Elektron's Overbridge software goes free, major update in February 2018

Elektron’s handy software plugin is now free for everyone.

If you bought Elektron’s Digitakt this year and you’re still waiting for Overbridge compatibility for the drum machine to be released, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that it’s officially been pushed back until February 2018, but the good news is the software is now free of charge to everyone.

Released in 2015, Overbridge is an app that bridges Elektron hardware like the Analog Rytm, Analog Keys and Analog Heat with your DAW, allowing you to edit paramenters on your instruments with dedicated software plugins and stream multi-channel audio over USB. It’s incredibly handy, especially if you use Elektron gear with Ableton Live or other supported DAWs.

“We have decided to offer Overbridge free of charge, for all our Overbridge enabled instruments,” Elektron says in a statement. “This means that Overbridge Basic and Premium are now simply Overbridge. The seamless computer integration of Elektron instruments, made possible by Overbridge, is a very important, useful and unique feature. It really elevates our instruments and boosts the production workflow. And we want as many musicians as possible to experience this.”

New features include a new standalone editor for DAW-free operation, improved plugin compatibility for “several DAWs”, enhanced performance and lower latency, improved graphical interface, faster total recall and automation, and the ability to stream all available channels over USB simultaneously at maximum quality without the need for configuration. Unfortunately there’s still no Overbridge compatibity for Octatrack MKI/MKII owners.

The Overbridge announcement comes with two other bits of news from Elektron. Its new Analog Rytm MKII drum machine is now shipping and Digitakt, its recent digital sampling drum machine, should have an updated operating system by the end of 2017. “We aim to have the next version available before the end of the year,” Elektron says in a Facebook post, “which will remedy the MIDI operation freezing issue some of you are experiencing, along with a number of other bugs.”