Recording & Transferring beats to rap on: Is my Workflow the correct one?

Hi Guys!

So during covid we picked up a new hobby; music. Me and my roommate are both working differently.
I spend my money on a Digitakt and this week a Digitone.
He got a MIDI Keyboard, a mic and works with Ableton.

Now we both make beats that we rap/sing on with a friend group. Just for fun. From hip hop to R&B.
I like to make beats but it’s a hassle getting them over to his PC to then record vocals / master them.

My current Workflow:

  • Make a beat (Haven’t found a real epic use of the Digitone yet)
  • Record the beat in Ableton using OB and 2 USB cables.
    • 8 Tracks DT + 1 post FX
    • 4 Tracks DN + 1 Post FX
  • Try to play the track seamlessly including drops & Beat changes and Mutes etc. (takes me a few tries)
  • Edit / EQ / shove around a few things
  • Either export as a WAV and email that to my buddy; or ZIP the project file incl., Samples and mail that

Now my main frustration is that I cannot make any mistakes due to the POST FX tracks. If I want to ie. remove a part of Hi Hats because I want to make a beat change I can edit that track; but the Delay or effects of that track are recorded in Post FX. Making changes there alters the effects of all tracks.

Also; for some reason it sounds quite different the moment I add Ableton into the mix.

Wondering if you guys have a similar workflow; if anything can be improved on and as a bonusquestion: How do you guys use the Digitone for Hip Hop leads?

Thanks!

Hey.
I would say the thing about pressing play at the same time sounds wrong to me. I just send midi start and stop to the machines so the play when i press play in the daw.
(ofc the machines needs to be connected to each other via midi cable to start each other)

About the fx, I would never record it with any effects on because as you mention it becomes difficult to move it around and resample your self :slight_smile:

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Hi!
Thanks for the reply.

What do you mean with not recording the effects? Like avoiding the use of Delay and reverb all together (is it just those 2 that are recorded in the post fx?)
Or do you mean disable the recording.

Hello, as @Nowhere said, you have to sync your DT and DN together with a midi cable or send midi start from DAW to each machine (both slave to the DAW)
About FX, it’s ok to record dynamics like compressor EQ, but when you have tails like delay or reverb, you should not record them but use it separatly.
I don’t know which DAW you use, but for me the best workflow is to make stems.
Make a stem with your drums, one with your bass, one with melodies and one for FXs.
To have separate FX stem, you have to create an FX track (aux send track) with your FX in 100% wet and send your tracks to it.
This way, you will have your mix exported to multiple files + the 100% wet FX.
Your mate just have to drop each file into his DAW and can adjust things or change FX without changing the original track.

I don’t have Digitone but a Vermona PERfourMER. And yeah it’s hard to integrate in hip hop beat. The best way to use it is to not use it in hip hop. Or just to make the bassline.

This sounds interesting but I am too much of a noob to understand.

  • I do have the digitakt en Digitone connected like stated in the manual

  • I use Ableton Suite; Stems would be to send kick/snare/hats etc into ONE track?
    As of now i am multitracking everything.

I lost you at FX stem… Soz. Thanks for the input!

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You have to choose which one will be your master and which will be your slaves. Digitakt, Digitone and Ableton. If you work with ablteton I suggest to configure Ableton to your master clock sync, and DT and DN as receive clock sync. So when you will press play (and rec) on ableton, this will start both DT and DN in a perfect sync.

About stems, a stem is just a WAV file.
You record your 8 digitakt tracks and 4 digitone tracks into ableton as usual (using overbridge).
You must get every track dry, without reverb, without delay, and without master compressor.
To add delay and reverb to a track, just create a new FX track in ableton. In this one put your delay or reverb VST and set the Wet signal to 100%.
You can now send the audio signal of one track to another, sending for example the snare track to the FX track which have the reverb. Your FX track will just play the reverb of the snare but not the dry snare.

Now you have to find how to export submix or stems (I don’t know ableton). When exporting submix or stems you choose which track go in which submix.
For example you can choose to export track 1, 2 and 3 (say kick, snare, hats) to a submix nammed “drums”. Do the same with every track, group them as you want and finally you can make a submix called “fx” with your fx track you created (with the vst inside, playing only the wet part of the sent signal).
At the end of the process, you will have a project configured with all your track individual and when exporting you will get multiples WAV to share with your mate. Changing the hats ? no problem, make your change, export again and boom your FX are still good and everything fit again.

Just to add the to the convo what you’re calling submix are groups. In Ableton you select N tracks and command+G to group them or right click on one of the selected track header and choose group and name it “Drums” for example. Hope that helps.
Also really solid step by step tips here. I think there is a series of videos on YouTube that @DaveMech made around Overbridge and Ableton explaining all this in detail.

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Just here to add one small comment -

there is no “correct” workflow. Some of the best beats / music have been made by people that had no idea what they were doing but it got their bodies moving

Just some food for thought. trust your ears, trust your body…

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For sure; I watched those vids many times and I got ableton working just fine. Just the whole exporting / sharing / cooperating stuff is hard.

And of course playing a beat live including drops / beat switches takes time to master.

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