Ableton, Program Changes, Rytm

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Hi, new RTYM owner here. I’m curious, my plan was to use simple program change clips in Ableton to change patterns in Rytm. I’m totally new to the machine and I have got it to work but it’s incredibly sloppy. Sometimes the program changes change the pattern but other times they don’t. They seem to follow behind ableton by a measure but not always.

If I totally stop Ableton, wait a second or two, then play the next program change clip it works. Otherwise, it’s totally unreliable.

Are any of you syncing Rytm to Ableton and successfully using program changes embedded into your Ableton sets? Or is there another better way to do it?

I’m using midi over usb and I tried regular midi cable to see if this was the problem but both did the same thing…

Thank you so much,
Saul

#2

There is a known problem with ableton and synch; synch in general. Elektron is also aware of it but has not yet adressed it.

#3

Since you can automate all parameters through midi, why not just program all the patterns into ableton midi clips instead? That’s how I would use live with Rytm anyway…

#4

Just lol…

About the pattern change, have a look at this: Receiving Program Change Messages Not Responding Immediately

Maybe you are able to put the program change a little bit before the next pattern in Ableton?

#5

Hi Tsutek, this likely what I’ll do. However, I have to say I really find the hardware sequencer fun to use and quite different than trying to automate everything.

Gihaume, this actually works pretty well. Slightly sloppy but actually possible to work with.

Thanks…

S

#6

Just lol…

About the pattern change, have a look at this: Receiving Program Change Messages Not Responding Immediately

Maybe you are able to put the program change a little bit before the next pattern in Ableton?[/quote]
What you mean by your lollery? Using live to control all aspects of the Rytm could potentially yield very powerful results. But I kinda stopped using live for anything else than recoding / editing audio, so will not be personally investigating into this further.
Someone good with M4L could come up with some very interesting contraptions, no doubt about it.

#7

I’m using Ableton with AR. I am not using program changes. Instead, I put notes into the clips in the AR track in Ableton. So, I insert a blank clip and rename it “A05” for example. So I know to switch to that pattern when a specific scene is played.

Maybe not the best solution, but it works for me.

Sending Program/Pattern Change Messages from Ableton to Rytm
#8

Hey everyone, this is my first post. Here goes…

I use AR in my ableton sets pretty successfully by setting the launch quantization of the program change clips to “none” so that ableton sends the message to AR as soon as the clip is triggered. Then on the AR for each pattern, in the [scale] menu I set the “chng” length to 16, which for me matches my ableton global quantization of 1 bar. So when I’m launching clips from Push, when I hit a program change clip, the AR will switch patterns in sync with the rest of ableton. This also works in arrangement view if you place the program change clip 1 bar before you want the pattern to change.

Usually this works pretty well for me although I have experienced a few strange/inconsistent glitches with timing.

#9

Just lol…

About the pattern change, have a look at this: Receiving Program Change Messages Not Responding Immediately

Maybe you are able to put the program change a little bit before the next pattern in Ableton?[/quote]
What you mean by your lollery? Using live to control all aspects of the Rytm could potentially yield very powerful results. But I kinda stopped using live for anything else than recoding / editing audio, so will not be personally investigating into this further.
Someone good with M4L could come up with some very interesting contraptions, no doubt about it.[/quote]
I think that when you have such a powerful sequencer, it’s really not appropriate to decide to not using it anymore only because you can’t send a program change at the right moment to change the pattern. But as we can read, the author of the thread is aiming to do exactly what you said, so finally you were right. :thinking:

#10

Even as powerful as the AR sequencer is, if we are just comparing features and workflow, ableton 9 sequencer is still more powerful IMHO. but for me, ableton has one shortcoming nothing’s ever going to fix - it runs on a computer. Using computers for sequencing is no fun in my book.

Before I got the hang of using the Rytm, I used to sequence it exclusively with an MPC4000. You don’t actually lose much as long as you can sequence multichannel midi data with cc. When I got something down I really liked, it was even possible to “transfer” the sequence playing the rytm back to a rytm pattern by utilizing realtime rec in sync with the MPC (although only relatively simple patterns could be transfered this way due to the Rytm not supporting non-xox patterns)