I RTFM but I still can't streamline the process. Is it even possible?

Elektron Gear Analog Heat
#1

I took home my AH the other day to use it as a soundcard when not in the studio. I figured I’ll be doing some processing with it as well. But my conundrum is that I’m swapping the place of the AH plugin everywhere, and that’s not efficient!

I could put it in a Send Return, but then I would have the dry sounds from my tracks going in to the master as well. If I don’t check “Only Sends” on the tracks I wanna try out all the time. Doesn’t seem like efficient workflow either.

My AH is connected to my MBP through USB, that’s it, no analog ins or outs in this minimal setup. I’m using Ableton Live

It doesn’t work to just set a track output into the track where the AH plugin is. Am I missing some setting or is this just not a function?

So, basically what I want is:

To route tracks easily in and out of AH through the USB connection in Ableton. Preferably I would like to be able to set the output of a track to go straight in to the Heat Plugin. This way I easily get only the processed sound of all the tracks I would like to process going to the master.

Am I being somewhat clear on what I want to do, and is this possible? I understand some workaround methods but they all seem to be so… counterintuitive?

Could it be some setting in the AH? A setting or method in Ableton I’m missing?

Would appreciate any input from you fine folks, happy saturday <3

#2

If I understood this correctly - I usually put the Analog Heat Overbridge 2 plug-in on a return track. Then I toggle the pre/post button of the given source track at the (Live) mixer and turn that track’s level all the way down, but turn the send level up as needed. With the pre/post button toggled to the appropriate position, the track should still send it’s audio to the return despite its volume level being turned down.

Sorry, can’t remember if it’s supposed to be toggled to pre or post mode right now, but one of those should have the correct behavior that you’re looking for.

If I don’t want to constantly be switching those pre/post toggles; I just create a template with them already toggled. I guess it does seem a bit counterintuitive, but offers a useful level of flexibility in the set.

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#3

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, that’s what I thought of as a workaround. Should be a quicker way (less mouse-clicking :slight_smile: ) to do it though?

I’m a bit confused as to why the plugin isn’t reacting to incoming audio from other tracks! EDIT: That is; if I create a normal track with the AH Plugin and route other tracks to it.

#4

Oh, I thought that you did not mention pre/post button in your post, only the drop-down menu to output to “Sends Only”? Are you sure that you have already tried this way?

Personally, the only issue I have with this method in Ableton is that it’s not as easy to see a given track’s output level on a VU meter since the track’s indicator shows nothing when the track level is turned down.

#5

Oh sorry, forgot to mention that in the OP. But yes, that was the first way I thought of doing it. The issue you’re bringing up is one of the reasons it doesn’t float with me as good as a my proposed method, am I being picky I don’t know?

#6

Oh, no problem! I don’t know either, but I hope someone comes along and unravels this mystery for us, because it’s something that never quite settled with me fully either, and I’ve been doing it this way for years.

Especially difficult doing this in Bitwig (3), since the send level knobs are not shown for a given track unless I click that track. So - a lot of information is shown on screen, but very little of it is useful to me mid-jam (especially some of the most important things). I have many MIDI controllers too, (Dual Faderfox UC4 and Dual MidiFighter Twister), but that’s not helping right now because I’m not a Java or JavaScript programmer and the existing scripts don’t really do it for me. :frowning:

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#7

Don’t know if this is what you mean but I generally create a group which I put Heat on. Then I can just chuck any instruments I want to process into the Heat group

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#8

You don’t even need the plug-in to use your heat.

Unless I’m missing what youre trying to do, you should be able to simply plug in the usb and route audio in and out without involving anything but your DAW audio routing settings.

…I hope that makes sense

#9

This sounds like something I’m looking for, could you please tell me more on how to do this?

#10

So I’ve come one step closer!

If you use the AH as a soundcard you can activate all the in/outputs (that’s 4 in 4 out).

Choose a track and set its output to 3/4. You can now monitor it thru the analog heat in all its glory with no latency.

If you create a new audio track and set its inputs to 3/4 that signal now comes to that track. I don’t really get the routing structure here, but that’s what happens.

However, the signal that will be recorded is WAY attenuated to the degree of uselessness, so I’ve still not found a way to make this worthwhile.

EDIT: I think you have to activate the analog outs in the AH for this to “work”.

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