Rytmik Ultimate

intuitive and light software to make your own music.

The software is okay. It is just too bad that I cannot recommend buying on Steam. Because you cannot buy it on Steam! After all, "This software is licensed, not sold."
Also, considering that Audacity is free, well-documented, and dramatically more capable, I don't see why you would get this.
And does this seriously need 3D graphics support to run? This is a music editor, right? You know the drill folks: PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1

It can't do all the things live can but it has a lot more depth than it seems at first.

Good tool to mess around for beginners, but the end-user license agreement is questionable.

I played this on the DSiware years ago so I'm intimately familiar with how Rytmik is.
And with that said, I cannot in good faith recommend Rytmik Ultimate for anything other than goofing around.

Recently, they've (the devs) have put in a clause that makes it so any music you make is basically owned by them, this makes this go from being something to use for programs like RPG Maker for easy music creation to making your soundcloud rapper career an absolute no go. (See reply for more clarity on this, thank you to The Flaming Pike for pointing out what this actually meant.)

Not huge on this decision, I get why they did this but I cannot help but be annoyed.

As for the instruments and sounds, you can get some pretty good music out of this little thing, for example of something I threw together: https://soundcloud.com/forsakeallthethings/considering-the-following-part-one

You can make some really decent stuff here but songs made with it have this "off" quality that I can't quite put my finger on, they sound very fake to my ears.

I'd say you'd be better off learning an instrument instead.

This is by far my all-time favorite application on Steam. I have spent hundreds of hours composing tunes, mainly covers of songs I've heard and tunes others have made on the Rytmik Cloud. Anyone up for another Granddad meme? Flintstones! We're the Flintstones! ...To be honest, I think that cartoon is stupid.

If it weren't for the Cloud, it's an absolutely clean game, and a great way for kids to mess around and make their own tunes. Be wary, though - some idiots on Rytmik (they will remain anonymous for the sake of this reviewer) think it's funny to use the S- and F-bombs in either the title of their compositions or their own usernames. Usually, such stuff is quickly removed, but they try to sneak it in by misspelling the word ("dam" instead of damn) or adding punctuation in the middle of it (da!mn). Feel free to report it to CINEMAX if you think it is needed.

Anyway, happy composing!

UPDATE 02/16/2024: As of April 8th of this year, the original Rytmik Ultimate (i.e. the one released on Nintendo 3DS) will no longer have access to the Rytmik Cloud. I recommend all 3DS RU users to upload their entire song libraries (privately, if desired) in order to be used in either the Steam version of Rytmik Ultimate or in Rytmik Studio. It's easier than having to recompose the tunes, and it will help keep them relevant.

This review covers the product, and its DLC. Let us begin with what it is and then what is not.

-Edit February 6 2021-
Bare in mind before commenting that this review is from a professional viewpoint, not a consumer.
- End edit-
What it is

At the most it is a quick scratch pad or something for the kids to play around with so If you buy this software then be sure and grab it while it is on sale.

What it is not

This software is not a professional sequencer, or digital multi-tracker for your pc so if you are looking for that in this product then you might want to save your money because you will not find anything close to that in this software.

Samples included in the basic software sound like 8-bit mono samples with a psuedo stereo fx added (at best)

DLC
Samples included in the rock DLC are 15 times worse All guitar samples sound like they were sampled in 8-bit @ 22000 using a $40 guitar that has utterly horrid harmonics. Add to this that the samples have absolutely horrid phasing that will not only give you a headache but possibly an ear ache as well. I can best sum up this DLC with 2 words:
UTTERLY HORRID.

Although interesting samples are included in the accoustic DLC they are unfortunately of the same low quality as those included in the basic software.

You can not import or use your own samples.

The interface is absolutely horrid to work with.

the software is limited to 16 bit x 44100 for mixing down which is really not much of an improvement when you consider the quality of the included samples.

To demonstrate just how low quality the samples included are you can try sequencing a scale of notes going up and down with a wide range. - you will very quickly notice an utterly horrid phasing effect (fuzz / mickey mouse effect / tonal changes ) .

Recommendations
If you are looking for something great for kids then by all means get it on sale. IF however you are looking for a professional grade sequencer you can skip this along with everything else on steam because it simply isn't here. If you are wanting a professional sequencer then I recommend Fruity loops pro. If you are worried about the price allow me to end this review by letting you know that with rytmix and fruity loops pro you get exactly what you pay for

It has ADSR , Delay , Vibrato , draw synth , fine / pitch bend , Noise and arrpegiator , not really a deep feature but its enough for a chiptune song. sound sample really help as for DAW , I need to recreate the chiptune sound by playing around envelop , oscillator , noise etc. yes there are plugin for DAW , but the plugin itself is more expensive than Rytmik (not counting steam sales) , and DAW starts at 99$.

Rytmik works via clip (like a sequencer in DAW) at maximum length of 16 per clip , use sample and add your note , the note is limited to 3 octave (from C) , but there are extra octave option (-2 to +2). you can have 4 individual paramater to control per clip and 1 global fx paramter per clip. clip has 4 channel (different instrument) with minimum tempo of 30 and max of 360 (60 in half or 180 in 2x) and maximum of 7 x 8 number of clip per song. You arrange the clips in a timeline (max. 254) with maximum of 4 clip track per 1 time.

Rytmik is very limited , like maximum length of 16 (it's hard to make melody) , no custom sound , no midi input and midi export. no piano roll mode, no extra mixing / effect , and feels very limited compared to song created via DAW

Good news is , they are now developing , rytmik studio (gen3) , which include EQ3 , longer clip (more than 16!) filter ,modulation , 2x ADSR ,LFO modulation, Automation , Simple Midi Input , reverb , master EQ etc. etc.

If you think Rtymik Ultimate feels limited but DAW is too complex to start a simple chiptune song , maybe you should wait for Rytmik Studio came out.

TL;DR Rytmik Ultimate is a good place to start music creation as beginner / hobbyist and could fulfil commerical level if you have enough music capability , but don't expect DAW level effect/feature, think of it as standalone 8-bit plugin on limited DAW

Purchased primarily to make irratic drum loops, I've only had a quick go but I'm having a great time.

Can understand why some may say it's time consuming creating complex songs but having used FL studio 11 and Cakewalk (another cheap audio producer, I use for midi control) this is a lot easier to pick up, very simple layout which is great for beginners (which I am) - if you have used a hardware step sequencer like a Volca Sample you'll understand this software even faster.

Personally I wouldn't want to use this independantly to create a song when I've got cakewalk but for creating samples or small 8bit tunes it's great - I take the exported components into an audio editor (NCH wavepad - dont get it, it's full of adware, the FL studio 11 demo is cleaner) to fix audio levels and add more effects (reverb mainly).

Might purchase the perc and vocal pack later but for the price even off sale it's a great bit of softie

I 100% reccomend this for people who want to make music for their games, or for fun. The clips that are pre-made help you get a general idea of the software and are easy to work with. Once you get the hang out that, you can build your own clips and little beat blocks as I like to call them. You can edit just about everything too. If you end up making a beat you do not like, you can change pitch, or add effects to each clip. I see a lot of people saying it is too simple, or not dynamic enough. I strongly disagree. You can make a great soundtrack using just clips you make yourself, or adding in a couple of their premade sounds to go with them. There are a lot of options. I would reccomend getting the rock expansion as you can make some very great beats with it. The power coords in it are wonderful. You have access to a lot of great drum loops as well, and the individual sound bytes that you can put together to build your own really great drum sounds, then put the blocks together to make epic drump solos of your own design. I highly reccomend this to developers. I have tried, used, and purchased many different programs to use for game sound tracks, and this one is by far the best. I am about 7 hours into playing with this software and it is 100% worth the price. The expansions are great as well.

TL/DR 3/5. Good value, easy to use, works well but there is a deal breaker to get out of the way: you can't import or record your own samples, worth a 5/5 if that doesn't matter to you.

Even the most talentless among us can now enjoy mixing and shaping the provided clips into new music, but You have to use the samples (clips) provided. I wasn't sure about this, so I intended to download it and try it for 2 hours then refund if I couldn't get the hang of it. It was so easy to use that I decided it's a keeper and still worth a thumbs up review for what it can do, not a thumbs down for one thing that it can't.

I haven't touched a music programme since the Amiga days well over 20 years ago. I have zero musical talent whatsoever. So I wasn't after a professional music tool. I just wanted someting to play about with, but this is better than that.

I wanted someting to make and export WAV files and loops, maybe make some basic sound effects - and this does the job very nicely in a drag and drop way that is pretty intuitive.
The clips unfortunately are just numbered, you need to preview them to know what they sound like, but once you get past this it's pretty easy to get into. You can edit/alter the clips, add effects etc.
"Creating" your musical masterpiece is as simple as dragging and dropping clips onto a timeline, review/play all or part of your timeline at any time, add layers of music/sounds etc.
The big thing lacking is any feature to record or import your own sound files. The programme itself exports as a WAV file to the music folder you select or to the Rytmik cloud.

Cloud export can be public, or you can set it to private to keep your stuff hidden (as storage).
If you want to use this in a professional capacity do check the EULA yourself and don't share your creations on the cloud unless you are happy for other users to use and modify them.

Of course this cloud sharing and using other peoples creations is great if that is what you want, it does it very well, ideal for collaborating or just finding ideas/inspiration. Connecting to the cloud is done right in the mixing editor itself. If you don't like the cloud feature you don't have to share.

As music programmes go this is good value for what it does, and the developers seem pretty engaged and working on new features. The community is good, and the forums are active.
If you aren't sure, Steam's two hours refund limit is just about enough time to decide if it's for you.

Only about 83 minutes in and already falling in love with Rytmik, a great effort developed with Unity. The love for chiptune sequencing is pretty obvious and the author made quite a good sequencer which is easy to handle.

For more serious musicians the WAV export will be the most useful option, so created loops can be imported in a sampler or any other sequencer. As a sketchtool which forces the user to think in 16 step blocks (or any step less if needed) Rytmik will provide just that and will be a great addition for making beats, awkward arpeggiators or whatever you like.

As a standalone tool for complete productions, Rytmik is not the way to go, simply because it lacks plugin support or being used as a plugin for that matter. Consider Rytmik as a fun way to build your loops and experiment with sound, just for the fun of it.

Pros:
- Chiptunes made easy
- Nice interface with an acceptable learning curve
- Retro 8 bit look sound and feel
- 16 polyphonic voices
- Editing limitation boosts creativity
- Great community contributions
- WAV export

Cons:
- No possibility to load as a VST
- No obvious exit button apart from ALT-F4 (or not found yet;))
- Sound quality leaves a bit to be desired

I can recommend this as a fun toy with potential, but not as a serious tool for music production outside of the chiptune genre. I wouldn't recommend buying it unless it's on sale. Opinions might vary, but to me it feels like a $5-$10 app at best. In fact, it reminds me of a homebrew XMMS tracker I used to play with on Nintendo DS using an R4 card many-many years ago.

Rytmik Ultimate is an accumulation of tools that were designed for sequencing chiptunes on the Nintendo DSi and iPhone and now on Steam. Ported over using the Unity engine, the sequencer has many fundamental limitations and a multitude of un-intuitive buttons and abbreviations migrated over from its previous mobile interfaces. This is worsened by the indication of tooltips which only appear after you actually click a button to take action as opposed to before. Luckily, most of the buttons involved with deleting and removal will ask for confirmation before you accidentally do something regrettable. Additionally, it remains forced at 1024x768 resolution with the only option to scale upwards when fullscreening with traditional alt+enter hotkey, as many Unity games feature. There is an option to adjust the sound buffer from low to large (I think "low" should instead be read "small") which is a nice consideration for lower end systems.

Locally stored songs are kept in .rue and .ruf files intended to never be migrated from one machine to another, I suspect, based on the accessibility and file naming scheme. You do however have the option to export to WAV output as either a complete song or a selected loop.

Instead of sharing songs via files, Rytmik imposes a cloud storage and public sharing feature built into the application. It's rather rudimentary with no ability to communicate with others beyond a five-star rating system for each song. Songs stored on the "Cloud" can either be stored: Privately, Locked, Semi-Locked and Unlocked. This enables some control about how much of your song is actually shared with others, if at all, and enables some form of anonymous collaboration between strangers.

Moving on to actual sound synthesis. Provided are many samples that can be modified using an array of common production tools including: envelope adjustment, portamento, vibrato, delay arpeggio and even adding some "noise" for added chiptune feel. Unfortunately, you are limited to the samples provided as providing your own would interfere with the imposed, "Cloud" sharing system. However, all the samples can be tuned with great variety to generate a sound unique to your project. You can also adjust the filters for an entire instrument and then even re-adjust again within the actual clip-sequencer for a more organically tuned sound (limited to 4 filter automations per clip).

Instruments are stored within individual clip-sequences which are each limited to 4 bars at 1/16 note scale. It is very easy to copy and paste your tuned instruments from one clip to another, however it does become very tedious and can be difficult to manage as your project becomes larger. Clips can only store 4 instruments at a time with 1 note per column on the roll. The song sequencer can only place 4 clips to play simultaneously, limiting the total maximum output to 16 instruments and 16 notes per column. You might be hard-pressed to reach that limit, however this does place a lot of restraint on your options and increases the tedious value of the interface. The lack of simulatenous notes on a single instrument roll also means complex melodies are very difficult to make and manage. It's not possible to make harmonies using a single instrument. However, this is a groovebox and not a DAW or similar workstation, so that should be expected. The reason this is a problem is the entire interface is largely designed to be self-sufficient when it is in fact not. Especially when considering the whole "Cloud" sharing thing. This is largely why I think of it as a fun toy and in-adequate for any serious musical production.

Naturally, without a piano roll and limited to single notes, the sequencer offers no MIDI support whatsoever.

I've laid out all the cons I've yet noticed here. You will notice I am still recommending the application though. That is to say that despite all of these shortcomings, I still enjoyed what remained in all of its gimmicky entertainment. I think it's a healthy creative tool for either passing the time or potentially working into your workflow, if you really wanted to make use of the WAV export feature. As a groovebox sequencer, the drumkit samples are very nice and exported patterns/loops could be used for DAW projects. If you are enthusiastic about chiptune music, I would especially recommend this application as it is very focused towards that genre and could be self-sufficient in that regard.

If you are undecided about the creative limitation and how it balances with the convenient capabilities, I would suggest viewing some projects on youtube. Cinemax uploads many popular songs to be played on youtube directly, but there are also many other songs uploaded outside of the Cinemax channel.

If you've patiently read through all of my review, I hope it helped you decide whether to buy Rytmik Ultimate or not. Regardless, here is a treat for your ears that helped win me over when I was still making the decision myself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm3a4A2tKBI

And here is a cover song I made that got featured on the Cinemax youtube channel during my first week or two of using Rytmik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI2-TJxkXPQ

Also, be sure to check out LMMS (https://lmms.io/) if you need a more elaborate digital audio workstation that is FOSS.

I've been using seqiencers for a long time, and currently spend most of my time in Pro Tools. I bought this on sale for less than $8 to evaulate for my son because the interface looked pretty easy for him. He's 6. He just spent the last 3 hours heads down in it. We watched a YouTube video which gave a quick tutorial and he went at it. He cried when I made him stop to go to bed.

That being said, this is not a childs toy (although it certainly can be.) This is absolutely worth the money, even at full price. Hell, it is actually incredible for the money. Even if you are an FL Studio guy/gal, this in incredibly easy to just hammer out some ideas. There are drawbacks. As some other users have stated, you can't see what sounds are in a bank, you just have to go through them all and find what you like. This gets even worse when you go into the notes editor. A dropdown with the patches listed would be more user friendly. This shortcoming is pretty limiting, but my understanding is that this is under active development, so perhaps they can fix that. It is also at a fixed resolution, which is odd in this day and age. But then again, so are a lot of much more expensive instruments (like a bunch of Native Instruments and IK Multimedia VSTS).

Hats off to whoever made this. I hope it continues to grow.

Mini review tutorial so you can see (and hear) just how good this little gem really is:

https://youtu.be/yPNKalmQWXk

If you need chiptunes and you need them quick, this is a pretty solid option, even if you have little or no experience in music production. And its cheap as chipstune.

Highly recommended for beginners.

Friendly interface, lots of instruments with great variety, and pretty easy to use overall. With little practice one can manage to create catchy tunes.

I think the only reasonable con is that it only exports to .wav files, so uh, that might be for your convenience or not.

I wanted to like this software... There are good and bad points about it.

It does remind me of Amiga software I used many years ago, but the bad unfortunately offsets the good. The EULA basically says that any songs put in cloud are owned by CINEMAX, this could legally mean that if you use the song that you make commercially, they could sue you as they own a copy. I am not saying that they "would" do this, just that the ramifications are there.

The other big negative for me is that you can't import your own audio. This limits you to the instruments provided in the software.

Also, the instruments (loops?) provided are set up on buttons for drag and drop, but they are labeled 1, 2, 3 etc which means until you click it, you are not sure what the instrument is going to sound like (is it a drum, a lead, bass line?).

I hope this review helps. the software looks pretty good and sounds good... Synthy (if that's a word)... but good.

The fact that the dev is actively upgrading the software is a good sign, they haven't just made the software and dumped it on Steam to sell whatever they can.

I hope that they keep up the good work and adding features/fixes, but unfortunately, this software isn't right for me.

I WOULD recomend this software to people who are new to writing songs as the software does all the hard work. I would not recomend it to a serious musician however.

Seriously, One of the best if not the Best way to Entry level music making Period. Ive always wanted to make Chiptune and now i can. This is a Must have if you want to get started in making music. you can make Dubstep, Chiptune, 8 bit retro music, Modern Music, Rap beats, Pretty much anything besides Recorded Samples. Its well worth the price. Its Much Cheaper than other programs that are confusing to use.

Pro:
Cheap
Good looking
Easy to learn
Alt-Enter full screen

Con:
you can't for now add your own sample/wav, this for me is a big CON
It be nice if I could export to .ogg, but that is not really a problem

I really recommend this software to people who want to start creating digital music but don't know the right place to begin. I got into using Rytmik with not much experience in the field myself, but it only took me a couple hours to figure out the interface and put together some interesting stuff. Beyond that, after learning the basics, its possible to expand on a lot of the options you have available to you for a more diverse creation experience. For a lot of reasons, not to mention the very reasonable price tag, I think this is a good buy.

It's written in Unity and that has certain effects, like for example if you move the window while your track is playing it will stutter until you stop moving the window.

I went into this knowing it was obviously way more limited than a full DAW and was prepared to accept that: It is after all a lot cheaper. I did expect more functionality than there was though.

Basically you have a load of samples. There are quite a lot but you can't add your own. You have one instrument type which lets you draw a waveform with 24 bars and you can adjust the volume envelope and a few other things for all instruments.

In terms of effects though there is only a delay. I expected there would be the usual flanger, phaser, reverb, filter with resonance and so on, but there isn't. Instead some of the instruments have effects on them already so you just have to use those if you want an effect and then you can't tweak it or vary it as the track plays of course. You can tweak the waveform of the drawable instrument as the track plays, in a basic way, by automating the height of each bar, but it's hard to get meaningful results.

Unity actually has a built in low pass filter, high pass filter, delay, reverb, chorus and distortion so I'm not sure why they didn't add these.

In fact because of the limitations of this software I went away and tried to knock up a quick prototype myself in unity. I managed to make a beatbox which would allow me to apply effects to the samples as they played, and allowed the user to load their own samples from disk. It's therefore really baffling why this software doesn't have custom sample ability or effects.

not big into commenting but i had to show my appreciation for this , i always wanted a beat box back in the day to play with some tunes, now i have a complete one right on my computer

hardly know much about making music, but in a matter of minutes im already making some cool beats and having a blast doing it. pretty straight forward layout once you figure it out, great variety of samples from all different genres, endless possibilites

Rytmik Ultimate is a super easy way to make pretty good sounding music (although sometimes the quality seems a bit dull). I ported a song I made from a previous Rytmik title (Retrobits) fairly easy. I'm also excited about the ability to share music with others.

A few things to note: This program is NOT widescreen. The resolution appears to be stuck at something around 1024x768. This doesn't particularly bother me, but if you have a small resolution you may not be able to see all the buttons without going into fullscreen mode. In my opinion, the buttons are good sized and you can see why it would be hard to let the user change the resolution (FYI I am using a 1440p monior). You can make it fullscreen, but it will stay the same resolution.
Also from what I can tell you can't use the Steam overlay in the app. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, you can use the Steam Overlay now.

The app seems to have pretty good touch support as well. (Lots of it supports drag & drop and there aren't really any places you will have to use any button other than left click/touch that I've found).

Overall, I think this is a great piece of software. Be sure to give it a try, and remember if something goes wrong/you don't really like you can always just refund it (Just also remember the refund limit is 2 hrs played / 14 days owned whichever comes first).