Pretty much the same path I am following, the “missing the point” part. When I am facing with 100s of EQs and Fx, 1000s of plugins, a mouse and a keyboard, I realized I was less and less happy.
Off topic: looks like OT went up, from $1399 to $1499, just when I was all in. I don’t know when it went up.
Spending too much time here is costing me $$ 
i didn’t buy OT for something like OB but i love computers and wouldnt have minded that extra feature (what i’d rather have is an official elektron battery pack to make OT a little portable)
anyway curiosity about OB led me toward DT and AH much more quickly than normal
so far i only use it w/ heat
it’s cool…better than reading the manual to understand certain params
Did Elektron ever do a customer survey or poll about Overbridge? Did forum members ask for it or possibly high-profile customers? How did it come about?
The answers in the thread are interesting. I wonder if the execs are reading.
Back when OB was announced, I remembered all the early problems with the Access Virus Total Integration, TC Electronic Powercore, Waldorf AFB16 hardware plugin, Windows XP to Vista transition and related driver unavailability for months (and years or never) from Nvidia, ATI, Native Instruments, etc. and I thought…good luck Elektron, hope you have several RME-level coders.
As an early Virus TI and TC Powercore adopter, I can relate. I had the exact same thoughts when OB was announced. I have the dark Trinity, AH2, Digitone and MC and OB has never interested me. However, of all those machines, the Octatrack is the only one I would be mildly interested in using OB with, just to get tracks out of the OT. On the other hand I would much rather see some kind of export feature like the awesome (imho) Ableton export in the Korg Electribe2.
I do miss audio over usb on the OT. Would simplify my life sampling from and recording into the computer, and I still think it is something they could and should have included in the MkII. But I wouldn’t need/use the full overbridge capabilities with the OT.
I have a Digitakt and Octatrack and never used overbridge. I don’t like clicking around with a mouse while making music anymore.
I’m sure they probably did ask a limited audience of users but I don’t know for sure.
Oh yes, the innumerable people pissed off about TI software, and Powercore, etc. That was really rough for a lot of users. Abandonware is a nasty word.
Overbridge is simply brilliant for me I love it!.
I have Ableton sequencing everything the analog four is 4 mono synths in 1
Analog Rytm is a sweet drum analog drum machine that has very nice overdrive…
Digitone has 4 tracks of any combination of all the voices…
The fact that I can just sequence them all like they are vst or tweak the sounds by hand as I mostly do, and receive all audio over USB And have everything saved in Ableton via total recall… What can I say but brilliant!
I can disconnect it and go dawless as well what is bad about all that?
the OT is more of a performance tool but I would prefer if it did have overbridge
Hardly a consensus tbh
Not missing it at all, would not use it anyway.
when i owned an OT, yes i missed not having OB, primarily as i need to have clear control over each track at the end mixing stage, which for me (a hybrid person) would be in the DAW- not having that functionality with the the OT stymied me and led to a lot of time wasted/frustration etc at trying to find ways around this. as i tried to convince myself that just recording the stereo out was fine, or jumping through hoops like recording each track one at a time into my DAW was fine, or setting each track to mono and doing the studio mode thing etc etc, but in truth that stuff was for me a massive PITA and a surefire way to kill any enjoyment and buzz i was meant to be getting from using the thing. yes its a ‘performance’ instrument (whatever that means) but i think its perfectly reasonable to be frustrated at not being able to capture that peformance in a multitrack capacity. OB is a fantastic extension to my workflow with the DN, and the DT (when i had one), as im sure it is with the AR/A4. i find it interesting how vehemently opposed some people here seem to be at the very concept of having that level of functionality in the OT, almost as though by having OB would strip the OT of some its cool, and make it less authentic/hardcore, or whatever…
I pretty much agree with everything you said as someone that doesn’t want to abandon my ableton work flow but want the option to do the dawless thing when feel like it.
For “performance instrument” I think of it like a set of turntables or CDJs and a mixer where you only get the stereo recording of a live performance
yeh same, i like to go back and forth between ITB/hybrid/sometimes dawless. the OT (when i had it) only ever really fitted into the latter category for me, which was a shame as in a perfect world i would have loved to integrate it with a more hybrid setup
for me this is where the grey area is and where the problems started. of course its fine/great to just capture the stereo performance of a live jam or whatever and i appreciate that people are happy using it this way, but for me i always have a pathological need to have as much control as possible over every single track for the post production stage (i do something vaguely similar for a living so i guess thats just ingrained in me). i might have come across as a bit flippant with the ‘whatever that means’ remark tho
OT can send 4 tracks though? 2 stereo pairs or 4 mono.
yes absolutely, but by then thats the beginning of the ‘jumping through hoops to find a solution’ stage- for me at least
id rather have 8 stereo tracks exported in the mixing stage
It’s not perfect but it works pretty well for a hybrid system. Like I’ll record 16 bar loops to the OT, make a rough arrangement of the bones of a song and record that into a DAW. I can have 4 layers with nice transitions and stuff. Then I’ll bounce that into a single track on the OT and play the leads and maybe pads or noise, atmospherics and again I have 4 channels that go to the DAW. So I guess a bit of a hassle, but worth it because the OT is so much more fun to make music with than a kb+mouse, and I can mix or edit or fine tune stuff later if I fuck up or just want more reverb. To me personally it’s a great hybrid system. The bigger problem for me is that the Heat only has stereo in and out, leads to unnecessary resampling.
yeh dont get me wrong the tactility of the OT (like other machines) is of course a lot more enjoyable/immediate etc etc and i never had an issue there at all, it was more the end process for me that was the problem, and if it were possible to have OB functionality in the OT then id still own it now, and id be singing its praises from the rooftops as it was in most other aspects a great machine to have and use (i owned it twice, so i really did try!)
Overbridge does nothing for me personally and is completely irrelevant to my hobby but i’d sure love a future Octatrack with audio over USB. personally i feel like Overbridge was a pointless tar-pit given that most Elektron users are heavily hardware-focussed but that’s just my feeling. perhaps some people love OB
I thought I would dig the TR8-S with its 11 channels of audio over USB. All on there own channel in ableton. Zero set up required, it just works.
Thing is, the recordings sounded totally different, than recording the stereo mix from the physical outputs. Something gets lost when you split the channels and send it over USB.
I tried the USB audio once. Didnt like it. Never looked back. Havent used a computer for making music in a long time.
Still dont care about overbridge, and I’m happy not using a computer.