How reliable are you finding OB so far? Here are my thoughts

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

I’ve played around with OB in Ableton on my AR and Akeys (the latter was an A4 until yesterday; YES!) since it came out, but today was my first chance to spend some quality uninterrupted time with it. It was a great experience in many ways, and frustrating in equally as many.

The good: I was able to set up an Ableton template that addresses my full wish list workflow wise. In addition to the VSTi and tracks for recording audio from both instruments, I have MIDI tracks set up that allow me to play clips in Ableton on either instrument AND record them into the Elektron sequencers. And then I have a drum rack built for the AR so I can record MIDI from either the AR pads or the Akeys (using as an external midi instrument) into Ableton on one track. And of course I can also play and record soft synths within Ableton using the AKey MIDI ext.

It’s very convenient and tidy and I think puts me well on the way to a workflow I’m going to enjoy. I like working in Ableton, never was an OTB guy in the first place. So I like the idea of having the MIDI clips that I can always go back to at any time and edit. I will still record these in the Elektrons and take advantage of P-locks, performance modes and all that. And when I’m ready, I’ll record audio into clips and start building arrangements ITB. At least that’s how I think I’m going to roll…

So the bad: I have to say, overall I would rate OB as very buggy indeed at this point. I have a list of things that went wrong over the course of the day, but honestly each of these issues popped up earlier while messing around with it since its release.

  1. OB freaks my Apogee Duet 2 out big time, or the Maestro 2 software I should say. When I change routings in OB control, the Maestro window opens and closes like 10 times in rapid succession. Same happens when I open a VSTi or turn on one or both of the instruments. And then it crashes. EVERY time. Spinning beach ball from hell. Today I just closed it and gave up; it still passes audio as my sound card. I’ve made sure I’ve got the latest firmware and software, no go. I know it’s OB related because it works perfectly as it always did before OB if I work on a project without Elektrons and OB.

  2. Live almost always crashes when I quit after using OB. Fortunately I saved all day without issue, but as soon as I quit it crashes. Live had been incredibly stable for me pre- OB

  3. I get VERY frequent audio drop outs. Just a ton of holes everywhere. It’s rare to be able to play through a 64 step sequence without a drop out in one track or another.

  4. I get frequent low bitrate noise patches, which someone here described as sounding like a ring modulator. Fortunately these go away on their own within 64 steps or so. They come and go…

  5. The sync in recorded audio is not consistent. I’ve seen it dead on and I’ve seen it off by as much as a 16th note.

  6. Today I had a really weird double BPM kind of issue that I vaguely recall someone else mentioning. This is the only problem that I’ve only seen once. I can’t recall the exact circumstance leading up to it, but I had just recorded audio clips and they played back at roughly 2x the speed. The audio LOOKED normal, but the playback was crazy fast. And then it crashed so I couldn’t really look into it.

So I don’t know enough about computers to know where to look for answers here; it could well be something in my system as far as I know. Here are some stats:

— Late 2009 mac mini (old, I know!!) 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8 GB ram
— Yosemite 10.10.3
— Latest version of OB, the 1.0.0 Ableton one
— Latest AK and AR OS
— Using a hub - this 7 port cheap one that the website said was multi TT, but I’m suspicious.
— Ableton Live 9.2.2

I will also point out that I’m new to Yosemite, got it just for OB…

I’m tossing this out here to see if anyone else can relate to these issues and we can find some patterns. It has SUCH AMAZING POTENTIAL and I really want to work this way. But for now, it’s just impossible for me. Way too buggy…

#2

I installed and tried to use Overbridge tonight, within 30 minutes I knew that it was not going to work for me. I had sync issues and found that my recordings were not aligned to the grid, even worse, the beats were off throughout the take so I could not simply adjust the first beat. etc. etc. I wont be using Overbridge until it’s working properly. Make music!

#3

I agree, functionality wise its all there. It’s brilliant.

In practice though there remains to be performance issues with regard to sync and audio dropouts.

Not ideal If you ever intend to use overbridge in a live situation, and you’re potentially left with redoing multi-track sessions hoping you get a good run.

It’s so damn close.

Maybe Overhub will actually help with a bit, looking forward to finding out.

#4

i do have:
-occasional audio dropouts… meeh, annoying when live recording synth via A4 input! !! !! !

  • unwanted ring modulator feature, …makes me restart
  • quantization issues: well I dont mix ableton internal stuff with AR / A4 (sometimes inputs from focusrite 2i4 …) … I am not that professional to need to have that tight of a sync
    .
    .
    .to OP: nice sum up and well written …
    .
    .
    my 2ct: the shitstorm would be a shit tornado if Elektron had released OB any time sooner with more bugs
#5

That is a very true statement - OB will improve, I have no doubt, but for all those who complained that it was late…yup, OB is a much bigger undertaking than anyone imagined.

#6

Well… For me. Its working flawless. I have a rytm and an A4 with controllers and other usbstuff using overhub. Im using a Mac book pro 8gb 128ssd 13 retina and Ableton. I have done recordings for over 45 minutes without a single pop.
If you dont want latency dont monitor it through your computer.

#7

That’s why you are having issues unfortunately.
At the moment Overbridge does not work with older Apple hardware, notably those running Core 2 Duo or Xeon processors. We hope to fix this soon.

#8

I was having problems like with the double BPM and dropout issues (AR in Ableton), but installing the flstudio asio driver that comes free with flstudio 12 demo seemed to fix this. It works better than my motu asio and although latency buffer size only starts at a minimum of 256, it seems as quick as my sound card is on a lower latency, yet as smooth as a higher latency setting.
Also I found that switching the reduced latency when monitoring function on after say, adding your drum tracks and say a bass and some samples, throws the timing out and it seems irriversable unless you start a fresh project, making sure to switch that function on first before adding anything to the empty project.

#9

[quote="“Simon”"]

That’s why you are having issues unfortunately.
At the moment Overbridge does not work with older Apple hardware, notably those running Core 2 Duo or Xeon processors. We hope to fix this soon.[/quote]
Thanks for chiming in, Simon. It’s helpful to know there are problems specific to my hardware, that’s actually encouraging. I’m going to have to replace this machine soon for other reasons as well anyway. You say OB “doesn’t work” with my processor; it does, at least to some extent, but evidenced by the bugs I’ve described above, not all that well.

I was kind of hoping to spark more conversation re: the efficacy of OB at this point. I guess it’s really hard to get the pulse of what users are experiencing, as we are experiencing these things across a huge array of hardware and software. So 10 people saying things like “sync is unusable” doesn’t give the full story. I guess what I’d really love to see evidence of users diving in deep and putting OB through the paces and experiencing no issues.

Part of why I personally want to find the answer to this is to avoid the paralysis that comes from waiting for the perfect workflow. OB promises so much…but if I knew now that it would be months or longer until it delivers the level of stability it aspires to, I think my time would be much better spent using old imperfect ableton sync, AR into A4 ext inputs, and the two available analog ins on my Duet. At least that way I’d actually be concentrating on making music. Perfect audio separation can wait anyway.

I’ve already decided that’s what I’m going to do for the short term.

#10

[quote="“Simon”"]

That’s why you are having issues unfortunately.
At the moment Overbridge does not work with older Apple hardware, notably those running Core 2 Duo or Xeon processors. We hope to fix this soon.[/quote]
Yikes!
I have an '08 MBP 2.8ghz Core2Duo, and an '08 Mac Pro 8x2.8gz Xeon. Glad to hear there’s hope for a fix soon, though.
Thanks for letting us know!

#11

I’m not sure my cases are as bad as op, but I have got the bitcrushing-like issue after about 30 minutes of playing. I have to stop, close, and restart.

From my other post, my snare’s filter has decided to take on the personality of being pure resonance (only after updating the Rytm Os), so the snare’s filter is un-useable at the moment.

I get audio blips and bleeps here and there. When I stop Live’s transport, the Rytm will stop, but then a few seconds later, will start again. Happens only sometimes.

Beyond that, I have had extremely tight sync. Initially, I did have poor sync, but that was when I first installed OB. After another computer restart, sync/timing worked really well.

Inputs are lower than I would have liked, but that topic has seems to have been addressed elsewhere.

Overall, I’m fairly happy with OB from the Rytm’s standpoint. I’m saving for the Keys in the future, so I’m hoping in a few months time, the kinks will be sorted out and I can use the keys and rytm together without issues.

Running on latest Mac Os X on early 2013 Macbook Pro, Ableton Live 9 Suite.

#12

Can’t say I have noticed any weirdness with OverBridge other than very poor sync with the Analog Rytm.

I’m using Ableton 9.2.1. iMac 2.7 i5.

TR-8 is very tight. A4 seems tighter than Rytm, but playing non-percussive material is harder to tell. But Rytm is very noticeably out of sync with Ableton’s click track and TR-8.

Luckily no other issues. Seems people are having way worse issues than me. I agree about the complexity of OverBridge. I’m amazed they undertook this at all. Seems like a massive headache. Hope they get it all smoothed out. They will be the heroes of the electronic music world.

Oh, remembered one more thing. A4 and AR seem veeeery quiet through USB compared to my Juno, TR-8, etc… For now, back to using the soundcard.

#13

I’m having this issue more than anything else:

  1. Live almost always crashes when I quit after using OB. Fortunately I saved all day without issue, but as soon as I quit it crashes. Live had been incredibly stable for me pre- OB

That is very frustrating and I’m using Windows 7 64 bit with Ableton Live 32 bit on an iMac with Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40 GHz and 16 GB RAM.

I have figured out that it is the Overbridge A4 and Rytm VSTs and nothing else that will cause this crash. Basically, once either of those are loaded, deleting the VST, track, or closing the set crashes Live everytime. The good thing is that it will save but the instability is concerning.

#14

IMHO, it’s a half-baked piece of shit that shouldn’t have left beta. I can’t send MIDI notes to either my AR or A4 now, which kind of effectively makes them useless, since I primarily sequence them from Ableton. I have found absolutely no part of Overbridge to be satisfactory except the concept. The implementation is hacky and I wasted a lot of time trying to get it working and it sounds like others have as well.

#15

Overbridge doesnt work at al when running a 32bit ableton on a 64bit windows7 system. I even bought overhub and still i get a blue screen every time i open the plugin

#16

For Science Lab challenge I came up with a 30’’ Ableton Live set.
My automation is done solely within Ableton Live Suite 9.
In Ableton set I must have something like a dozen of automations, I believe.
Harware is MBP late 2011 : 2,2 Ghz / 8 Go RAM / main hard drive is a SSD / OSX 10.10.5

I observe two problems :

  • First, I cannot extract the audio properly, the way I do usually (select the 30’’, then extract audio as AIF).
    I tried to set Audio out device to AR then onboard soundcard : it seems I cannot render the sound, I have half a minute of silence, even if I render Ableton tracks separately.
    Yet when I hit play I perfectly hear the AR.

I also noticed some differences in behavior when OB window is displayed or hidden.

  • track length : 32 seconds when OB window is displayed, 30 seconds when hidden (as it should be according Ableton live timeline).
  • target samples change ! I use 8 samples, and it seems there is a difference in the computation of the sample slot (increments in AR are 1/120, versus 1/100 in Live)

Does someone observe similar issues ?

#17

The odd differences in the sync timing between the A4 and AR are kind of uninspiring.

I’ve only been using OB to load sounds and assign macros.

#18

I have to retract my previous statement about OB being a piece of shit. It’s kind of confusing, but once I hooked my hub up to a USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.0 port, the flakiness and unresponsiveness subsided. I definitely have a laundry list of things I’d like to see implemented, but as much as I like hardware, and contrary to the nature of performance on hardware, I like to do sound design on a top-down view of the state of my patch, and the PC finally gives me that.

Elektron makes amazing sounding gear and now I can finally get the direct access I love about my Eurorack and other knob-per-function stuff. It doesn’t mean I’ll perform this way, but I can definitely patch faster and be more deliberate this way by being able to visualize the entire patch when I’m done. The audio interface stuff is gravy on top of all that, and it too is working fine now.

#19

The audio interface stuff is great. I can now pipe all 8 channels from the RYTM and 6 from the A4 into my DAW, and still have all the inputs free on my sound card to use my other synths, effect pedals etc.
I love the GUI too for visually assisted sound design, especially for the A4.

In terms of reliability, I’ve had a few issues though:
[ul]
[li]Sometimes the audio interface just doesn’t work. I can see the audio coming in on the meters in the OB control panel, but no sound comes into my DAW. The only way I can rectify it is by restarting my computer, and restarting the machines.[/li]
[li]Sometimes the OB control panel settings reset themselves. e.g… I normally have it set up to have the main outs of the A4 turned off, and all of the other ins turned on. Occasionally, I’ll start up my system to find that it has defaulted back to the initial settings (Main outs on, other Ins off.)[/li]
[li]Sequencing via daw is dodgy. Notes and automation are frequently dropped or missed. I have had to revert back to using the internal sequencer and traditional P-locks for any rapid fire stuff, and I’ll use DAW sequencing for any long evolving stuff.[/li]
[li]Finally, the CPU load is fairly crippling. With both plugins running in Live 9 and nothing else, it uses 12-16% CPU and the fan is constantly going apeshit. I too tried to do an entry for the science lab, with lots of intricate automation, but as soon as I try to record on quicktime the CPU spikes to 30% and the automation response becomes super-sluggish. The resulting recording is horrid, and nothing like what was intended. God forbid I should fire up any other CPU heavy plugins. I haven’t had the guts to load up max for live yet for fear of an explosion.[/li]
[/ul]

On an early 2011 MBP, i7 2.7GHz, 8Gb, Live 9

As I said, a lot to like about OB, and as a free update, it is a big bonus, and thumbs up to elektron for having a crack at this. I will continue to use it as is for some, but not all duties. Definitely some issues that could do with attention though.

#20

Unfortunately my experience has been rather disappointing as well… Running windows 10 on a i7 2670QM.

  • Live 9 also frequently crashes after closing.

  • Had a blue screen once during work.

  • Analog Four doesn’t respond to automation changes anymore after a while (sometimes) but I’m still getting sound via USB.

  • Sometimes get that bitcrushed sound… have to restart then.

Pity… I was hoping I could use this in my live sets but no way I’m taking the risk on stage :frowning: Could be epic if it worked stable.though…