I don’t know, but that’s what I plan on doing someday, unless that’s a bad idea. I would prefer to use a DAW like Renoise to send clock to the A4 and tinker with automating the patterns in Renoise to make longer polyrhythms, but I’m pretty dumb so that would be quite a feat for me.
What really bothers me is that I use a Rytm to send clock to the A4 with headphones going out of the A4, and I want to record the A4’s output to my laptop, but I can’t just plug in the USB due to no overbridge, and there’s only one headphone jack so I can’t get sound out of it at the moment. The usb on the A4 can send clock (and maybe?) Midi info, as shown on the input Monitor in renoise, but I can’t get out any sound. I don’t want to buy any more $h!t, so I’m just stockpiling songs like an idiot…if I have to buy something like a Zoom recorder or an analog recorder, I want it to be audiophile quality so I don’t end up spending more in the long run. I’m thinking about getting Analog Heat just for the Overbridge to save songs to my laptop, but alas, that’s still more money. Since when did self-expression cost so much???
Well, I’m not one to say getting an OT is a bad idea, but I have an AR and an OT and I much prefer to use the AR’s internal sequencer than sending it midi tracks from the OT. I wouldn’t buy an OT if I only had an AR just to get track scale and thereby not even using the AR’s sequencer… But that’s me, I don’t know what others would do. Really it’s just my opinion that I don’t think that Elektron didn’t put track scale on all the boxes because they want you to buy an OT for that, but whatever… It’s not as big of a deal as it seems when your on the forum…
I take it you don’t have an audio interface? Most folks with a computer and some high end hardware would consider an audio interface as essential and just get one one way or another. I understand not wanting to spend more money though, I barely have any…
What kind of computer do you have? Your computer might have an 1/8in audio input and a headphone output, in which case you could go AR audio outs–> A4 audio ins, A4 headphone out–>computer audio in, and then plug the headphones into the computer and monitor everything through a DAW.
This isn’t ideal as you’d just get a stereo feed of everything and computers built in converters usually aren’t the greatest, but it’s free or perhaps the cost of a cable at most…
I used to be more into complex timing and technically skilled type music when I was younger. As I grow older I’ve learned to appreciate the intention and meaning put into the music I listen to or make and judge it more by its feeling it gives me than how complex it is… Point is I haven’t explored making polyrhythms on the AR so much, I don’t avoid 4/4 as much as I used to, I like rather it.
Have you been messing with the track lengths at least? There’s not individual scale but there’s individual length, most of the polyrhythms stuff comes out of that and the track scale just adds more. Maybe by combining different track lengths with a master scale of 3/4 or 1/2 could sort of get you the feeling of longer tracks and make the other ones shorter with track length. Maybe try chaining patterns together and then messing with both their track lengths…
Hope this helps, and although I totally get where your coming from, self-expression is one of the last free things we get, expressing yourself through high end modern music gear however costs some buckos for somebody at some point, might not be the user if they were gifted the gear, anything is possible…
I hear the folks who would love to have individual tempo scale on their machines. It’s a useful feature. It’s a quick way to make one or more tracks’ patterns longer (with built-in 3/2 and 3/4 polymeter per-track “presets”) and thus the musical statements have a longer evolution. Maybe the reason only the OT has it is due to those stated above, I don’t know. I have only an OT. And Open Mike is right, if it’s polymeters one is after, the individual step lengths do technically cover that.
Thanks for the great reply! The problem is my laptop has a 1/8in audio input that also doubles as a headphone output, so everything is confusing. In other words, there is only one opening for a 1/8in jack on my laptop, but it’s a very good machine. I want to get the Analog Heat to use as my sound card, and hopefully I can plug its USB into my laptop and plug my headphones into the laptop. Can you get sound only using the USB, or do you need to plug in your USB as well as the synth output to get sound out of the DAW? Because if the latter is the case, then I could never use headphones with my laptop, and that would suck.
That bit about how your taste in music creation changes as you get older, appreciating the intention and meaning of it over complexity, sounds like words of wisdom. I guess it’s a young man’s game to get lost in complexity to maybe prove yourself or something, to the music gods or otherwise. I also like making abstract emotional stuff that has nothing to do with polyrhythms; lately I’ve just been into polyrhythms to trip out to them. Every now and then, it feels like some sort of ancient music you’re not supposed to hear or know about, sacred tones outside the bounds of Earth and time, especially with FM sounds grumbling in and out unpredictably. I use track lengths like you said…it’s fun because sometimes you add in one track and it brings the whole thing together, then I get this really tripped out feeling, or you tweak one sound on a forgettable pattern and something unremarkable takes on a totally different dimension. I’ll definitely try those work-arounds you mentioned. A bunch of really good ideas
Got polymeters down. There was just one polyrhythm in particular I wanted to mess with that had a specific tempo multiplier to one track (different from the rest). Maybe you could figure out how to get something akin to that by chaining and counting out the equivalent of whatever the tempo multiplier would give you, or something in what Mike said…it just would be way easier to do it on an octatrack
If you don’t really want an Analog Heat for what it is, but just as audio interface, then I wouldn’t go for it, because it’s simply too much money.
A cheap medium quality usb audio-interface like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2nd Gen or a Steinberg UR22 MK2 sells for about €129.- (thomann.de) and will do the job quite well.
Or you have some more patience and wait until Overbridge 2.0 gets finally released (whenever this is).
If you mean the usb audio-interface: You connect the audio outs of your Elektron device(s) to the usb audio-interface and the interface via USB to the laptop. In this regard it is not different than using the Analog Heat.
If you wait for Overbridge: no additional hardware would be required. Just the usb connection from the A4 to the laptop. But Overbridge isn’t available yet and there is no (new) release date announced.
Yes, I think you could do it with chaining, though I’ve not worked that way.
I probably muddied the waters by referring specifically to polymeter and not also polyrythm. The definitions of polyrhythm and polymeter overlap a bit depending on musical context, so I get what you are saying.
