Analog Four - specific workflow questions

pselodux · 2022-08-04T10:19:50.515Z

TOTAL:

I found that music a distraction and preferred to just read relevant part in the manual

Perhaps if you’re simply viewing it for tips, but I personally think he’s the single best A4 user out there, a really great example of what can be done with the machine if you know what you’re doing.

TOTAL · 2022-08-04T10:30:16.673Z

Okay, if so, maybe it might take one more look to appreciate that. Thanks.

But yes, in this thread I am looking for rather specific tips on the workflow. It is still unclear how to do sonic explorations in the middle of a project.

TLDR, here is the part

"
This is still unclear. Imagine you have a pattern and kit saved. As you tweak the notes and sounds, you come up with a worthy new scene.
So to keep both the old and the new snapshot,

save kit as a new one
copy & paste pattern to a new one.
save the new pattern
get back to the old one

and here… unfortunately, the old one is linked with the new kit, and to get back to the assignment of the old kit you need to reload it here.
"

[as I look again, this chap is really making some great music MÃ¸rkeredd (Analog Four) - YouTube]

goodmortherlizard · 2022-08-04T19:40:13.076Z

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Use Fill, set buttons note trigger conditions to fill with overscore, this means that

when you press fill, kicks will not play, and this is midi-level blocking, with a button, accessible.

you are free to use all the empty steps for other sounds and they will not be affected unless you choose to ‘anti-fill’ them, too.

very clever. i totally forgot about that as an option. usually i am playing guitar so i don’t do much with the fill settings.

TOTAL:

PERFORMANCE TIPS
There are a couple of things there, one being the macros - and the meta macro (I like the idea BTW), the other how to remember in which octave ‘solo’ parts were done. I think I will be changing sound octaves with oscillator to make the parts playable without jumping octaves in-between notes and for the mini-keyboard to always be in the ‘middle’ octave.

this is an interesting idea, that i hope plays out well. remember that if you use func + whatever parameter encoder it will jump some values. this might help go up octaves on the fly without any dissonance in between…unless thats what youre going for.

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Any simpler way?

i don’t think so if i understand what you’re saying. some A4 workflow stuff can be a bit tedious at times.

TOTAL · 2022-08-04T22:35:04.078Z

Sound explorations
I think the simpler way is to do the same in a different order. “Normally”, I am finding that only on the next day can I tell with certainty that no sounds or changes were lost - (especially tricky when it is about a wrong set of sounds, kind “what is that??”) but it appears that the right order is this

Imagine you have a pattern and kit saved. As you tweak the notes and sounds, you come up with a worthy new scene.
So to keep both the old and the new snapshot,

first, copy & paste pattern to a new one.
and only now, save kit as a new one
save the new pattern

When you now get back to the old one, it still plays changed, but you can revert to the last saved kit, which is the right one. In even if you don’t, saving the project should just restore saved kit automatically - not verified yet.

Cool It’s good to talk this through, thanks.

The device is easy to grasp - contrary to Octatrack, I heard. One very useful thing, you can play one tone, and in time meantime change the track and modify filter of another track. Ideally, there would be hold option with switching to another track not sending note release. But I have seen this work miracles, probably as a side effect, on one system some five years ago.

If you use a4 with overbridge, does it work stutterless? I am getting all sorts of issues making it not even possible to record improvisations to an ableton track. I am on windows.

suitcasecontroll · 2022-08-05T11:35:24.076Z

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How to make it possible to quickly mute just kick? Keeping a dedicated track is expensive. (Un)Muting all 4 kicks quickly in the sequencer is a way, although will keep you busy enough not to do anything else. And if there are more pages, this becomes too much of a task

Try to programm all drumsounds except the kick as soundlocks. I think the amp volume then will only affect the current track sound, i.e. your kick.

reeloy · 2022-08-05T16:08:00.024Z

…yup, quite some do’s and don’ts on the a4…

biggest elephant in the analog room is…whenever u crafted a sound u like…save it!!!
patterns remain one thing, sound kits the other…

to harvest all it’s magic u must dive deep into it’s performance macro options…it’s endless but totally worth it…

dunno the latest firmware…but i think, a4 by now, should also feature the fill option…
that might be the easiest way to mute certain trigs while running…

Unifono · 2022-08-05T18:23:00.949Z

reeloy:

but i think, a4 by now, should also feature the fill option…

it does

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T02:03:47.336Z

A good try, and you can come up with interesting unusual effects, not only with drums. However, there are leakages of user tweaking into the locks.
Thanks, keep 'em coming. Looks like there are numcerous options. ideally, performance knobs could gate midi. This would keep pristine adsr of all the kicks that get through. MIDI gating rather than volume muting.

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T02:13:47.559Z

SOUNDS (KITS) VS PATTERNS, PERFORMANCE VS PATTERNS
Yes, sounds, or kits more specifically are handled separately from patterns but have performance settings integrated. This one is quite unusual, meaning that if your track evolves in a series of patterns & each has a dedicated kit saved - as it should as a matter of good practice. - patterns done later will tend to have more performance knobs settings configured, or have later iterations simply.

There are further implications.
If you have some good “performance” ideas later on, applicable to earlier stages, each of the earlier patterns that would benefit from these settings would require replicating all that stuff. No, you don’t even want to think about it. Let’s consider it a creative-boosting limitation

Anyway, turning a performance knob all the way right makes it possible to audition and weigh changes at random and pick the best findings.

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T02:15:29.537Z

Yes, and it can even be used for muting kicks, although its potential for animating intensity on the fly would be used for trivia.

Eaves · 2022-08-06T06:41:01.597Z

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It is still unclear how to do sonic explorations in the middle of a project.

One way to deconstruct sounds in a project is to audition a sound with the keyboard, then reset one parameter page (PAGE+CLEAR) then listen for the differences. You can flip back and forth by reloading the kit (NO+KIT, or parameter page PAGE+NO). This way you can compare the pages with their init values, then slowly dial in the values yourself to get a better understanding og exactly what they’re doing, one page at a time.

TOTAL:

If you have some good “performance” ideas later on, applicable to earlier stages, each of the earlier patterns that would benefit from these settings would require replicating all that stuff.

Yeah, replicating stuff like this is tedious, and is the reason I feel the A4 benefits more from planning ahead than the digi-boxes. To make this easier for myself, I often just stick to one kit and one or two patterns until I have a pretty much finished track, and only then make B-sections on new patterns and a new copy of the same kit. This also helps me prevent accidentally ruining patterns by forgetting to switch kits. Not ideal, but it’s the simplest way I know of.

Muting kicks with the FILL button works great. One disadvantage of this is that holding it down and turning knobs with the same hand is awkward. If you can dedicate an entire track to just play a kick, you can use a performance macro assigned to Amp volume or filter cutoff or Amp decay to mute the kick. What I like about this method is that your hand is free once you’ve muted the kicks, and you can perform using both hands, then reload the kit to unmute the kicks. Alternatively you could just mute the track normally, but then it won’t unmute when reloading the kit.

Not sure if you know already, but when you’re on the performance page, the trigs 1-6 will mute and unmute tracks 1-4 and the fx and CV tracks, respectively. One handed! Usually you have to press FUNC+TRACK to mute stuff, which unfortunately is a two-handed button combo.

Aside from that, I think you’ve listed out pretty much all the tricks I use and more =D

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T10:27:05.082Z

Yes, I can see how the device determines the workflow (and also the genres). Also, sticking to kit adds to a sense of continuity.

Toggle is better for muting indeed, and fill has its other applications. That would mean ‘shiftless’ midi kik mute at the cost of a track. However, for the genres a4 seems predestined, isolating kick is not a priority

Following guys’ advice above, I will have a look at how you develop songs out of curiosity because I was looking for more of a techno-in-a-box device.

Eaves · 2022-08-06T10:46:41.534Z

One trick that has worked for me is to combine the kick and bass into one sound. Make a kick sound, but give it some Amp sustain and release so it doubles as a bass sound. Then you can set the envelope shape so it has an exponential attack, then use a performance macro to increase the attack time. That way you’ll remove the transient of that sound, but leaving the bass alone.

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T11:33:28.460Z

That would be the psy type, I reckon? I will give it a try, thanks.

Meantime, I have found the following:
func and double-fill locks the fill
since kick does not benefit from volume control it would be better to 0-1 it to fill, and 1-0 some snares buildup - and that can be linked to performance volume control, so that sometimes kick pauses with and sometimes without a buildup.
Thus, the buildup can be on-offed with fill and muted regardless if this with perf knob, and controlled for intensity with volume. Very useful given the midi real eastate puts limitations of intensifying with velocity.

TOTAL · 2022-08-06T23:51:01.602Z

Holy fuck.

TECHNO RECIPE
I have tried creating apart from a dedicated kik track, another kick per each step, then it soon appeared that 1, 5, 9 and 13 had better be emptied, although as I think of it, might be used for a hihat of some sort.

delay to 1/8, with a highpass, slightly overdriven but can be furter linked to performance

track 3 some xylophone - could be whatever but non trivial waveform
track 4 101ish bass, although I remember there was a 303 that did the trick much better

Instant techno. This is the kind of setup I have been looking for. And with elektron, it is all readily controllable.

It was inspired by a chap mangling x0x with rmx1000, very mighty actually (ROLAND TR 8 S TECHNO LIVE SET - JAM USER PATTERNS - YouTube)

What would be great is a proper 909 open hat to share track one with the main kik.
Any ideas on how to make one with the a4 synth?
The hats which are in the factory set are either a bit too modest or tinny. A juicy 909 type would be perfect.

I am amazed at how simple and effective this was. Someone wrote under that YT video that this was the real techno; whatever it means, I agree. The most authentic techno is more of Jeff Mills’ outasync Jimi-Hendrix nonchalance and less of tidied, normalised stems for traktor.

And you end up juggling with energy.

The layout of Analog shines when it comes to this kinda stuff.

Octagonist · 2022-08-07T07:31:29.696Z

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Any ideas on how to make one with the a4 synth?

The 909 hats are samples, in the 909. It’s quite hard to get the zing, swoopy, bit-reduced tone from a synth; but fun to try.

I don’t have a recipe. The next time I have a go, I’ll try using a random LFO, at audio rate, to tweak a filter just a small amount, and perhaps also sweep it with an envelope. It needs a little pitch change too, to my ears.

TOTAL · 2022-08-07T22:41:17.359Z

Yes, so that’s a difficult part. Possible to create something which will not sound bad until you hear some good matches from 909. I think this needs to be accepted as one of the instrument’s few limitations. There is enough music featuring roland’s esthetic anyway

Tapepusher · 2023-04-27T18:21:01.872Z

Eaves:

then reset one parameter page (PAGE+CLEAR)

“PAGE+CLEAR” just deletes any notes in the pattern for me, should it reset the sound parameter positions?

B_LD · 2023-04-27T18:41:32.350Z

It’s meant in a way that you hold the parameter page button (like osc1) and hit clear. This resets the specific parameters in question.

Have a look into the manual, there’s a lot to discover in there!

Tapepusher · 2023-04-27T19:34:16.359Z

The manual specifies terms for specific buttons, PAGE being one of them