The ‘hiphop made with the Digitakt’ topic is one of my favourites on this forum.
I’ve recently acquired an AR mkii, and started to make hiphop instrumentals on it… I’m curious to see if anyone else is using this machine for hiphop…?
Hey @Sleepyhead! You’ve sold your DT? I’ve thought many times about getting an AR too, mostly for the analog filters / drive / comp… but lately, I’ve been back ITB, and AR is pretty pricey.
The tune sounds really nice BTW, drums are snappy as hell, and your samples are mellow just the way I like them.
Oh, started listening to your beattape as well while working, and it’s excellent, contrats!
Thanks a lot @Kuro !
I’ve kept my digitakt, I’ll probably keep that machine forever, its the most complete little machine ever made.
The AR is similar in workflow, but has a lot of useful extra features, like the song mode, extra tracks, etc. It also sound really good, even better than the DT. I dont know if this is worth all the extra $ though, i got the AR second hand for cheap, so I thought i’d try it for a while…I’ll try to post some tunes the coming weeks!
How do you like the pads? Have you used an MPC or Maschine for comparison? I love seeing others making hip-hop with Elektron devices, and I think your previous work on DT is great. Do you rely on slices for your beats at all? If so, do you chop on AR or upload pre-chopped samples? I bought an OT earlier this year, but sold it since I only really used the slice mode while all my drums came from DT.
@Daevlor I worked with an mpc 1000 for 10 years before getting a digitakt. As far as sample slicing and the pads, its a better machine than the AR. The AR pads arent bad, but you have to hit them pretty hard to play sounds.
I think other machines are better suited for making sample based hiphop. As with the DT, the AR can do sliced samples by p-locking the start points of a sample on a step. It’s a bit of a weird workaround, but once you get used to it, it becomes really intuitive. The DT is a little better at this than the AR though, because of the lack of envelope resetting and finetuning startpoint on the AR (I use a workaround using the lfo, but the DT works better). I was so used of the DT workflow for slicing samples that the AR is fine for me.
Every time I try to use my old mpc, I really miss the elektron workflow/sequencer and soundsculpting possibilities, so I decided that the AR, as a kind of expended digitakt, is the machine for me. I would not recommend it for everyone though, the new mpc’s can do way more, way easier.
Nice track! Do you use some analog machines or samples only? Sample management on ARmk1 was so tiresome that I ended up buying the octatrack and I use AR as an analog drum machine exclusive.
Thanks! Yeah the lead melody is made by resampling a tone from the dual vco and adding some bitcrushing. I love resampling the analog stuff combined with samples and some filtering/fx and save those as new samples. The dual vco sounds dope but doesnt keep pitch that well in the higher registers.
I havent used most of the machines besides the dual vco, noise and kick though… might try to make some snares soon.