I’ve spent hours each day learning the analog rytm and making sounds and I have yet to create any sounds I really really like.
I’m not feeling the kick drums in particular. They sound very boomy and my kick samples from another module sound better to my ears than the elektron kicks. I’m getting frustrated
I’m considering returning the machine which is sad but I wanted to reach out for any advice or tips. Has anyone had a similar experience? Did you return or give it another chance?
I feel like it shouldn’t take me so long to jam and create something I like, I can go two hours on a kit and not even like the results.
My recommendation is to maybe take a listen to some of the sample packs and see if any have sounds that are close to what you are wanting. I had a similiar challenge with the Analog Four, I ended up buying a couple sample packs and then studied the patches to learn how the engine better. I also use the patches as pseudo-machines/starting points for tweaking.
Note: I’m not advocating buying patch packs directly, even just studying their demos to see if the device can get into ranges you are looking for. Sometimes the synth or engine just doesnt align with your needs.
I’ve had one for a few months now, and was struggling a bit, and I think it’s because I’m not great at synthesizing drums.
I love the pads, and how it communicates with the existing workflow of my other Elektrons, so I’m keeping it. I just skip sound design for now and load in samples to the tracks. I also copied and pasted some kits from the Presets project into a new project, and I fiddle with those, and try to understand how they layered samples over the internal machines to make sounds I like.
It was during a pretty gassy period, can’t remember exactly what I ended up doing, but i think I went back to sampling my drums with Digitakt/OT for a bit.
Grab some other kick samples (or transient samples) to layer with the kick machines, i get much better results that way. Personally i have more problems with the hihat/cymbal engines (too bland/same-y)
Took almost a year until I really started to love the AR. Especially the compressor took me quite some time until I started to gel with it. My favourite Elektron now, together with the Octatrack - and it‘s my favourite drum machine.
As others recommended, get some Sound packs from Elektron or others (Elektron sound packs always mention if they use synthesis and/or samples), examine how the sound is made, check a few threads about the sounds you’re trying to go for.
Don’t shy away from using samples, there’s something really cool about the way synth and samples layer together and certain sounds, the Rytm won’t be able to synthesize, naturally. Don’t get yourself worked up (I sometimes curse at the hi hat machines lol), just load the sample.
One thing I noticed about the Rytm, it’s the sum of all parts that together can really sound huge. But it takes time to wrap your head around all this stuff, make the parts all work together…of course it’s not certain you’ll like it after you put in the time…
it took me a while too and now i think it’s the best drum machine in the world. use short amp envelopes on kicks, and also try the unusual ones. “silky” for example was my least favorite in the beginning and now i almost do everything with it.
i use only the noise engine for hats, lfo on decay, layer it with a rimshot, resample that and so on.
for me, resampling is a huge part of this machine, the snare engines all sound shit on themselves, but put a very fast delay on them, maybe layer them with noise, resample that and eventually they start to shine.
also get crazy with perf mode, it’s just so much fun! for distortion i mostly use the compressor, sounds cool in most cases.
not saying that i don’t want a 2nd LFO and sample slicing, warp and sample rate crushing though
How are you resampling the sounds you make? You can use the recorder to record the sounds from the machine? I thought it was only for recording external sounds.
Stick with it, and 2025 could be your year!
(Not even joking… … I think about 2 years is the time it takes to learn Elektron devices properly where you’ve digested everything and things make sense/become instinctive).
By themselves the synth engines don’t do much for me, either, although I’ve found that with some tweaking I can get good starting points established. But things really come together when you add samples to the mix – I like taking samples of actual kicks, hats, snares, etc., and layering them with the synth-based sounds. With kicks especially, I have to spend some time adjusting the pitch of both the sample and the synth-based kick sound to get it to a good place. Once you’re there, though, it’s great. I would highly recommend spending some time layering the internal sounds with samples and see how far that gets you. It may not be far enough but for me at least it’s an essential part of building good kits with this machine.
I agree, it takes some time and effort to really bring out what makes the AR sound so great. Not a quick TR kind of drum machine that just sounds good.
Or one shot exp wave lfo on distortion to give kicks a sharper transient that better cuts through the mix. A bit of distortion (1-5) on all tracks can also noticeably pump things up.
… I think about 2 years is the time it takes to learn Elektron devices properly where you’ve digested everything and things make sense/become instinctive).