Elektron Analog Rytm vs DSI Tempest

[Guest The Bro]

What do you guys think - which is better? Tempest looks more powerful but Analog Rytm sounds punchier.

[psn]

Show me a Tempest track/demo that sounds cooler than these:

http://www.soundcloud.com/koefta

[awepittance]

well let me just say this, I like the Analog4 better than the Tempest as a drum machine. The tempest just doesn't sound very good imo, has really crap midi implementation and is more expensive . I haven't used an Analog rhythm yet but I'd be really surprised if it overall wasn't a more solid sounding and user friendly machine than the Tempest.

[Guest]

dunno I guess for some the sequencing & sound design interface on the Tempest makes more sense... As for sound I quite like some of the Tempest demos... there's not a lot of great Rytm demos around yet.. some are very good though! I'll get mine tomorrow and will keep you up to date with biased opinions.

http://soundcloud.com/insergent/fresh-rytm

[Guest]

[kcinsu]

One of the better vids I've seen. Is it yours?

[Guest]

no! haven't played one yet... cannot wait lol

 

the above & these two tipped me over pretty much:

 

 

[Audioblysk]

I'd take a rytm over a tempest any day. I have only tried the tempest, but the rytm is what I've wanted in a drum machine for years.

[awepittance]

dunno I guess for some the sequencing & sound design interface on the Tempest makes more sense... As for sound I quite like some of the Tempest demos... there's not a lot of great Rytm demos around yet.. some are very good though! I'll get mine tomorrow and will keep you up to date with biased opinions.

http://soundcloud.com/insergent/fresh-rytm

Besides it's real time record feature and velocity sensitive light up pads, it has quite a cumbersome weird nested user interface that is in my strong opinion extremely inferior to the workflow on any of the new Elektron stuff. The Tempest has a nice single knob heavy analog compressor, a nice master filter mode where you can modulate the cutoff with an oscillator but it does NOT have a sine wave oscillator, any siney bass drum would need to be made by turning the resonance up on a filter up to 100%, it also does NOT have a noise generator, it uses a stock short noise sample for it's snares. For something advertised as an analog synth drum machine it's shocking to me that it doesnt even have a noise gen.

I owned one for a year and found it one of the most disappointing pieces of gear I've ever used. On a large sound system I was also left very unimpressed by the meat of the Tempest kick drums, Analog 4 kick drums sound far better.

[awepittance]

a user in the DSI tempest forum just posted this comparison review. I think what I missed above is that the Tempest has a very strong melodic synth sequencer component, which I personally rarely ever used so a lot of people seem to swear by it for being able to be both a drum machine and a sequenceable synth in one box.

 

 

Hi everybody,

this is my first post here

I own a Tempest since 2 months now. And I own an Analog Rytm since a week.

I'd like to share my thoughts on these two machines.


PADS:

The tempest pads are natural and reactive. Even if you barely touch them, they answer with a sound. I found the AR quite disappointing on that. The pads are not responding well. Quick finger ghost notes and soft touches do not generate the answer you would expect. I always start to play around a drum machine with some free finger drumming, and the AR is not satisfying at all compared to the tempest. Also the default pad positions are not comfortable and they're quite small. A lot of risk for an error on live performance.
The bottom sequencer triggers are really good, they can be used as "pads" to trigger single sounds, but they'll be on a fixed velocity. And it loses a lot of natural variation on an analog gear. Something that I love on the Tempest.


PRESETS:

I agree that a lot of the tempest sounds are not usable at all. Some synths and arrangements like the Juno are inspiring and interesting, but the single kicks and snares are not on the level they should be.
It's true that AR has a lot more variety on pre made sounds. But going through all the kits now, the actual SOUND variety is not so high. A lot of kits sound "similar" even if they are not. It seems to my ear that the AR has a distinctive sound engine. The analog is there, but it often sounds dull and dark. The low/mid frequencies are predominant over the high frequencies, losing a lot of space.

At the end, i wouldn't say that I would use a lot of the preset sounds, only 2 or 3 x category atm.


KICKS:

The kicks have more presence on the AR. On the kick side, the Tempest can do a great job but only with a deep and long sound design process. And anyway it would lead to few kicks usable on a live environment. The AR gives fewer parameters to vary a basic "machine type", HARD CLASSIC and FM. You can have a lot of powerful and snappy sound here, barely achievable with the Tempest.

SNARES, HIHAT, CYMB:

On all the high end frequencies, I have to say that the Tempest does a better job. The natural architecture seems to lead to more natural and variable sounds. I've got a lot of snares, and even if I'm locked with the bunch of samples given us by DSI, I can create an immense variety of sounds. The AR hi hat is not impressive. It's ok. Standard. But the potential i see there is limited compared to the Tempest. And in the mix you have to work harder there to bring them to sound neat and clicky if that's what you aim.
But what makes the AR win here are the FX, reverb and delay. On the high end, a well placed reverb on a snare can totally change the sound of it, while the hi hat benefits a lot from some delay stereo panning tricks.
So I would say that on the pure sound Tempest wins but with the effects on, the AR reaches and sometimes surpass DSI.

CLAPS:

AR wins. Simple, quick, deep if you want to design it and with the reverb you can have something that the tempest can't simply achieve.

TOMS:

I see more deep and powerful sounds on the tempest on the toms. The AR effect engine can't help here, and even if I can achieve good results, I feel the tempest more natural and interesting. Perhaps again because of the natural variation you've got with good pads. But also the sound is richer, and has more harmonics. Obviously, AR can still have external sample toms...

COW BELLS and RIM SHOTS:

Tempest wins here. Thanks to the native FM architecture, the audio mod and feedback circuit you have some amazing percussion sounds, together with rim shots and all sort of bells. AR can still load external sample for this, but the natural machine result, doesn't match the Tempest on my ear.


WORKFLOW:

Still too newbie on the AR to evaluate it. I'll add a post when I'll have more ideas on that. I can only say that it's so different from someone used to the Tempest, that can seem really hard. Obviously it's just a matter of time to get used to a new logic on everything.

SEQUENCER:

Still a newbie on the AR. I'll give more feedback.


INDIVIDUAL OUTPUTS:

AR wins. Works smoothly and fine. No cycle.




OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:

I don't think sincerely that the AR surpasses the Tempest. I now understand it. When you create a new kit from scratch from the tempest and you know how to do it, you have some drum sounds that the AR simply can't do. What the AR can do by the way, is having a solid low end with kicks and low toms together with an infinite sound palette (external sample loading) and the effect section (that's very important to me).

On the sequencer side, AR seems to have more points over the tempest. But at the moment I can't really see anything better except the parameter lock. But it seems a machine really sequencer oriented. Not for finger drummers. It's good to use performance mode with the pads, it works fine, but the Tempest sliders are better and easier to control to me.

At the end I can say that the Tempest is more an instrument and less a computer. It's an extension of your hand, and reacts on how soft or strong you wanna be, together with some amazing and unexpected FX results over the sliders and a simple and powerful global pattern effect section that AR doesn't have (reverse, roll, global filter, audio mod, etc....)

The AR is more "machine" oriented. Based more on pure electronic pattern based music and pre calculation of the live performance. It seems definitely another instrument to me now, and not a fair comparison over the tempest. The effects are great. The pads bad. The kicks rock.



I'll post some sound comparison sooner or later.

Even if this is just my personal opinion and my personal ear, I hope this could help some people to clear out some doubts.

Cheers!

I would just post a link to the thread but you have to be registered to even view it
http://dsiforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=5835

[vamos scorcho]

for slow hip hop style beats (anything below 120 bpm) tempest. that thing has some fucking amazing bass on it, from what i've heard. i am generally blown away when i hear demos of it.

 

 

 

for faster more pronounced stuff like hangable auto bulb, rytm

 

 

i own neither but if I could have one, I would probably take the rytm because I really enjoy just getting lost in programming and finding new sounds. for main sounds, tempest. i think tempest is very underrated from what I've heard. im a noob though with synths.

[awepittance]

well for me the best measure of any analog drum module that's designed to do multiple drum sounds is how good does the kick sound? The tempest doesn't win any accolades on this front for me and many other users. Even the machinedrum has beefier and nicer sounding kicks and it's not even analog.

[vamos scorcho]

I don't know. I heard a demo track a while back that was electro and the way the whole thing came together out of the box was just really thick and singular. it might not have the best kick drum but the way everything blends is really meaty and phat.

 

listening now some of the hits sound tinny. I DK drums fucking piss me off. my snares always sound tinny and shitty and so do my hats. I can't make anything sound phat and cool for some reason, it always sounds like little dinky hits misplaced all over the place.

[Guest]

okay got the Rytm now and it is

[Guest]

amazing bass synth ,can do 303 kind of stuff quite well imo tbqh

[awepittance]

fuck yeah dude, where'd you snag one from?

[lala]

im getting a rytm soon. i get such major wood everytime i think about it i had to sell some things to afford one

[plastic]

Currently half way to saving for a Rytm--just gotta sell my bass guitar. ;)

 

For me, all arguments regarding Tempest vs. Rytm are settled with the simple fact that Rytm can load samples and the upcoming Overbridge.

[lala]

Currently half way to saving for a Rytm--just gotta sell my bass guitar. ;)

 

For me, all arguments regarding Tempest vs. Rytm are settled with the simple fact that Rytm can load samples and the upcoming Overbridge.

 

lol, same as me but a les paul to sell

[plastic]

 

Currently half way to saving for a Rytm--just gotta sell my bass guitar. ;)

 

For me, all arguments regarding Tempest vs. Rytm are settled with the simple fact that Rytm can load samples and the upcoming Overbridge.

 

lol, same as me but a les paul to sell

 

Drum machines are so much more fun than guitars. For realz.

[lala]

my friend has just listened to the kofta demos and informed me that i could 'make that with what ive got already'

 

 

he doesnt understand. elektron are brilliant at drum machines

[sheatheman]

Analog riddim is for nerds.

 

I don't get people saying "the kicks are punchier" etc. you can make anything as punchy as you want if you actually edit, but I'm pretty sure the tempest is "punchy"

 

Also, if it's just sounds I would never need anything besides a laptop, but you're buying a machine for it's limitations and in the case of tempest for it's performance functionality

[sheatheman]

[Guest Chesney]

Stay out of gear threads if you have no experience. You cannot do everything in ableton. Every piece of gear, software etc has it's own timbre, that's why there is so much about.

Ableton is no doubt amazing and extremely powerful but you do not fully understand that there is so much more out there to experience.

[digman]

I own a Rytm, I've never regretted buying it and I use on everything I make. Not to say that I couldn't make music with out it. But it has definitely inspired some new ideas and cool sounds since Ive had it.

 

Some thoughts on my experience with it

 

I agree with what the lengthy review is saying above about the Finger Drumming stuff wit the Rytm vs Tempest. But I do pretty much everything with the sequencer and parameter locks.

 

The Parameter lock system in the Elektron devices is like really good. Like really fucking good. I don't know what the Tempest has in terms of similar features / capability.

 

The preloaded kits in the Rytm for the most part are pretty gimmicky and I feel like for the most part they are filler. I have tried using the sample engine with sounds from various drum machines I liked using before I got my Rytm and I just resided to using the standard Analog sounds. You have so much control over every sound you can customize and tweak a completely original kit very fast.

 

For Synth sounds, I have experimented with dropping Legowelt Sample packs in there and messing around with it. One negative comment I will say is that uploading samples into the machine and loading them into your project can be frustrating. After doing it a couple of times it seems easy enough though. You could also tweak the Tom sounds and play them chromatically. I've made a couple of tracks in bed with Headphones inside the Rytm and then jammed some stuff together in Ableton.

 

Every time I hear a Tempest I feel like the kick is lacking, the kick in the Rytm is extremely versatile and has a lot going on in the sub-register. I'm sure the Tempest is a great machine and all but I can't see any reason to buy one over a Rytm. With a Rytm you get pretty good connectivity with your DAW with Overbridge, even though the capabilities are somewhat limited inside Overbridge (I pretty much to everything inside the Rytm itself). The Elektron UI and OS are really strong - simple and logical. Once you understand how they work you are familiar with the work flow of their entire range.

 

If you have questions or want some samples of stuff let me know. I can get a bit of a summin summin together.