (but that might just be the Matriarch :D). Anyway, here’s my opinion…
I think it’s the combination of filter, overdrive and distortion. The latter two provide some excellent crunch; the filter’s also great, with real screaming high resonance and otherwise pleasing harmonic enhancement. I want to like the compressor, but I’ve not got my head around it properly yet. It’s great at making things sound fuzzy, if you like that.
I don’t think the reported improvement is just from loading in a sample (or making a sample) and playing it back through the circuits.
I only had a AR bery briefly, but I thought samples sounded good through the analogue filter and distortion.
Same as on my OT, running samples through the AH makes a ton of difference.
Wether that difference is " better" or not is matter of taste I guess.
I’ve always felt that one of the things that makes any sampler special is the way it imparts it’s character on the samples. The rytm has a fantastic gain staging structure that happens to work well with samples, for me at least. I don’t think any one element is a magic bullet, it’s the signal path as a whole.
Some samplers suck the life out of good samples, the rytm can do the opposite. Other samplers I’ve had that have some internal magic off the top of my head are the er1, esx, and the mirage. Everything sounds good through these.
I agree with @Octagonist that the filter, drive and distortion sound amazing on samples. They add kind of a warm crunch, which you can shape using the different gain staging points.
To me, the AR’s sound is even there when not ‘using’ the filter/drive/distortion though. It’s not very obvious when ab-testing, but to my ears there’s always a slight fuzzy warmth on samples when played through the AR compared to the DT. Maybe it’s the fact you can’t bypass the filters even when fully open. The machine has a very recognizable sound character.
Samples can sound pretty ‘clean’, but I rarely can get them to sound clinically hifi. Maybe thats just my imagination though 
Everything that comes out of it feels like peaches to me: firm (but not hard), round, warm, a bit hairy. Just add a Moog for cream.
Thats actually the best description I’ve heard so far.
haha good one guys.
got an OT and AR MK2, and mostly use samples so was thinking of selling my AR.
you convinced me to keep it haha
Yeah, drum samples in the Rytm sound really great imho. Add a bit of drive, filter it, maybe overdrive the sample (sample level above 100) and a bit of master distortion 1-5 maybe.
Also layering samples and synthesis can sound so good, especially on the hats imho.
out of curiosity; what do you layer hat samples with?
Usually hat machines with hat samples (for example adding a modulated noise tail to a closed hat sample with a hat machine, possibly fm modulated by an lfo to fuzz it out or just to beef up hat machines with a sample, stuff like that , but also hat machines with snare samples, overdriven toms, junkyard metal samples…depends, have to fine tune and tweak stuff lots, but it can really sound great imho.
Also the timbre of the hat machines really fits perfectly for layering imho.
I find the HH machines so piercing and harsh in their natural state, particularly the Metal ones. Maybe that’s what you need from hats, but when I’m chilling out after putting the kid to bed, it’s not actually pleasant. I should find some samples to mix them with…
The hihat/cymbal machines are the ones I use least. I mostly use the top 4 pads for melodic samples because of that.
The bottom 4 tracks are the ones I often use for the analog engines: kicks to layer kick samples, claps, rimshots and of course the dual vco!
On the middle row I often put drum samples (chopped breaks etc) and fx. I often use the noise engine to layer them with some high end air.
I just started using the middle row for MIDI sequencing mono synths, but a day or two after I came up with that idea I started ignoring the AR completely and messing about with my OT and various synths. I’m in a “mess about and not try very hard” phase, it seems.
I mean… you need to hear the minutia of my musical diary, I’m sure…
#sarcasm
I like the idea I’m not the only one nerding out over elektron gear haha
I can confirm. It does some subtle magic to samples.
What i really like to do lately is to record the internal machines into my DAW, process them slightly to taste and record it back to the RYTM to use it as samples. Got me to make the best sounding kicks of my life so far 
this sounds interesting. what kind of processing do you do? and let us hear your kick (or send it to me ;))
I alkways tune them down or up quite a lot. Don´t like the range around 0 at all…They also need some modulation imho, lfo on notch filter to give them a phasery swirl, hp with resonance and envelope mod, 1k or 2k lfo on tune to “fuzz them out” with fm.