Electribe Sampler replacing Analog Rytm?

[circuitghost]

Friends,

I got an Analog Rytm, and am thinking about replacing it with an Electribe Sampler. In general, I'm selling of most of my gear now, and trimming what I'm keeping.

I'd like the advise of any Electribe Sampler owners, and here's my line of thought:

What I like about the Rytm, and what I wouldn't give up if it's no good on the Electribe Sampler:

Samples sound great. The compressor and dist are both amazing. The delay and reverb as well. The filters, overdrive and other stuff really add to the character of the samples. Having owned an E2, I'm familiar with the effect structure of the new Tribes and I don't mind. I just want to make sure that in terms of samples, the fx do a decent job on the Tribe as well.

The sequencer - that it's quick to work with, has a nice groove to it, flexible in pattern lengths, and generally just awesome.

Step edit - is just great, for nuanced and detailed variations in the beats.

What I don't like or don't much care for, and would like to have:
You can't time stretch, pitch without sample play rate being affected, or do any editing at all of any kind, except start and end point.

The analog engine in the Rytm is of no interest to me. I don't use it. At all. I wouldn't miss it. For the world.

Rytm can't resample or sample. It never said it could, it never said it was a sampler, but all the same, given the powers it offers, I miss resampling and sampling. A lot.

The pads - aren't that great. It's difficult to add decent velocity or human variation to it. I'm an experienced pad player and yet, I struggle to get good results from the Rytm from time to time. I kind of liked the pads on the E2.

The Rytm is not battery powered - but the Tribe sampler is! So that's a big plus.

So given that I'm using the Rytm for samples only, I'd like the Rytm to have sampler capabilities as well, the fx and filters are important - would the Electribe Sampler make sense, or would I just be trading down? I'm having difficulty finding any serious demos or proper reviews, and was hoping someone here could help. It's especially the actual final quality of the output that's of main interest. I feel the Rytm can stand on its own in a studio environment and you can record directly from its outputs and just burn a track from that. Can the same be said of the Electribe Sampler? And so on and so forth.

[Buska]

Definately a downgrade. You said you've used an E2.
The sampler is just an E2 that you can add your own pcm samples basically.

Look at this from elektron:

http://eu.elektron.se/drum-machines/machinedrum-uw/

You can store hundreds of kits and sample plus it has deep drum synth capabilities.

You will probably get swamped with fanboi replies saying that the sampler is awesome etc, but as much as I like it it isn't in the same league as elektron gear and I think you would be disappointed in the long run.

Really to be expected trading a $2000 drum machine for a $400 dollar one, very different beasts

[Buska]

Also if sampling capabilities and drum pads are more important to you.. MPC2500/MPC1000 with JJOS and phatt pads upgrade

You would even have plenty of money left over to buy a battery powered MPC500 for lunch breaks or wherever people use battery, and you can then open the projects on the big MPC when you get home

[Buska]

And if you really love resampling as much as you say..

Why not SP404?

I bought one last week and it's a super fun little box, great fx too

[circuitghost]

Yep, I get that. I just figured that if you focused on the sample section only, since I don't use the analog machines in the Rytm, perhaps a comparison is still valid. There's the Tribe's 16tracks vs. Rytm's 12 (8 running at once), there's an insert fx per track on the Electribe vs. the Rytm's global effects, there's the chromatic mode and scales on the Electribe vs. the Rytm's non-existent dito, and so on.

So it's still interesting to see what instrument is the better fit, if you're focusing on samples and samples only.

[circuitghost]

And if you really love resampling as much as you say..

Why not SP404?

I bought one last week and it's a super fun little box, great fx too

I tried that. It sounds great! I agree, it's a ton of fun. I struggled with the sequencer, tho, so in the end decided not to go for it. But it really had some magic going on inside that box, for sure.

[Buska]

Yep, I get that. I just figured that if you focused on the sample section only, since I don't use the analog machines in the Rytm, perhaps a comparison is still valid. There's the Tribe's 16tracks vs. Rytm's 12 (8 running at once), there's an insert fx per track on the Electribe vs. the Rytm's global effects, there's the chromatic mode and scales on the Electribe vs. the Rytm's non-existent dito, and so on.

So it's still interesting to see what instrument is the better fit, if you're focusing on samples and samples only.

I guess it comes down to what you want to do with the sampling?

The machinedrum UW+ :
16 drum voices
1x specialized machine per voice
1x amplitude modulator per voice
1x 1-band EQ per voice
1x multimode filter per voice
1x sample rate reducer per voice
1x distortion per voice
1x LFO per voice
12 bit sampling engine
5 different drum synthesis methods
16 track Elektron sequencer
Reverb, compressor, delay, EQ master FX

And the MPC does everything the electribe does + soo much more.

The big thing with the electribe is it's fx are very weak IMHO, and editing is only one knob! Crazy limited.

I really like what the electribe sampler is, it's a fun jamming box you can throw in you backpack and do some really cool stuff with.. Pair it with an iPad and it's really cool.

But for more serious stuff it lacks depth and quality. Just my opinion though

[circuitghost]

Thanks for the reply. Very much appreciate it.

You know, I've never even considered a MachineDrum, but now I might. They're a good deal these days, too.

I should mention that I have an Octatrack as well, so this second sampler instrument needs to add what the Octatrack can't, which is the groove and funk that comes from playing pads.

I liked jamming on the E2 for drums and similar and that's what I miss about it most, that you could get something together quite quickly, that had a very human touch to it, when you played it out on the pads and just recorded what came out of it.

I felt I could build something there which I could never replicate on a pure XoXo-machine. So I don't require much, but I'm picky about the stuff I do think is important.

I'm thinking perhaps the sampler has that same funky feel, but with my own sounds instead of the oscillators in the E2. But I'm afraid I might miss the sound quality of the Rytm. Its filters, effects and amp section just add so much to the color, so much warmth.

[Buska]

I want an octatrack so bad.. Jealous

But yeah I hear what your saying 100%

Make sure your looking at the UW+ version of the machinedrum as it is much more capable with samples etc

Interestingly for me the reason I sold my E2 in the end was the limited 4bar pattern and the low resolution 16th quantization. I wanted to do 32/64 and unquantized stuff with it.

Maybe a machinedrum and a korg padkontrol plugged in would be a best of both world scenario? You get the sound quality from the elektron, the awesome sequencing capabilities, and parameter locks.

And then just patch in the padkontrol or Akai mpd32 via midi cable so you can jam out in pads and record with the machinedrum sequencer?

[Buska]

[phillwilson]

I'll trade ya my ES2 for your Rthym !!

On another note...have you thought of pairing the Octatrack with the crazy cheap MPX8? its crazy cheap and a little noisy on its own samples, but you can leave its samples empty and just use it to trigger the Octa or use it as one potential sound source within the midi mode of the octa.

[circuitghost]

Thanks for the advise, guys.

I've seen one of those Korg controllers second hand down at the store. I'll check it out, see if it can work.

You know, I've eyed the Akai controllers from time to time, perhaps pairing one of them with the Octa creates the perfect beast.

[Buska]

Mpd32 is a great bit of kit

You can mod it with phatpads from mpcstuff for greater sensitivity too.
Those 8 faders, 8 buttons, and 8 knobs are all freely assignable to any midi you want, should work well with the octatracks 8 engines