I work with the Analog Rytm mkII in Ableton, but I find it somewhat tedious to use. So I am curious to hear about other peoples’ workflows when going from idea to full tracks. Below I will go through my workflow and what positives and negatives I experience. But I wonder what you do - do you record the individual tracks at some point and why? If so, how do you work with them afterwards? Or perhaps you sequence the AR from Ableton? Or something completely different I haven’t thought of?
My workflow
I often start a new track by playing on the AR, making drums and bass. I do electro, so starting with drums and bass usually works well. Oftentimes I won’t even have my laptop turned on at this stage, but just come up with ideas and jam around. Eventually I will get to a solid idea, consisting of a few main patterns that I would like to take into a whole track
At this point I will get Ableton going and I will begin to add some synth sounds for melody, pads or whatever, making a few scenes in the session view. Basically trying to come up with something that can work as the “verse”, “chorus” and perhaps a few other variations. At this point I will trigger the main patterns on the AR using midi clips. All sounds from the AR come in from Overbridge on individual tracks, so I can work with levels, effects and so on for each of them.
When the main parts of the track are ready I shift to the arrangement view and begin to pull all the parts together in their right sequence, working on intro, build-ups and outros, doing automation and reworking and adjusting whatever I feel is not quite right. I still use midi clips to trigger patterns on the AR and the number of patterns naturally increase as I make variations and fills and so on. This goes on until I consider the track complete.
The good points
I love the whole part about creating new ideas on the AR. I got it because I like the tactile feel of working with hardware. It’s just a lot of fun to play around with and I like that I can dig into sound design and the many features the machine has. I also like the sequencer. I especially find that for basses I end up doing things I wouldn’t do if playing the keys of a synth, especially with P-locks making it possible to manipulate the sounds in the sequence in interesting ways.
To some extent, I also like the depth of the machine. I like the idea that I can keep on exploring it for literally years to come and keep coming up with new ways of using it, probably also for other things than just drums and bass.
The bad points
I find managing clips and patterns to be a real hassle. Everything is a new midi clip. Add a few snare hits for a fill? That’s a pattern. Removing a few kicks for another variation? One more pattern, there you go. Having a section with high hats at half tempo? Another pattern for you, sir.
Of course you could say “how many patterns do you actually have? Surely you can work through it” and that would be a fair point. But it is not just about having them on the timeline on Ableton. It is also about maintaining some kind of order on the AR so I can understand which patterns are where and what they do. I might still want to add in a section or switch around some variations, which is cumbersome to reflect on the AR.
There is also the whole thing about mapping midi notes to patterns. Pattern B4 is…. ehr, G-1 perhaps? A lot of counting and checking if things are correctly assigned.
I come from using midi clips with note info in them for drums and that is not a lot of fun when creating ideas. But it’s much more convenient when getting into the nitty gritty and I do miss it for the later stages of the process when creating a track.
What could I do differently?
One thing I have thought about is to begin to just record the patterns. That would free me from trying to maintain some kind of order of the patterns on the AR. Perhaps it won’t be much more efficient though, as every small edit has to be recorded (or edited in audio, of course)
Another idea is to sequence the AR from Ableton. So I would first come up with ideas on the AR, then recreate the midi notes in Ableton. However, I think this will rob me of using P-locks, which is one of the great things about the Elektron sequencer. Unless I recreate the P-locks with automation (which just occurred to me now, as I am writing this). Perhaps that could work….
Sometimes I also wonder if I should just get rid of the AR altogether and try out something like a Push or just some drum controller to play around with Drum Racks in Ableton. That could give me the tactility when coming up with ideas, while also bringing me back into the “midi clips with notes in them”-World. Perhaps I could combine it with an Analog Four to keep that way of sequencing synths, which I like a lot.
So that’s it. What is your workflow like and do you think there are smarter ways to use the AR?
Oh, and wild suggestions like “Get an Octatrack instead of Ableton” and “Why not just buy an MPC” are welcome too!
