Overbridge workflow tips

Elektron Gear
#1

I’m just getting familiar with the Overbridge workflow when recording into the DAW, and I would love to learn from the masters of this in this forum. What are your best practices and gotchas?

A few things I’m noticing so far on the Syntakt:

  • I found it surprising that your knob movements aren’t sent out as automation lanes automatically. In the Syntakt “instrument” in my DAW (Reason 10), it shows up with 8 CV parameters that can be set to various Syntakt parameters, but beyond that, I can’t find a way to have it record “everything” I do live, other than the resulting audio of course. Is this the way it’s intended, or is this a Reason 10 issue?
  • I also can’t seem to automate even those 8 parameters - can’t find a way to actually have those knob movements recorded as automation lanes. The only two things that can be automated in the Elektron vst instrument is pitch and mod wheels. :thinking:
  • I find it annoying that the recorded tracks are in mono. Any carefully programmed panning p-locks on drums are lost when recording per-track into the DAW. How do people work around this? Do you instead record drums individually using the main stereo outs instead, or do you re-program the panning once in the DAW?
  • Where is the isolated send/return channel? It looks like it’s supposed to be routable to the main out (Audio out 1 & 2), and indeed, if I mute the other tracks, I hear the effects more pronounced - but I still hear some tracks that are completely dry, such as the bass? The bass is routed to the effects track, but it has zero delay and return. In fact, even if I set the internal routing “To Main” to 0/15, meaning nothing should be routed to the main channel, I still hear the FX track. I’m sure I’m confused here and that there’s some logic to this, but what I want is just the return isolated, without the FX block playing at the same time.
  • Generally, do you people prefer Overbridge over usb/audio given the above limitations with mono tracks etc?

Thanks in advance for your insights!

#2

I could probably answer most of these questions from an Ableton perspective.

It’s similar to what we’ve discussed previously with regards to the MPC, whereby it helps a LOT if you know you’re going to be moving to your DAW with the individual tracks early on in the process, rather than spending time on mix decisions in the Syntakt.

I’m not how it works in Reason, but in Ableton, the Overbridge plugin sits in its own ‘master track’ and you can automate pretty much anything and everything you want to on this track. And you open every parameter to modulation options (lfo’s, envelope followers, etc).

With the FX, that’s in the routing/configuration settings, but basically you need to not send the mono track audio to the main monitor out, and this frees it up to carry the FX only.
Obvs issue is that it’s a master mix of your overall fx that carries all your active sends.
If it’s something I know I want control of, I’ll usually run the parts solo’d at the end of the process so I can isolate the fx to new tracks if needed.

Absolutely, especially if you want to expand on the patterns and have remix options.

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