I’ve been working on a piece using the OT, A4, and RYTM. Of course, when I started out, I had no idea it was going to be something I wanted to save for possible use again later. The pieces are stored on different Banks and Pattern combos on the different gear.
What are suggestions for getting things aligned to the same Banks and Patterns across the gear?
TIA
For me pen and notepad, but also it can be very fun and inspiring to put things together which were not originally intended to go together - as long as they make musical sense that is. I’d be interested to hear others methods too though.
Yes, keeping good notes is something I’ve thought about as well. Need to put it into action. Thanks.
If you turn on midi sync across devices they will stay together pattern wise with the master machine. For example if the a4 is master clock when the a4 switches patterns it will switch to the same pattern on the AR etc.
Yes, I got how sync works. My problems is parts of this song is stored in different Banks and Patterns on different gear. So the syncing will not work yet. Ultimately, that’s what I’d like to do. Will need to get things aligned better when I start a new piece I imagine.
I would pick a machine to be your master and then start copying and pasting sequences to the banks and patterns which would begin to align everything across machines.
I generally try to make sure everything is in sync when I start a new project. Makes things a bit easier to keep track of in the long run.
Sounds like the most reasonable way to approach the problem. Thanks.
I have draft projects, compose projects and live projects.
It’s the worst thing about Elektron machines, takes a while, it’s a chore, but it’s the best way I’ve found to work with them
Simple and organized. Glad I asked the question. Thanks.
This is a pretty intricate workflow.
Can I ask why you break it up this way? Are you working on multiple songs at a time? Do you find you abandon drafts often? Are you completing more songs this way?
I would recommend the OT as master.
Then if you wish you can use song mode or even more banks and patterns.
I have a couple Template projects I load up, and save to new.
At first I’l just kind of make various patterns in different banks, sketch out ideas, etc.
Over time some of these become longer songs, or a group of tracks that go together.
Some projects just sit around, get thrown away, or revived.
Over time I’ll want to consolidate projects (songs) into one new one, creating finished material, or a live set.
It can be very tedious, but it kind of just depends on what I’ve done in the separate projects so far.
Basically I’ll sit there, and open the projects I want to grab a song from, use copy and paste functions to grab kits, parts, patterns, open the new project and paste them.
You can only copy one thing at a time, so it’s a lot of back and fourth, checking things, re-doing things.
A lot of times I will grab just a minimal amount of patterns in a bank from some sketched up song, rework it a bit in the new project.
Sometimes I use OctaEdit for the OT.
You can also put the OT into USB Disk Mode, and copy/paste +rename files.
I’ve tried these ways, but I kind of prefer the tedious way.
It offers a lot of other things you might not think about.
For one, you’ll learn the project like the back of your hand.
It makes for great muscle memory.
You’ll memorize parts of each machine.
You’ll start thinking of different ways to do things with random patterns in various projects.
Yes, I am using the OT as the master. Your suggestions make a lot of sense. Composition is tedious. So, taking time to get to know the various parts is better for the composition. Thanks.
Well, whenever Im jamming I might create several patterns one after the other, and save them in consecutive pattern slots. I just sound design, explore what can be done with it, and leave it there
Then I come back to these ideas and find one I think can be expanded into a proper song, and that usually requires more than one pattern. But I have already created something else in the adjacent patterns. So I copy it to the compose project where I use 8 patterns per song. Some songs need less patterns, but in that project I know that every song starts with pattern 1 or 9, then everything adjacent to it is a continuation of the song, another part of it.
Then when I play them Im cueing the pattern changes, I don’t use song mode nor chain mode.
I know it’s a chore, but after it’s done it is my perfect workflow for playing. And the draft projects are perfect cause all I think about is creating something, no matter where it ends up, no structure to be kept
If you have free banks in your projects it’s not to hard to copy/paste patterns in the right order in a fresh bank and then delete the other ones…
Something I’d like to mention is that the OT can save entire banks from the project menu and you can copy/paste entire banks between projects in the file manager or from usb disk mode…
There’s also a handy reload bank so you can save one, destroy a whole banks worth of patterns in a session adding/removing trigs, and then reload it…