So i am almost convinced on a RYTM purchase and have found a “reasonable” price online have watched the vids, lurked the forums and bargained with myself internally/eternally
my current set up is MPC2000xl and S950 (big preem fan) however i am at a point where to develop the sound i wish to achieve means investing in outboard or tracking out individually and taking it further in the DAW
The reason for going the MPC route is to stay away from the computer and work on dedicated equipment that resembles an actual instrument
the way i tend to work is very much old school methodology, sample, chop, play out, arrange
Hip hop sensibilities but with a broader palette and some live instrumentation, a little like Bad Bad Not Good perhaps
How would the RYTM hold up in this workflow?
how does it handle looped phrases etc?, i know it doesn’t time stretch which is fine, i am happy pitching to fit and enjoy working this way, i love what can happen to pitched down samples in terms of atmospherics
I know i should possibly be looking at OT but i can’t seem to get sexy for it, i really like the possibilities the analog circuitry brings to the table, having owned a Mirage and having very fond memories of the sound it was capable of producing, The 950 gets close, the MPC i find can be a little sterile
i like the idea of working solely ITB and having owned a fair amount of Grooveboxes i never found a unit that could do it all, RYTM seems to get very close
Plus in my work i can often take a small piece of kit in when its quiet or work quietly on the sofa with headphones, the MPC doesn’t have the portability the RYTM seems to have
sorry if this has been asked before in a different guise and thanks in adv for any input, many of the media i have watched and listened to don’t seem to be working in the classic old school way, more Electronica, so it would be great to hear from anyone coming from a MPC background for comparison purposes…
if you want that MPC old school way of working you might need the OT as well but rytm is a really great instrument with new way of doing stuff with the advantage of having that really warm analog sound combined plus the new upgrades on the sequencer allow you to make one pattern full of variations over 32 or 64 bars… the loop phrases thing is not so great on it you can still do it but is a lot better on the OT…
thanks, i tend not to use whole loops but chops rearranged, morphed etc, i tend toward lots of compression as a integral part of the sound and have bounced to tape/resample in the past to blur the lines but i find lately time is of a major factor and i really need to be able to work quickly and efficiently, sometimes i find my current set up actually dissuades me from getting going due to time constraints
In finding the sample palette, getting the keygroups made up, piecing it all together i am often simply out of my allotted time
To purchase i would need to sell on my current rig so it is important for me to understand fully the limitations of the unit, but so far from what i have seen it does tick many boxes and it would be great to have it all, or most of it in one box, tracking out seems quicker with overbridge compared to my current workflow also
With the MPC/S950 i was trying to get close to the SP1200 sound and groove that Grap Luva did so well and i do like the fact the kit is studio quality and non-domestic in nature as opposed to many newer hobbyist equipment, not to put AR in that catigory
The RYTM does not sample, and sample managment is bulky.
There is 128 samples per project (for 128 patterns), and you can make sample chains to increase capacity, but they are awkward as you can’t map specific slices to pads. You can modulate them with velocity and plocks.
You can make whole songs on it, though it works better as a part of a team, doing drum duties.
For best results it loves some processing, so overbridge is a big plus…
It is my favourite piece of gear, and it kicks some serious bottom on a live PA.
Hope that helps!
Tracking on RYTM might be better than Octatrack, but almost everything you’re describing you want would have me point you to Octatrack over RYTM. I have both. I really love RYTM for immediacy, but almost always layer texture over it with Octatrack. If you are more sample-based, which it sounds like you are, Octatrack would be my recommendation.
All that being said, if you are looking to save time with sampling, get a software sampler. Seriously. It’s way faster/easier. I do almost all my sample management on the computer and just export to RYTM and/or Octatrack for composition or performance.
thanks, i did go through the software phase but found i wasn’t actually sampling much anymore, more browsing seemingly endless libraries.No fault of the equipment just my relationship with it as a tool in general at the time -options paralysis so to speak
i also found i wanted more direct control over evolving the work, so i went with Maschine which was great but i then found i wished to be liberated from the computer so ended up going old school,on a purist vibe.
i still have and use Live so overbridge/AR does interest me as i can get it tracked out for final arranging and processing and still have the direct control at the initial composition stage, i will look again at OT but i feel that Live can achieve similar results? i looked at sample chains and will have to look more closely at the limitations of AR in terms of sample management how does it handle sample chops, choking etc much as the MPC does?
I’ve never once sampled anything on AR. I’m not even sure if you can. I think you might have to import samples. Not 100% on that.
Sampling is second nature on the Octatrack once you get their method down. I sample a variety of things (mostly other machines while playing live) much more frequently since adding the Octatrack to my workflow.
Strom is of some interest on this front also…
Even though each project gives you only 128 samples, I find that to be more than enough because of how QUICKLY you can adjust the start point for each time you trigger the sample. It really allows for maximization of a single loop.
You can really work fast on this machine.
As far as texture:
1 bitcrusher, 1 multi-mode analog filter, 1 analog overdrive stage PER VOICE mixed into a stereo bus containing a real analog compressor with sidechain filter input to trigger circuitry and wet/dry mix AND a stereo asymmetrical clipping distortion…you will get TEXTURE in no time.
yeah i know, that’s why i am here i think, texture, speed,portability and flow, to achieve this on my current rig is a stop start affair and would involve a certain expenditure on outboard gear which then limits me to composing in a single dedicated space, the idea that i could chuck this into a gig bag and take it into work, i do film projection as part of my job so could easily settle down in a corner and compose unobtrusively
For that kind of thing, you cant find a better solution at the moment. Plus iPad can control a lot of parameters. There’s Strom and Collider, you could send midi to it from Patterning for extended polyrhytms…
As for choking, never owned an MPC, but here you have 12 tracks based on 8 monophonic voices. You can not play more than 8 voices at a time. as sounds cut tails when retriggered. The 4 voices have their dedicated tracks, and 8 tracks share 4 voices in choking pairs.
IMHO, for slicing/chopping, sample/resample, time-stretching and so on OT is much-much better! It has audio editor inside with big amount of possibilities. It supports practically endless (while streaming from CF-card) 24 BIT STEREO samples which automatically play in sync with project tempo! Rytm supports only MONO 16 BIT samples and it doesn’t has audio editor. Looks sad, BUT… Rytm can transpose samples WITHOUT ARTIFACTS in sound!!! And this is the killer feature (for me) of this device. Octatrack (which is a sampler) can’t do it! Every time you change pitch or tempo you will hear small degradation in sound. Some times it’s ok, but sometimes no. For Rytm you can create many sample chains with your favorite synth sounds in C, load them into device and play with your samples chromatically! In addition with nice FX engine and multimode analog filter you can create very cool new sounds. Using hi-pass filter with resonance you can achieve incredible earth-quake like low-end.
no artifacts is what i was hoping for, have found one online for £200 off with a gig bag,buy it now pay in 2017 giving me plenty of time to get a good price on my existing kit and pay it off within the year so all could be good if not i doubt i would lose that much if i had to sell as i think the next batch will ise in price due to the state of the £ at the moment
The only thing I see that might cause concern for you is chopping & flipping
You cannot use og chopping workflows with the AR. What you can do however, is plock samp start times on a single track to simulate this. But this way, you cannot just “play it in” unless you have an external pad controller with enough configurability that you can set static velocity values for every pad, and then use the AR’s velocity mod matrix to offset samp starts
As for the sound, you will not be disappointed. But the workflow is hella different
Before buying Rytm I’d recommend you to listen it in music store or in friend’s studio.
I forgot to mention that sometimes while playing samples chromatically you can hear clicks related to restarting envelops (as I understand).
ideally yeah best move to use one for a bit but being out in the sticks prevents this somewhat, i still have the Maschine software licensed to me so perhaps i can pick up a Maschine OG controller for pad duties once this is paid out
really? as a few people said… buy the octatrack… you can slice samples with a click… you have a sequencer thats hell good… MPC was really a time eater… with the octatrack i am 100 times faster… you have super extended storage compared to a MPC
i dropped on Abelton, cause octatrack does all i need… and quicker… and live compatible… really dive into this machine 
the AR is great as addition… OT and AR work hell good together… at the end i used to do a basic song structure in an hour… quick and genius
Got my eye on a RYTM too.
Although you can’t sample on the RYTM you can use the Strom app to grab samples from an iPad.
Seems like pretty easy sample creation with these two paired together and very creative too.
Coming from an MPC (your case) or Maschine (in mine) maybe the RYTM is more appealing as it has pads to batter.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to give you advice which machine will suite you better. They are very different. Rytm is definitely fun machine but (IMHO) OT is more universal tool, especially when you want to work with samples. All operations you described in your first message are all about OT. You can do very wide range of editing things with samples inside OT. By default you have 2 different effects per track but you can create effects chain using neighbor machine. Crossfader with scenes – is another mega feature. In addition to this OT has midi-sequencer with arp and p-lock possibilities. But you have to understand that OT is a sampler, so you have to load samples to it or sample external gear. If you don’t like to work with samples – probably Rytm will be better choice (but it also shines better when you load correct samples to it). If you are OK to work with samples and use PC in your workflow (you mentioned that you have Maschine), I’d suggest to buy Octatrack as you can create core of your song in PC and load it to OT and prepare whole set inside machine (OT’s arranger mode is great tool for that). But again – OT will not sound without samples but Rytm will as it has drums synth engine inside and nice chromatic mode to use Rytm as sample-based synth. To be shorter – both units are great! They both can give you huge amount of fun. Just buy one of them! They can’t replace each other.
P.S. Hey, did you think about AnalogFour?
Hi Digger,
ive an ar, ot, ableton push and maschine studio and i worked with an mpc and tempest. so here is my recommendation:
for fingerdrumming get a maschine or tempest. for xox programming you can use an ar (best sequencer) or push as well.
if you want to use loops and chop samples on the fly, you can do that with an ot, maschine or push 2.
ot is the most complex gear and will take the longest time to learn. maschine comes closest to the mpc workflow. tempest has the most flexible analog sound engine.
ar can load samples, but its very clumsy over midi only, tempest cant load samples but has better finger triggers.
if you wanna work without a laptop and you are not fingerdrumming, get an ot first, later you might wanna extend it with an ar, because of its analog engines and the better sequencer. they work well together and compliment each other.
but for the same price you can get a macbook air with a maschine, which comes much closer to the mpc (but has no analog sounds like the ar or tempest).
ar with overbridge is ok for the studio when you produce tracks in a daw, but the latency is too long to use this combination to play live. also, you dont want to fiddle around with additional ipad control software. just work with the hardware boxes as they are.
hope this helps,
Cheers
Goat