Hi, when it comes to audio routing (in Ableton) I’m a complete amateur. I know how to multitrack-record sequences in Ableton (incl. the FX track) but if I want to automate, for instance, a highpass filter (with Ableton filter) on only the kick, then having the FX track still running is not useful (because of the summed wet signals). I really don’t want to loose the analog sweetness of the compressor/distortion in my recordings. Is there anyway around this?
See picture for my setup in Ableton.
I’ve always felt that if you’re multi-tracking then the master/effects tracks become fairly limited, almost pointless - ulimately it is a summed channel comprised of tracks you’ve decided you want to manipulate individually - there are going to be few circumstances IMO where that’s useful. If you make even one structural change to any of those recorded tracks then the FX track becomes obsolete.
I’d see the master sections of your Elektrons as a solution for if you’re not mulitracking - if you are then you could setup a much more comprehensive end of chain in Ableton anyway, i.e. you could sidechain your kick.
Unfortunately the inputs only run through the compressor - but if you wanted you could bounce your mix through that if you wanted to retain its character.
In this article Dave Mech says the following:
[…] Each Elektron instrument employs send fx. You can send the output of individual tracks to the send fx which then send their wet signal to the main output, blending the signal with all the dry track signals. Tracks that you stream individually to the computer are therefore completely dry signals. The send fx only appear at the main output. To record the send fx without any of the dry signal you can mute tracks from being send to the main output so this way only the send fx are left. An elegant solution.
One downside of this is that when you edit the recorded individual tracks in your DAW, like the timing of a hi hat, this doesn’t translate to the separately recorded send FX. So for tracks that I tend to drown in FX and might want to edit or re-record later, I’ll record them separately. Even if you like to record your tracks entirely in one go into a stereo track, Overbridge is still useful. When your track is going to be remixed, you have all stems ready to go. […]
I’m not sure what he means here. Is this the solution?
You could record all your individual tracks, do the processing you want to them in Ableton, then send a group track of your recorded drums back through the Analog Rytm’s external input and record that drum bus being processed by the Rytm master compressor/distortion to finish it off.
Right, as a final finishing touch. That’s a great idea!
I either do the above trick (go back through inputs), treat the master as a parallel chain, or just use it as an FX return.
