Let me preface this post by saying that I have full sympathy for those on an OS or DAW not yet supported or functional; this post is in no way meant to be a taunt…I’d be frustrated if this were the case for me too. Let’s hope that Elektron get this well beyond the beta stage and into the hands of more users asap. But I’ve read so much here about OB not working that I thought it was time for me to post from a different perspective.
I was a long time MD user who hadn’t checked in with Elektron in years (didn’t want the gas). I wandered over here about a year ago just before the infamous science lab and quickly found myself desiring the AR and A4. Doing the pre-purchase research I learned about the upcoming OB and thought “cool”, but this wasn’t what made me want the machines by any means. I was interested but not impatient at all in the prolonged lead-up to the first beta release.
With the above said, I feel like this software was aimed squarely at a user like me. I don’t perform live at all (at least not electronic music) and I’m in no way trying to get away from the computer. I love it. And I LOVE Ableton Live as a composition DAW. So I was pretty well set up to enjoy this. My main interest is in writing and recording, and for this OB has been pretty much everything I could ask for. It has significantly increased my enjoyment in using the AK and AR, and believe me, I was enjoying them just fine before this came out!
I could go on and on…but perhaps it’ll be best just to try and nail down some bullet points about why I’m digging it this much now that I’ve logged well over 100 hours using it. In no particular order:
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It works. I’ve read pretty much every post in the OB forum since it came out and I can say for sure that if I hadn’t had my own experiences, judging by the number of problems reported, I’d assume it was crap. But in my experience it’s been extremely stable. That’s not to say I haven’t had any glitches at all, but they’ve been minor. I do OCCASIONALLY get the white noise blast from AK which is well documented. But even in that unpleasant event the fix is just a quick unplug/plug of my USB cable and then it’s gone. For days.
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the sync is perfect. No more, no less. Zoom in on the waveform and it’s exactly where it should be. Haven’t seen so much as an iota of deviation, even after running the sequencer for several minutes. not one glitch.
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the GUI is attractive and easy to use. To not have to rely on the small screens of the hardware is such a boon to the black box workflow. I’m at the point now where I’m doing 90% of everything in OB.
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the audio quality is FINE. I know we were all a bit skeptical about audio over USB, but it sounds excellent to me. I’ve done comparisons between OB and recording through my Portico 5012, and when the levels are matched I can’t really tell a difference between the two. I’ve tested myself doing it blindly and I can’t blindly guess which one is OB. Closed issue for me. Sure I’m no mastering engineer, but…
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given the above, it’s incredibly cool to not have to patch into my preamp/interface and leave it open for other things.
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there are too many timesaving workflow enhancements offered in the GUI to list, but here’s one: setting up scene, performance, LFO, aftertouch…etc parameters is SO much easier. Right click on any parameter and you have an option to add to any of these. I could never get into the workflow for doing the same on the box.
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Browsing of sounds in the +drive sound library. It’s all there in front of you and easy to see. This has led me to a new relationship with sounds in the AR, which is a topic for another thread. I’ve taken to writing on both boxes when inspired by just very quickly going in an INIT kit and then clicking through my sounds to hear the sequence with some of my go to presets. or others. It’s just easy…
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Total recall. This is the biggest one for me. One nagging issue I had with both boxes but especially the Rytm because of samples was project and sound management. I think everyone struggles with the Elektron way for some period before coming to some sort of understanding. Losing a project or two is par for the course, no? Once I wrapped my head around TR, I realized that it offers the solution I needed. So I have an Ableton project that I’ve set up and saved as a starting point template for AK/AR projects. It’s has grouped tracks for both machines containing the VSTi, a midi track routed to send either box should I care to do so from Ableton, and audio tracks for recording from both. This Ableton project is TR enabled and I’ve set its associated AR project up with a few of my go-to kits. What I do then is open this ableton project, accept recall from the plugin, and within 30 seconds or so I’ve got my default kits ready to go. I then “save as” in Ableton and start to get to work. As soon as I have something worthwhile going, I’ll save the projects manually on the boxes. Now the boxes will think that I’m saving a new version of my “template”, as that’s what I originally opened in Ableton. But I don’t want to do that…I save it with a new name to a fresh project slot. I then go back to OB, hit “re-activate” and now my boxes and ableton project are on the same new page. All I really need to keep in mind is to do a manual save on the boxes at the end of any (productive) session - just for safety really - and then anytime I open this ableton project, it just populates into the current state of both boxes automatically.
Seriously, this is amazing. I haven’t heard much talk about TR. Anyone else using it??
I guess that’s it for now. Believe it or not, I’m not a blind fanboi at all. In fact, I think Elektron can be positively obtuse at times in their communication (ex. multiple threads about forum lack of performance, spam issues, as well as helpful suggestions for merging A4/AK forums go flabbergastingly ignored). But I think they nailed it with OB and I’m really happy and grateful for it.
Thought the positive perspective was warranted.
