"Little help from my friends"

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Hello everybody,
I’m a keyboardist and I have experience with computer and producing. But recently I decided to go deep in Elektron Gear (because they sound so great we know), and I got freak excited that a decided to buy some more stuffs that I was expecting… :blush:

So, now I own:
My work horse Dell Laptop Running Nuendo 4.3 (yeah yeah I know… 32bit etc. etc.) Running with a RME Fireface UFX+ USB 3.0 (with 2 phisical MIDI IN/OUTs and USB MIDI) as my recording plataform. (3 usbs available)

AND THE INSTRUMENTS

  • Arturia KeyStep (has 64 sequence polifonic steps with CV, CV Gate and CVF, trig in/out, Midi IN and OUT, USB MIDI)
  • Analog Rytm MKII (everybody knows its power)
  • Analog Four MKI (everybody knows its power as well)
  • System 8 Roland (Which has 8 voices, and has 64 sequence steps with CV and CV Gate, Trigger in/out, MIDI IN, OUT AND THRU and USB)
  • SE-02 Roland (Monophonic and has 64 Seq. steps CV, CV Gate and CVF, Trig in/out as well, MIDI IN and OUT/THRU and USB)
  • Audiothinguies Micro Monsta (8 voices 6 seq. steps, MIDI IN and OUT/THRU)

My question is, what is the best setup I can do to Sync and channelling they all, just with the stuff I have, without buying anything else.
Including MIDIs and CVs as well.

I want to produce, record midi, quantize them and then send them from DAW to the units MIDI conected and record the audio synced and quantized but tweeking manually if I wish. Would be nice to do it with and without step sequence (sometimes I just wanna play the keyboard).

Sorry for the long question, and sorry because I know that are others with the same kind of question but I didn’t see any setup like mine.

Thank you in advance.
Aurelio

#2

You may fight it as long as you want, when sync is turning into a headache it’s time to think to get a MIDI hub (such as Mio4 for instance).
That’s my opinion, at least.

Setup troubles
#3

I would just use the Keystep as the master keyboard via USB midi. Slave the rest via midi (usb or midi cable). You will be able to play everything from your keystep through your DAW. You don’t really have a need for CV in this setup, it’s just an option.

Also on a side note if you just bought all that at once, that is one hell of a learning curve. Every piece of gear demands some solo time to get familiar with it (especially Elektron stuff). I recommend learning one thing at a time and slowly adding in more pieces as you get more comfortable. Once you are familiar with each piece of gear questions like this will have easy answers.

2 Likes
#4

Yes indeed! I’d probably recommend taking the time to make a track with each bit of kit that you bought alone just to get familiar with each one (for the System 8, Micromonsta and SE-02 you’ll need to multitrack them). that’s what I do when I buy something new; even if the track isn’t great it gets you quality time with the gear. Otherwise it’s going to get overwhelming, and you might not get deep enough to fully appreciate each instrument (especially true of the Elektrons). Once you’ve done that you can figure out the syncing issue.

There are a few options for syncing all that up, I think I’d probably use USB midi on everything that does it (you might need a USB hub to connect everything) with the DAW as the master and doing all the MIDI routing, and then just connect the Micromonsta via standard MIDI.

#5

Mio4 seems to be a to go option in my case, but I Guess, I have, as the other said, to spend more quality time with each machine, especially the Elektron’s gear. Then I figure it out what to do with MIDI.
But nice suggestion! Thx

1 Like
#6

Thank you Guys for all the answers!

Yes, I know the System 8, MM and SE02 doesn’t have tracking option like “song mode” or “chain mode” of the elektrons.
So my intention would, at the first moment, to create the song structure on Rytm and A4, on they own hardware syncing each other (BTW any ideas which one would be better sync order, I mean, A4>Rytm or Rytm>A4?).

After that, I 'll prepare Nuendo sync and to play the song made with elektrons and record MIDI of the other guys, quantize it and send MIDI back again to them.

For the last, after every MIDI is recorded, I’ll play that track, which supost will play everybody synced and capturing or not them including the elektron so that I could thus have the freedom to tweak or not them live as the System 8, as the MM and the SE-02 if I think I would be able to tweak all of them live.

Make sense?

By the way I also have a Nord Stage 3 and a Micro Korg which could track the same way.
I can record at the same time up to 20 channel being 12 from RME and 8 from Focusrite MKII pre, but have to figure out how to do with MIDI for everybody if I want to play all guys live once RME has only two MIDI I/O