So a couple of weeks ago I treated myself to the AH+. I’ve been producing and releasing music for years and always found the hardest part to be the mixing stage. Usually good enough but rarely consistent. Of late I have been sending tracks to a mix/master engineer who would mix for me. And they’re good, but they - understandably - lack creative decisions I would make about what track has prominence, EQ, saturation etc. Hence the idea of an ‘all in one’ box is very appealing.
And so far I’m really impressed. It’s brought tracks and groups to life and really provided that warm sound. I’ve also run single drum instances through it too (DrumComputer, for example) and the results are amazing when you really push it.
However, I’ve noticed a couple of things and was hoping you kind folk might be able to help
I’m using Overbridge via Bitwig. I was hoping to have more than one instance of AH+ as a plugin on each group but Bitwig does not like this at all. Plugin crashes, output vanishes. I am guessing Presets are the only solution here?
I would really like to use the AH+ as a soundcard when out on the road and then process tracks/groups via Overbridge. Is this possible? My brain hurts trying to work this out.
In the studio I have a Focusrite 18i20 and all my synths/drums are inputting to this. Can I set up the AH+ as an insert or send FX so I don’t have to physically change wires every time I want to route the audio?
Would really appreciate any guidance. I’ll be making some YT vids soon showing the magic this box can produce on a range of hardware synths and drum units.
wether u use ur heat via ob or not, it rmains one single analog hw unit that can always process “just” one stereosum at a time…
if u don’t use ob, but leave it connected via usb, bitwig should be able to adress it as an audio input/output interface instaead of ur main audio interface…
u can physically hardpatch it via it’s own physical in’s and out’s with ur audio interface and can route/adress it as a send fx within in ur daw…
the real heat happens when u skip all that usb/ob thing and use ur device as a truu analog hw device with it’s physical in’s and out’s…
…not really…i’m just saying, such an unique truu analog device can be compromised in it’s natural given results by “cheap” digital converters…and as much as i appreaciate what elektron created with this machine, i stay a little bit suspicious to their added usb/ob implementation…
sure it works all fine, but if u use it strictly via it’s physical ins 'n out’s in combo with truuly solid clocked converters in external fashion, u can profit a lot from proper gainstaging…
and no, focusrite, for example, is not famous for great clocking converters…it’s famous for a great price/result value…and so are elektrons usb shortcut/convieniance solutions, when it comes to their rare products that involve truu analog components…
but hey, that’s all oldfashioned talk in times of datacrompressing codecs all over the place…
so, forget about it…heat is such a great understatement device, no matter how u work with it, it’s always adding it’s special “little” magic…
There is always subtle but often desirable colouring achieved via analogue gain staging - for example, I find a Digitakt sounds a little bit more ‘alive’ when recording the line outs through my Clarett 8pre rather than via USB. But your mileage may vary, and there are great preamp plugins available.
I was reading the manual today. I know you can’t side chain with midi… but the manual says if you set it to foot switch you can use a CV gate to trigger the envelope. Has anyone tried it?
