Best method for using Analog 4 as an OB Drum Machine

I’m trying to figure out the best way to utilize A4 Drum patches inside Ableton, recorded via OB. Obviously using a sound pool is step one- from there is where it requires a greater degree of strategy.

I don’t consider myself an skilled intuition producer- so I want to be able to edit the sounds after the track has been recorded where it needs it.

Questions:

With a sound pool hit, if you edit a patch that is contained in the pool, and the pool hit is used, would that trigger output be altered too?

Would it be of greater benefit to record the rawest version of the sound into ableton and put them in a drum rack? utilizing amp envelopes and filters from there?

Maybe I should just separate the 4 tracks into different frequency ranges and do broad edits for each range?

Surely there are people on this forum have done something like this that are far greater perfectionists than I. So if you have any true blue methods, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks!

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I create a multimode that triggers the sound pool. Then I set poly mode to rotate, create 4 audio tracks that capture the 4 voices, and sequence using the piano roll. Then I can go into the 4 recorded tracks and muck about.

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Ooooh! I hadn’t thought about poly-rotate! What’s the benefit of using that method over standard poly? Does it enable the trigs to automatically be placed on the other voices?

Thanks!

This! I dont exactly get what you are after, but recording Stuff is always beneficial.

If you dont have Latency issues, you could as well just trigger the 4 tracks from your DAW and monitor them on the individual Outputs. But the Sampling Method is better i think. Not just that you free your Voices on the A4 again, but you can also layer/stack the Sounds - using the DAW as an uber Sampler you know. And seriously: Just for being able to work non-linear, using all the four Voices on the A4 for Drums alone might be a bit wasteful i think.

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Definitely a valid point, BUT that enables you to use the performance macros of the A4 for your percussive section. those macros are probably less useful on percussion than other sounds from the A4, and switching the pattern to use other sounds on the rack would probably be of more significance.

You’re absolutely right. Good call!

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yeah, its always personal preference. A compromise would be: Creating the whole Drums for the track in advance. And record (jam) them with the Performances to add all the necessary variety. With the recorded Drumloop you can then do different things (like: using the Clip Envelopes with Sample Offset or playing around with the Timestretch Algorithms and going crazy with Transpose, Grain and Flux Parameters of the Clip).

Possibilities are literally endless :slight_smile: Thats why im working with the Hardware alone - for example. All the possibilities of the DAW would lead to endless tryouts on my side since i cant let go doing stuff if i can :smiley:

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Hmm! Good thinking.

I get too distracted from working with too much hardware-it’s too exciting, not productive. To each their own :smiley:

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absolutely, yeah :wink:

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I’ve wondered whether sound locking will show the soundlocks as “plocks” ie is it possible to see a locked sounds’ parameters for a given trig somehow? IIRC this does not work on the rytm, for example… or am I mistaken?

For what I’m tinking of doing, need to be able to tweak those soundlocks in a pattn with some extra plocking… For creating truly holistic, dynamic rhytms, and sure would help alot to be able to see the outlying param values.

Yeah, you can p-lock sound locks. But general tweaking of parameters, naturally, doesn’t affect the sound

Edit: And after typing that response I eliminated the notion of NOT just sampling the patches into Ableton. Perf macros won’t touch the sound locks…

yes, of course the general params cannot affect the sound, would kinda defeat the idea of sound locks.

So being able to craft rhytms where percussion morphs into more synthy sounds, gyrating and pulsing away… Ok, see you tomoorw! :loopy:

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Probably, but sometimes it’s cool to be able to have that overall- on the fly- sound morphing

Bye Friend!

@Ryan have you understood this ?
I’ve heard about keyboard split that woul enable to trig a different sound of the sound pool for each key.
Never did it myself, but it sounds like a key element you might have overlooked…

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Yeah, the soundpool, I’ve tinkered with that before, I forgot to mention that in my OP. Definitely going to come in handy. Thanks!

Sound pool : check.
What about this multimode thingie ?

Gosh! I keep lumping the ideas together! They seem one and the same to me! Yeah- send the note data from Ableton in order to trigger the different sounds, 1 per note and record those in.

Thanks! :smiley:

Check.

:smile:

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I thought he meant you set the A4 to 4 voice poly, make a multimap that has the (drum)sounds you need, and then realtime rec that multimode playing into the seq? I’d personally maybe only use 2 voice poly for this though, but I suppose more complex rhytms might need more poly… For me, it’s usually enough just to have one voice for hihats and one for the rest (kick+snare or kick+clap can use a diff sound so no need to bloat the poly), although overlapping sounds can be a problem with only 2 voices…

Hmm, I forgot to test param glides with adjacent sound locks yesterday… back to the rig then.

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Multimode = Multi Map I suppose.
It is very efficient. You can even use A4 mini keyboard to record Soundpool while in Multi Map edit.
[Transpose] + [up/down] to choose Sound Pool octave range.
When I tried it I was recording each track individually but Poly Rotate seems interesting.

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