Overbridge: extra features?

virtual_flannel · 2014-05-28T20:17:22.000Z

All questions answered by Google search!

http://www.elektron.se/news/announcing-overbridge-computer-integration-for-analog

Dogma · 2014-05-29T12:39:12.000Z

Has anyone. Seen a screenshot of overbridge? I’m dying to see it

barryfell · 2014-05-29T17:24:24.000Z

[quote=““gigerbone””]

barryfell:

Why do you think USB over audio will be useless? We’ve already seen it demo’d at Musikmesse and it looks great.

I’m assuming you meant audio over USB, is that possible? You can get the analogue sound out of the Analog Four and into a computer via USB?[/quote]
Yes I meant audio over USB.
And yes, the convertors on the A4 will convert it to an audio stream that can be sent via USB. It’s obviously got to be converted at some point so can only ever be analogue for so long.

gigerbone · 2014-05-29T18:15:56.000Z

""barryfell"":

It’s obviously got to be converted at some point so can only ever be analogue for so long.

Yep, so it’s only going to be as good as the ADC Elektron put in.
It’s a nice surprise freebee, I guess, and a genuine surprise, unlike the plus drive which wasn’t a complete shock as there were a couple of clues out there, but it doesn’t excuse the lack of separate outs in the original design and kind of goes against the all-analogue-with-a-little-send-and-return-into-the-digital-realm-if-you-so-choose thing that Elektron were selling us in the first place.

mOBiTh · 2014-05-30T14:23:07.000Z

re. having separate outs for each track :

It makes no difference to me how many outputs the box has as I record each track separately anyway, through a high quality (compared to what’s in the A4) compressor and ADC with external fx recorded in parallel.

Obviously four stereo outs would have been nice but it’s not the end of the world with my workflow.

The lack of MIDI, however, pisses me off every time I use it…

barryfell · 2014-05-30T15:42:54.000Z

""mOBiTh"":

re. having separate outs for each track :

It makes no difference to me how many outputs the box has as I record each track separately anyway, through a high quality (compared to what’s in the A4) compressor and ADC with external fx recorded in parallel.

Obviously four stereo outs would have been nice but it’s not the end of the world with my workflow.

So it’s a '“gimmick” as you say since you aren’t interested in it the workflow options it brings?

Lukree · 2014-08-04T11:52:16.000Z

I’m really waiting for audio over usb and MIDI SEQUENCING.

Please, Elektron, allow me to grab my A4 sequences as midi and throw them to any DAW! It would be great to sketch patterns with hardware and then continue the actual arrangement in daw with midi.

Housecliche · 2014-08-04T12:39:30.000Z

Just to step back a few paces here - there’s a lot of mention of ‘sketch pad’ workflow here, usually in the midi out context - my understanding is (and was) that the A4 was designed primarily as an analog synth for live performance (e.g. check those performance params, song mode, etc).

I might be way off - but thinking in terms of “I want a 1000 bucks sketch pad” seems to go against the grain of the original design philosophy for the machine?

Midi out would of course be cool - but I don’t think Elektron are listening too hard in terms of relegating its usefulness to mere sketches.

“My Ferrari doesn’t have child locks, so I can’t take the kids to school in it”

#justsaying

Smoof · 2014-08-04T15:47:26.000Z

I am also very excited to get to know what pattern arrangement possibilities will arise from overbridge, if any. Dreaming of jamming on the machine and then get the data it into the daw somehow, but hardly seeing how this could possibly be done.

Are there perhaps some people with advice around? And im not speaking of just recording bit by bit and arranging the samples which is an obvious way. I want to keep the sequence data modifiable.

nirun · 2014-08-04T15:59:46.000Z

i imagine, much like when hitting live record on any of the elektron boxes that the computer will be able to track an endless pattern separated by time/pages. that… or everyone will start realizing you can just go into song mode and arrange a very long pattern and have it end when its over and be able to record a jam lol

overbridge will obviously make this part much more accessible through the extended VST interface i’m hoping, because it’s probably a key feature that’s underused presently (even by me)

jonah · 2014-08-04T16:59:27.000Z

for me overbridge seems like it could be pretty useful to filter and process audio from the computer easily. imo it’s not a bad price just for the filters lol. depends on how they implement it. if you get at least 4 ins so you can run separate sounds through each of the filters and then run that back into the computer or via the audio outs it’ll be useful to me. it’d be nice to have 5 or 6 ins so you could use the effects too. we’ll see.

i’m assuming it’ll work with iOS devices too at some point. analog4 + sunvox on my phone would be rad.

i could also see it being useful if it lets you visualize and edit what’s going on on other pages and tracks without switching over to them on the analog4, especially the performance page and setup of that.

i have an audio interface, but i imagine for a lot of people just getting into hardware after using a computer only it will be a big selling point not to have to buy an audio interface and figure that out. i lost like 6 months of time trying to figure out crap drivers. let’s hope it’s not crap.

if overbridge is made to make getting audio into and out of the computer easier, to me that seems like a mark against midi out. you can already sequence some of the analog4 in a daw and then you could do it all and just print it right to audio all with one cable. maybe they’ll do drag and drop patterns to midi like logic’s ultrabeat and some other stuff does tho.

tbh, i’m not sure how stuff like the locks and all that would work or be all that useful as MIDI because it’s sysex and NRPNs. i’d guess the one of the reasons they wanted to make overbridge is because live is crap for sysex and i’m not sure if garage band or reaper do it either. logic has gotten worse, i think. overbrige being a vst you should be able to map ccs onto any control i’d imagine to make sequencing in a daw easier. once you do that if it works bi-directionally you could probably map out the cv track and use that to a degree, but i don’t know how well stuff like slides would work with midi cc resolution.

also being linked to a computer you could then use the cv gate outs, midi clock out and din out to do syncing with various other gear which is something a lot of people seem to complain about having issues with. perhaps the way it handles midi internally, by not using it directly will help to keep it more stable? dunno i’ve never had a problem with jitter or whatever.

danlukas · 2014-08-04T18:56:26.000Z

what i’m hoping is that this allows me to essentially manage my machine from ableton.

in some ways maybe even avoid the sysex stuff all together.

R7 · 2014-08-04T20:19:28.000Z

""jonah"":

maybe they’ll do drag and drop patterns to midi like logic’s ultrabeat and some other stuff does tho.

+1

This is how my Arturia Spark works and it’s very easy to write beats in the Spark software, drop them in the DAW and arrange them. The A4 would be so much easier to work with if it had something like this. Or anyway to get midi note data to the DAW, without it the A4 sequencer is essentially useless for song writing with other instruments. I understand people use song mode and chains here, even though I find them quite cumbersome. But when writing with other instruments it’s very important to be able to rearrange parts of the song. This is definately not an easy feat when using song or chain mode. Simple midi out note data would make a lot of people happy.

djsm · 2014-08-04T23:07:12.000Z

You exclusive hardware folk do understand that Overbridge is not mandatory, you don’t have to use it, right?

It’s for people who want to integrate their hardware and their software.

_mr · 2014-08-05T09:55:58.000Z

""junovhs"":

If anyone from Elektron would like to chime in, will Overbridge give any extended features, like maybe more LFO’s and envelopes, or maybe more customizable envelopes?

No. Nothing like that seems related to Overbridge.

""R7"":

…Every other synth in the world can have it’s midi recorded…

…Overbridge should be able to communicate with the sequencer to the DAW and record those midi notes…

…Which I think is why it’s sequencer doesn’t send midi…

…I get that Elektron doesn’t want to enable midi sequencing on the Analog series because it might cut into Octatrack sales…

Please note:

The sequencer in the Analog series is actually not a MIDI sequencer. There are no MIDI notes inside to send out. Not saying that it would be technically impossible to implement it, but there is no “locked feature” to unlock, even if many assume that in discussions.

And it’s not a design choice made out of cynical product differentiation.

""R7"":

Of course, if Elektron just enables midi sequencing, you’ll be making a lot of people very happy.

That is very true.

void · 2014-08-05T10:17:36.000Z

thank you

[quote=“” /mr""]
And it’s not a design choice made out of cynical product differentiation.
[/quote]

quoted for emphasis.

tertior · 2014-08-05T18:40:16.000Z

Before Elektron , “the truth is out there”
today, “the truth is Elektron”

Moogalieri · 2014-08-06T14:12:29.000Z

""t"":

Why would you expect that? It seems pretty clear that this is not at all what Overbridge is about.

such a dick.

Rusty · 2014-08-08T12:53:46.000Z

""/mr"":

[quote=“R7”]…Every other synth in the world can have it’s midi recorded…

…Overbridge should be able to communicate with the sequencer to the DAW and record those midi notes…

…Which I think is why it’s sequencer doesn’t send midi…

…I get that Elektron doesn’t want to enable midi sequencing on the Analog series because it might cut into Octatrack sales…

Please note:

The sequencer in the Analog series is actually not a MIDI sequencer. There are no MIDI notes inside to send out. Not saying that it would be technically impossible to implement it, but there is no “locked feature” to unlock, even if many assume that in discussions.

And it’s not a design choice made out of cynical product differentiation.[/quote]

So what was the justification for that design choice?

t · 2014-08-12T07:56:01.000Z

""Rusty"":

So what was the justification for that design choice?

MIDI is a serial protocol. This means that by design, you can’t send multiple messages at exactly the same time; they’ll always be sent one after the other

In most cases, this is not a huge issue, but it’s not ideal for the kind of tight step sequencing with “parameter locking” that Elektron wants to provide in its products. You don’t want the “NOTE ON” to be followed by a “CUTOFF TO 15” and only after that set the “RESONANCE TO 100” and only then the “PWM TO 32”. You want all of that to happen at (almost) exactly the same instant, especially if you throw in even more parameter changes.

Now, when you write a MIDI sequencer, it would make sense to use data structures that reflect the serial nature of the MIDI protocol. However, you’d probably use a different architecture and different data structures when you’re designing a step sequencer that’s going to have to support a huge number of parameter changes that need to be triggered at exactly the same time.

This is probably the design choice /mr refers to above.

Note that it’s not impossible to translate between these two models, but that does take additional development work, and it would take some care to get the best possible result (e.g. you need to send the parameter changes before the note on, but ideally a bit ahead on time so that the timing of the note on message is still tight, etc.)