Haha, not sure if you’ve ever used a 2880, but it has TERRIBLE sync as a slaved MIDI device: Think giant jet whooshing sounds as the audio struggles to match the clock, and occasionally complete crashes.
I sync my OT to Cirklons clock permanently as it’s really tight, no problem.
That’s running Thru/Static & Flex machines.
Pickup machines are a whole different story! They don’t don’t like it at all!
I revisited pickups a couple of days ago & with sync to clock enabled I couldn’t overdub, kept getting the infamous dub aborted msg.
The OT is a wicked sampler/processor/mangler but as a looper, (in my experience), it sucks I’m afraid to say 
Did a show a couple of weeks back with Jordan Reyne, she loops her vocals, gtr & found sounds on the fly using digitech pedals. It’s seamless, frighteningly simple & astonishingly effective. Can’t see you doing that with the OT, not easily anyway.
I take back what I said about the OT having problems syncing to external MIDI clock - you’re right the sync problem is with the pickup machines.
These days I only loop on the OT with a master pickup machine. It’s a shame the slave pickup machine is not as stable.
Hmm,
I must say that so far I had zero problems syncing the 2880 to any external clock source. But I usually have some relatively stable clock sources. Lately I always run it as a slave to the LXR DIY drum machine, works like a charm.
The only problems are that I cannot set the length of the track before I record it, which I find annoying, and as mentioned before, I cannot have different track lengths on the 2880, the 4 tracks are treated as one loop, you also cannot stop one and keep the rest running. Also when you reverse the loop all 4 tracks get reversed. And of course it’s still a pretty dumb device, that will just loop your audio endlessly and that’s it.
Before I bought the 2880 I was using Loopy on the iPad. that was a total and complete nightmare. Sure I had 8 independent tracks, but syncing it an external MIDI clock was resulting in totally glitched audio all the time and using the iPad as a clock source was also not really great since it’s really not outputting a stable clock signal.
I must admit that my initial enthusiasm for the OT has been a bit dampened by what I could find out about it’s looper functionality, to the point that I’m considering to wait a bit and see if I cannot come up with some other solution.
I have been looking at the Boss/Roland Rc505, which appears to be a big improvement on the 2880, at least for how I like to work with a looper.
Then of course all the sampling and sample mangling capabilities of the OT still seem quite compelling, but it’s also a lot of money. Hmm…
Yeah, I think a dedicated looper like the Roland devices are a better solution for your way to create music.I saw a looper on the Musicmesse Frankfurt this year and was facinated. The OT is very good for in sync sample sampling and playback incl. all kinds of sound manipulation, but as looper to complicate for my view.
Dear Papernoise,
what is the status? You are in 
All the best,
waldemaR
The OT’s pickup machine implementation is just a headache. You’re better off setting up a pedal to cycle through tracks and engage recording on the selected track.
That way, you can still have the OT as a slave. You can “undo” your passes. You can manipulate your layers independently. And more advantages. When you’re happy, you can resample and free up more tracks.
Sorry people I kind of disappeared from this thread. I had (well I still have) a bit of a rough time.
In the end I picked up a second hand RC-505 and am totally happy with it. I still think the OT would be a nice addition to my setup, but for now I’ll have to wait. The RC-505 is a perfect fit for my live rig and does everything I need from a looper. Well almost everything.
From all that I found out the OT is not at its best when used as a looper.
When I’ll have some money again I’ll think about the OT… 
Thanks for all your help, it sure helped me to take the right decision!
How does one even buy an Octatrack? I haven’t seen them in stock anywhere………… even eBay’s dried up.
When I last looked there were still some around
One year later I have to revive this thread… because I am back looking at the Octatrack… again.
I did pass on it the last time, mainly due to the fact that I was mainly needing a looper and the Boss RC-505 was doing that kind of better than the Octatrack, and so far I’ve been really happy with the Boss (well except for the lousy on-board fx that is). Now things are changing, because I am about to start a new, long-term project which will involve all sorts of sampling and playback of long field recordings. I am trying to figure out if the OT would suit my needs or if I’d better stick to Ableton Live. I would prefer the OT over a laptop, but in the end I have to decide based on what works best. Now if I would have somebody close by who could lend me theirs, that would be best, but unfortunately I don’t know anybody… so I depend on the kind help of you guys here.
I don’t know if anybody ever tried this, but if so, I’d really appreciate a quick feedback on this idea of mine.
Basically this is what I am planning to do:
I’d like to have 3-5 field recordings playing at the same time, and mix them during the performance. These tracks would mostly be “static machines” and play samples of several minutes in length. On the OT I would mostly just fade tracks in and out, since effects processing would be done using a modular. To be able to create complex soundscapes I would also need to be able to crossfade between sets of tracks, or crossfade between a pattern and the next one. I know there’s some tricks that can be used like the “crossfader transition trick” or Biologik’s transition trick, but I don’t know if these would work for me. Has anybody tried these with longer “non-looped” samples?
Also there doesn’t seem to be a track mixer page, so I’m not sure how practical that is on the OT. I would have to jump around between tracks a lot, wouldn’t I?
Just for completeness’ sake, the other things I would do along with the streaming/mixing of long samples are:
Loop short portions of field recordings, slicing them up and using parameter locks to increasingly turn them to rhythmic patterns. On top of these I would add more percussive parts and polyrhthmic beats.
I would probably keep one track as a master FX section for reverb and the such, and one track to sample from contact mics on the fly. I’m pretty confident that the OT is an amazing tool to do all these things, so no doubts about that, it’s the streaming/mixing of long files from the card that I’m not 100% sure of yet.
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The OT will do all this with ease. You can make (in advance or on the fly) a bunch of scenes that will crossfade the various tracks.
If you really wanted hands-on control of the levels of all 7 individual tracks at once then you would need an external MIDI controller.
You can make (in advance or on the fly) a bunch of scenes that will crossfade the various tracks.
Thanks! But if I remember that correcly, scenes act on the tracks in one pattern, don’t they? So if I wanted to use a total of 7 recordings, that I crossfade between in different configurations, these would all have to be in the same pattern, don’t they? Plus would they take up one track each? I need 2 tracks for the percussive stufff, plus 1 for looping and slicing and probably one more for other things, so the field recordings should be placed in max. 3 tracks I guess.
If you really wanted hands-on control of the levels of all 7 individual tracks at once then you would need an external MIDI controller.
Hadn’t thought about that, but yeah, makes sense! I have a Faderfox UC4, so I think I’m good.
A Scene is stored in a Part, and any number (up to 16) of the Patterns in a Bank can use that Part.
Yes, each simultaneously-playing sample requires its own machine on a Track. You might also be able to conjure something by sending a sample through the OT’s output and input to be effected by a Thru machine on another track, but I think you can get by without that.
Note that you can also manually trigger samples on Tracks that have been disconnected from the sequencer, by using the Plays Free mode.
Hmm… the whole hjerarchy of how the OT organizes parameters is still a bit vague to me. I guess I need to look for some more tutorials. I still don’t get how patterns and parts really relate to one another…
Pattern = sample triggers at points in time
Part = (“kit” =) samples and effects settings (and MIDI sequencer settings)
Playing a pattern causes the samples defined in the part to be triggered at the chosen times.
The tutorial you should seek is Merlin’s “Some thoughts on Elektron’s Octatrack” PDF document, which explains these things very clearly.
I have that one thanks! In fact it did clear most of my doubts… I just keep getting confused by the not so intuitive terminology Elektron decided to use (for example why not call “parameter locks” just “automation”, if you call it “lock” then it sounds like something that doesn’t change anymore, while it does exactly the opposite, though I think I’ll get used to it). Same thing with parts… actually now that you called them “kit” everything makes sense! Thanks a lot!
So the big question is if I can crossfade between parts, not patterns…
You cannot literally crossfade between Parts, but you can perform a crossfader transition between the sound of one pattern that is linked to a particular Part and the sound of another pattern that is linked to another Part.
Thanks a lot for your help again! I did look up a couple more things and I am pretty confident that I can do most of what I have in mind. I guess for now I just need to know that. I’m totally aware that I’ll have to deal with compromises and workarounds and experiment a lot, as with all gear.
Good, now I just need to actually buy an OT
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Seems like I just bought an OT! 
I never took so long to decide about buying a piece of gear or not… so probably this one will “stick” for a long time!