AR Overbridge - track limitation workarounds?

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

Hi all, just received my AR and set up OB. I don’t want this to be a whining post, because it’s absolutely amazing that this software is here, stable and working, for free, multitracking at low latency.

But how are you dealing with the 8 track limitation? Because if you want true multitracking the only way is to disable the master outs, and then you lose the master FX which can be a huge part of the AR’s sound design.

My first idea is to be slightly smarter with the routing and send OH/CH and CY/CB to a single channel, giving an extra mono track for master FX. Can this be done? Anyone got any other ideas or workarounds? Finally, can we expect elektron to introduce a 10-channel update to RYTM’s overbridge capabilities, maybe by increasing the buffer size or something?

Cheers!

#2

Why not make an effect bus in your DAW and use that instead of the AR’s effects? The AR’s effects aren’t anything special and could be easily recreated with a plugin. You’re already working in a DAW, take advantage of its features instead of wishing for more from another device.

#3

Mainly because it’s fun to plock stuff like delay time and reverb send per step. Like I said, I’m not too worked up about this, just wanted to see how other people had approached it. I’ve got OB running smoothly now, and have the master (just wet FX) going into two inputs on the soundcard. Cheers

#4

had the almost same thought today AR individual OUTs into A4 inputs L /R

#5

If I need the main outs, I sacrifice an ext out or two. Do you absolutely have to have every sound from it’s own indiout anyway? Soundlocking can be a great way to consolidate stuff in order to get by with less than the full 12 tracks…

Has anyone checked if running some of the outs with cables instead of OB is synchronized with the OB channels?

#6

Good workaround! How’s the sync between regular tracks in OB and the master/FX in your soundcard? Is it simply a constant latency between the two?

#7

Good workaround! How’s the sync between regular tracks in OB and the master/FX in your soundcard? Is it simply a constant latency between the two?[/quote]
It’s not an issue, ableton says 10ms latency for the soundcard, OB quotes 17ish for the AR round trip, but I imagine elektron have worked in some kind of latency compensation because it seems bang on when recording. A few ms isn’t too much of an issue anyway because it’s mainly reverb tails, but I’ll do some testing with the other outs and see how tight the sync is.

Great idea to use the A4’s inputs via OB TrabanT, right now I seem to be more drawn to the mnm than the A4 though :wink:

#8

I don’t know, maybe not all the time, but I feel like it would kill the vibe a little if I need to open a configuration panel to reshuffle my inputs whenever I decide I want another tom in my track. A “set and forget” seems more attractive, even if it costs one of my analog ins.

#9

Good workaround! How’s the sync between regular tracks in OB and the master/FX in your soundcard? Is it simply a constant latency between the two?[/quote]
It’s not an issue, ableton says 10ms latency for the soundcard, OB quotes 17ish for the AR round trip, but I imagine elektron have worked in some kind of latency compensation because it seems bang on when recording. A few ms isn’t too much of an issue anyway because it’s mainly reverb tails, but I’ll do some testing with the other outs and see how tight the sync is.

Great idea to use the A4’s inputs via OB TrabanT, right now I seem to be more drawn to the mnm than the A4 though :wink:

[/quote]
True, it’s just reverb and delays so it doesn’t have to be bang on. Probably the best way to work in the effects at this point.

#10

I don’t know, maybe not all the time, but I feel like it would kill the vibe a little if I need to open a configuration panel to reshuffle my inputs whenever I decide I want another tom in my track. A “set and forget” seems more attractive, even if it costs one of my analog ins.[/quote]
yeah, but I mean, can’t you just send that to the master out? For me, I usually only need a few key elements separated from the rest of. the sounds, so I take those separately and just lump all the rest to the main out pair. usually something like BD | SD/CP | hats | toms | alltherest… But if the analog inputs are recorded in sync along with OB tracks, just hook everything up.

#11

I get a bit of latency trying this method, but using Live’s track delay compensation seems to work things if I just throw in the overall latency from the Live prefs

#12

Slightly off topic, but is there a way to seperate out out the linked voices in Live? For instance CY/CB come in on OB’s 9/10 channels. But I don’t seem to be able to seperate them into their own channels (like with Utility, for instance).

#13

Haven’t tried it yet, but maybe through panning in the amp-page? One hard left, one hard right, then seperate in Ableton through utility or something?

Edit-- Mm, afraid not, its a mono out, and it makes sense as its basically the same monophonic drum-voice doing both duties. What keeps confusing me, being somewhat new to Ableton, is that Ableton only SEEMS to do stereo channels. But they’re actually not. It’s mono. The presence of a pan button in the amp-page also confused me but thats only for the mains.

#14

The absolute worst possible solution to most of this is just to track each track/voice seperately while the other is muted - not a big deal at all.

After some messing around with it my current favourite option is to jam on the Analog boxes in OB sync out of the L/R USB outs, worry about multi-tracking and automation later once a track is actually in a decent place.

#15

Do you have 2 channels of audio input free on your audio interface?
You could send the master (fx) in through those.