I know you wanna play without decks like dj’s these days…
As soon as I will have my pre amp for my decks I am thinking to replace my mixer for a while with an OT, immagine record your 2 hrs set sampling, mixing and mangling in real time without thinking about music production…
Once you are tired you can dig in your set that you previously record and I am sure you will find some interesting unexpected samples for your production 
I made an account just so i could like this. Thanks for the thorough analysis!
Your welcome buddy…
Unless there’s a way to make small nudge adjustments (and headphone cue) on a single audio file, to find the sweet-spot when mixing 2 tracks together, I wouldn’t use 1 OT for this.
You could make sure that 2 specific tracks (songs) work together, but if you want to select tracks on-the-fly in any way, without adjustment, there will likely be clashes or phasing issues etc.
Best way to use an Octatrack to dj is with an external mixer and using one track(channel) on the cue outs and another on the mains, with all cuing and eq’ing done from the mixer. Sure you can resample and add fx and scenes in the OT, but its a bit painful as the_dreammer mentioned setting up songs so they are correctly hot cued and accurately analysed. Can be done though and practise would speed things up.
For creative jamming with up to 4 stems per song, fx and cue points, would recommend the Traktor S8 (or S5 which I have). Computer required but can close the lid as they have screens built in. Still have to prep the music for Traktor though (if original) so its similar workload prior to performance.
Technically possible, the question remains: Why? Basically 99% of the clubs today will have CDJ’s or XDJ’s installed, all you need to bring is a memory stick with your favorite songs on it. I’ve DJ’d a lot in my lifetime and also had the OT for a long time, I see like exactly zero benefits (but tons of hassle, as you need to prepare songs in advance) from using an OT instead of CDJ/XDJ.
There’s also timestretch and the rate knob. And with timestretch disabled the pitch knob works like slowing or speeding up a record…
Thanks, but it’s not a tempo nudge I’d need. Once tempo is locked, i’d be looking at positional nudging.
Not that I’d consider OT for DJing anyhow. I’m fully Pioneer’d out. 
That would be interesting for sure, and very creative fx with lfos on several sample instances.
I plan to make dj sets, with Octatrack for sure !
Used Tracktor, simply, without syncing songs.
I’d prefer to prepare samples for Ot now.
Ok here is my take, the OT is a great sampler/sequencer and FX tool for experimental music type jamming but quite difficult to use as DJ tool. My recommendation is to use something like the Pioneer or Tracktor S8 for that duty and have the OT as a tool for layer FX and what not.
Atch DJ set, playing long samples prepared in Live.
At lot of work, but technically possible to prepare a DJ set.
I use it as a dj setup and it works a treat. Downside is a lot of prep for any new music.
Forget about beat matching manually. Yes, it can be done, but put in any material that is not on grid and the nightmare begins. And remember that you can use chains for song sections, not necessarily from one song. Plus the crossfader and scenes… Lots of fun to be had with the OT as a dj device.
Even if it’s on-grid, when selecting tracks ad-hoc (which many of we DJs do a lot of the time, depending on what the crowd are responding to), the positioning for sweet-spot on bringing 2 tracks together is almost certainly going to need some active adjustment.
Why, if samples are well prepared ?
hei, good to see you around these parts sir!
Hope you been well. I been stalking u on GS, seems like you got into some newschool hardcore things a few months back?
Cheers man!
You can pre-prepare the transition between track A and track B, taking into account various transients etc. so that the beat-matching works. You can also pre-prepare B to C.
…but, if you’re done that, what you can’t simultaneously pre-prepare for, is the transition between A and C. The way different kick drums play together, in terms of transients is not consistent across all tracks.
This is why your Pioneer decks, software with controllers etc. - even though you can set up your beats on a grid, allow positional nudging backwards and forwards.
Well I hope no one prepares things like that. I prepare songs and samples to be on the grid, and don’t care which two songs are going in a mix,since they are gridded. Phasing issues of two kicks eating each other can be circumvented with the scenes and crossfader. I opt for the third way of doing things, using trig locks to trigger the filter, creating a pseudo side chain with the hipass and use the kick from the AR. So there is full control of what goes on.
Might well depending on the genre you’re playing, as well as your style. I go for long, gradual mixing where I’m cross-fading and EQing. Tracks tend to be quite dense too and the transients can be all over the place.
Relative amounts of swing can also be an issue, which is another reason I like control of the relative position.
Got it. Yeah, this style is a bit prone to quicker mixing. Also space can be an issue, with wav files 64 gigs becomes crowded quickly. The pro is a good one, one can mix literally any style of music with any other.