Workflow: helping tame the machines

[vitek]

@""yentz""

Literaly the same situation here.
Just wanted a proper drum machine as the plugins don’t really do the job.
Bought the rytm, liked the workflow, now having a4 and ot as well.
Since I am very new to these machines either I am still in the process of making my mind up regarding the best way to use.

So far I am doing it like this:

Audio:

rytm and a4 go into live using overbridge.
ot’s cue out and main out go into my soundcard (multiface)

additionally there is an ipad going into the multi face.

from the multiface two outs go into the ot in a b.

So everything goes into ableton for mixing purposes and can easily be routed into the ot for samping using the total mix of the hammerfall soundcard.

in case there will ever be a live situation I will probably go for a behringer x18 or a mackie dl1608 which both allow similar routing flexibility.

Midi:

At the moment the clock gets generated by the octatrack. From there a midi splitter to split the clock (and midi signals) from the ot to the other stuff.

The clock runs fine so far and I haven"t had any problems (yet?) which were not ok to be tolerated in a live situation which is fine for me so far. So no multi clock at the moment.

I also ordered a midi event processor as the ot is not ideal dealing with program changes and this way I can send them whenever I want.

Still have to learn quite a lot regarding the octatrack but I think this way everything regarding song structure, pattern changes etc are controlled bby the octatrack which leaves the ar and a4 for thing like un/muting, scenes, performances etc to keep the whole thing playful and fun.

I am thinking of routing the ableton master out back into the ot in c d , processing in the ot, signal to ot main out and from there to my speakers (of course sending all other audio from the ot to its cue out. so i would have a master effect processor. Not sure whether this is soooo interesting for me but I will try

hahaha, nice!
btw are you experiencing any sync issues and latency?
when I did first test, sequencing from Live and recording back it had literally zero latency, but sometimes latency is very annoying. I’m running OS X El Capitan Beta, so I’m not blaming OB, but I’d be curious what to expect when it’s officially supported… surprisingly I haven’t noticed many discussions about this

[djadonis206]

@""vitek""

Wow, such a blast, I haven’t expected this … many thanks for your views!

This pretty much confirms what I thought, using OT as a hub and eventually sometimes even sequence AR/A4 from OT. Btw can OT do polyphony within one track, or how does it works if I want to sequence chords?

I’m still kind of struggling if I want to have program changes in sync, since I sort of want to jam, rather than program the machines to do the same thing again, but it might be useful to switch this on/off. Is there some smart way how to change this without digging in the menus?

I was learning AR/A4 separately as well, took me like two weeks to feel confident with each of them, next month I’m probably leaving the country for a month, so I might take OT only

Yes, the OT plays up to 4 notes
PC should be instant; in my experience they are

[PeterHanes]

@""vitek""

…

I’m still kind of struggling if I want to have program changes in sync, since I sort of want to jam, rather than program the machines to do the same thing again, but it might be useful to switch this on/off. Is there some smart way how to change this without digging in the menus?

…

You can either:
[ul]
[li]dig in the menus each time you want to change the settings, or[/li]
[li]use two different template projects on the OT (one in which sync is enabled and one in which it is disabled).[/li]
[/ul]

[yentz]

@""vitek""

btw are you experiencing any sync issues and latency?

In which situation?
I stopped syncing the sequencers to the overbridge-generated sync signal.
Altrernatively I am using the octatrack to generate midi clock, going in a thru box and from there to the rytm and a4. this works really well so far.
Not sure though but if there should ever be a live situation again I would probably go for a mixer instead of live. It didn’t crash so far, touch wood, but I had some dropouts which would be a complete disaster if performing live. So I want to keep Abelton as far away as possible.
Recording and mixing on the other hand is perfect with this setup.
The latency (if you are referring to the time between things like changing something on the machines and hearing the result) depends on the buffersize of the sound card used (in the case of overbridge of course the internal cards of the machines, for audio in the driver of my sound card if you monitor through live.
I don’t experience any relevant latency at all. The whole audio setup works really smooth. However I am not sure how far latency compensation of ableton live goes. I can’t tell if live is capable of taking into account that my audio in has different latency than the over bridge channels. Additionally there are insert effects on some of the channels and some are without.
I don’t experience any issues except when triggering an iPad which comes delayed but I believe this to be the iPad midi as when playing it on the virtual keyboard it is spot on.
There is an option to monitor without latency straight through the sound card but this doesn’t involve any overbridge channels and to be honest isn’t really necessary.

[s3kn0tr0n1c]

@""JuanSOLO""

[quote=“s3kn0tr0n1c”][quote=“dave_angel”]You could set it up so that all machines change pattern/bank at the same time if it suits. We’re making techno and there is another member playing MnM, so we opt to change banks/patterns independently of each other. But as an individual it may be beneficial to do it all from one machine.

Mmm…tips on doing this.

Which unit master ?
I have OT and AR and think this would be a great workflow for me (new user btw)

Right now I have AR as master midi clock. [/quote]
I’m going off the top of my head right now but I’ll try an point you in the right direction.

I use the OT as master, but this could be done with either machine as master.
Basically you need to tell the OT to send program changes on a specific channel.
Tell the other 2 machines to receive program changes on that channel.
Once thats done selecting banks and patterns on the OT will be mirrored by the other 2. You dont need to p-lock program change numbers or anything.
Hope that helps. [/quote]
That sound wicked…must get mine setup like this.

[yentz]

@""s3kn0tr0n1c""

[quote=“JuanSOLO”][quote=“s3kn0tr0n1c”][quote=“dave_angel”]You could set it up so that all machines change pattern/bank at the same time if it suits. We’re making techno and there is another member playing MnM, so we opt to change banks/patterns independently of each other. But as an individual it may be beneficial to do it all from one machine.

Mmm…tips on doing this.

Which unit master ?
I have OT and AR and think this would be a great workflow for me (new user btw)

Right now I have AR as master midi clock. [/quote]
I’m going off the top of my head right now but I’ll try an point you in the right direction.

I use the OT as master, but this could be done with either machine as master.
Basically you need to tell the OT to send program changes on a specific channel.
Tell the other 2 machines to receive program changes on that channel.
Once thats done selecting banks and patterns on the OT will be mirrored by the other 2. You dont need to p-lock program change numbers or anything.
Hope that helps. [/quote]
That sound wicked…must get mine setup like this.[/quote]
yes the other are following but you can’t send program changes within the pattern so the patterns will just change once they played through. p locking program changes apparently isn’t possible (not sure looking for that myself)

[AriHaf]

You can’t p-lock prgchng on the OT. But you can do it on the all mighty MonoMachine.

[vitek]

so, I’ve been playing around the machine for about two days now… I completely get the point of spending time just with the Machine… although I’ve read the whole manual twice and watched amount of tutorials I feel kind of WTF :o)))

So thanks for your help for now, I’ll see you in two weeks I guess

[vitek]

[quote=““yentz””]

@vitek

btw are you experiencing any sync issues and latency?

In which situation?
I stopped syncing the sequencers to the overbridge-generated sync signal.
Altrernatively I am using the octatrack to generate midi clock, going in a thru box and from there to the rytm and a4. this works really well so far.
Not sure though but if there should ever be a live situation again I would probably go for a mixer instead of live. It didn’t crash so far, touch wood, but I had some dropouts which would be a complete disaster if performing live. So I want to keep Abelton as far away as possible.
Recording and mixing on the other hand is perfect with this setup.
The latency (if you are referring to the time between things like changing something on the machines and hearing the result) depends on the buffersize of the sound card used (in the case of overbridge of course the internal cards of the machines, for audio in the driver of my sound card if you monitor through live.
I don’t experience any relevant latency at all. The whole audio setup works really smooth. However I am not sure how far latency compensation of ableton live goes. I can’t tell if live is capable of taking into account that my audio in has different latency than the over bridge channels. Additionally there are insert effects on some of the channels and some are without.
I don’t experience any issues except when triggering an iPad which comes delayed but I believe this to be the iPad midi as when playing it on the virtual keyboard it is spot on.
There is an option to monitor without latency straight through the sound card but this doesn’t involve any overbridge channels and to be honest isn’t really necessary.[/quote]
cool! I think this was just an issue here - I’m running OSX El Capitan, which is not supported at the moment … sometimes I had a feeling there is literaly zero latency and sometimes it went really bad … I guess I just have to wait a little while … I actually want to stay away from computer as well, since I’m spending way to much time with it… but some stuff is just way easier on the computer

[JuanSOLO]

With the Octatrack, the best advice I took was to just make a whole track with it.
Use a bunch of Patterns and a few Banks, skip using Parts for now.
Upload a few of your favorite drum samples, then just start sampling the hell out of everything around you.

Once your done with this track, you wont be as bogged down by pressing Function and looking for parameters.

[yentz]

@""AriHaf""

You can’t p-lock prgchng on the OT. But you can do it on the all mighty MonoMachine.

I seriously can’t understand that as the midi part of the octattrack really asks for it being the middle of a setup without a computer.
Anyway you can do it by using an event processor. Unfortunately there is a problem with the rytm receiving program changes within a pattern.

[krusty4president]

juanSolo, I also am doing the same as you. I am really trying to dig down to the bortom with Octatrack. Right now I am doing a track where I sample one shots from rytm into octatrack, create loops from those one shots, resample in 4 different variations, save all and continue with a4, sample 4different variations.
Then I put a good kick on track 1. Track 2,3,4 contains the same drum loop 4 times. Track 2 can play the loop as it is while track 3 and 4 can chop up the loop playing with triggers, slicing it, add lfo:s and effects. In that way they sound pretty good together sound wise.

For me this is a good way to learn the octatrack. Working with one single loop when trying to get to know the octa, is much less stressful for me. And it is amazing what you can do on the octa with one single loop only. I just love this machine.

[JuanSOLO]

Parts allow for program changes.
For me I am ok with how that works. I just want the AR A4 mirroring my OT.
Within that I can still bounce through patterns on the A4 and AR individually.

For whatever it’s worth, I use parts 2 different ways within a Bank.
Either assign Part 1 to Patterns 1-4, Parts 2 to Patterns 5-8 and so on.
OR, use Part one as kind of the base for what I want to do, and Parts 2,3 & 4 do special tasks, like open up flex machines for sampling.

[kisielk]

Use banks as well. You have 16 banks x 4 parts, that’s 64 different combinations of samples / machines / effects.

[UkeeSoul]

Yea I spent some time with paper and pencil drawing a flow diagram (ya I know) basically I am going to do 4 songs per bank each with 4 patterns using 1 part per kit as a starting point. I just had many tracks done on my RYTM a4 before getting ot and was trying to make it work. Archived everything and starting fresh with this new workflow. I can grab the best stuff from my archive if and when I need me.

[Sternenlicht]

I would recommend that you use the arranger of the OT, to put a simple structure in your tracks.

A flow diagramm is a good idea, but dont forget that you can use the midi tracks too to send performance macros CC to RYTM and A4.

I would think about what you would like to get out of the OT.

I use it this way currently:

T1 and T5 have A4 and RYTM as through machine. T2 and T6 are neighbor tracks, so i can have more FX for the devices. Track 8 is Master.
This leaves only 3 tracks for sample playback.

I create sample chains, and use Static machines for those samples. (Additional drum loops, pads /synth , and 1 track for voice samples.)

I do not sequence the voice samples, i leave the sample chain without triggers - so i can add a voice sample when i want to with the press of a button.

The sample chains for the synth /pads / drum loops are set to scenes. When you now activate a scene, you can blend in that sample, at that certain slice.

The idea is that the arranger provides progression with the patterns, and you are somewhat enforced to think about how fast you are progressing.

You could setup a bank with breaks, which you then use as build up or break down´s, but i feel currently, that its best to build /break with the A4 and RYTM with muting and performance tweaking. To make it work, i had set scenes on the RYTM, which mutes, and unmutes elements. This scenes could be send to the RYTM via the midi performance channel. (So you get a basic structure, and improvise over it.)

(Its a bit straigther vs manual switching approach, as it enforces you to keep an internal timeline, but i think its worth to try it out, so you dont keep noodeling forever on the same pattern.)

(Well its probably not the 100% way to do it, but it may provide some thoughts.)

[Uturunku]

To avoid limitation in 4 parts you can use sample locks.
Also I recommend to try Arranger – its very versatile and allows you to program track mutes, scenes assignment, shift start point of the pattern and even tempo per row. Also you can add text markers to add some text. So you can have 1 pattern and using arranger you can create different variation of it.

[JuanSOLO]

It’s a good idea for sure. I’d watch it.
In thinking about trying to make one it seems like quite an undertaking.

There’s so many way to use each instrument when they are all together.
Seems if someone made a tut it would be very specific to thier idea of how to set things up.

Personally I don’t do live sampling with the OT, it’s more like a mixer fx box, with a little bit of sample playback.

[nedavine]

I think everyones approach to live sets vary substantially. I can’t see it working as a tutorial video but an overview would be fun. What exactly would you like to see? How to create song structures? how people organise their machines?

When I play live I rehearse my patches. I run the dark 3 and small modular and split tracks between banks. I have a small notebook with patching notes for my modular so I can remember what to patch and tweak. I work out song structures and rehearse them.

[CarlMikaelBjork]

Thanks for thinking of me!

I think the proposed subject lends itself towards a full course rather that a youtube tutorial. To be digestable. And as @nedavine said - the only way to approach it would be as an example or inspiration. ONE way of doing things.

But as such I believe in the project and I’d like to sink my teeth into it. But at the moment there is no time for a large project.

I’ve just finished a course in Swedish (an introduction to the uses of Control Voltage) that’ll be published next week. For free, actually. Here: http://guld.moderskeppet.se/kunskap/musik/

And the rest of the year I’ll start producing an introductory course to Ableton Live as well as a more project driven course. They’ll be available at online educator moderskeppet.se, where you can already watch my first music course for them. In Swedish… http://guld.moderskeppet.se/kurser/kurs/sa-fungerar-en-synth/

This together with teaching at university only leaves room for shorter, more focused tutorials within the Cabinet of Curiosities.

Cheers!