The octatrack can mangle your sound into anything you want. So you could start with a sound and by the end of manipulation you wouldn’t even know that it was what it is in the end. So you could really use anything?
Hope this makes sense
It really depends on what your goal is- sometimes I like to completely bitcrush my samples to oblivion. But if you want the sample to mix with beats or pads and not be the source of attention, I like to use the sample close to its pure form. For instance, I use anime clips and movie clip samples to fit into a mix of pads, beats and so forth. Here is one experiment I did with mine:
The samples sound completely different in the first case when I use one of my voice but later on when I mangle poor Yoda the Jedi master, I start off with the original sample and then tweak it.
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Yes, it matters.
Different samples have non-overlapping spaces of possible sounds after mangling.
And moreover, even if it is possible to turn a garbage truck backing up beep into string quartet with the OT; time, energy, and effort can be saved by simply starting with a string quartet.
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That’s what I like about the OT! A lot of the stuff I sample is from other songs, but only use tiny fragments, or warp things into other things (e.g. synth intro from an 80s pop song into snare/kick/noise texture). I guess the original sample matters somewhat, as it can provide inspiration to go in a certain direction, but something I like to do is set up a track with a ton of warping on a certain sample, then change/rerecord the sample and see how things change.
I use it a lot for sound design rather than straight sampling… though it’s still fun for that with other synths involved.
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that is the beauty of parts with the OT- you can test out mangling the sample and as long as you saved the part before the change, I believe you can reset to original form if not happy with it.
No. Samplers are wonderful machines, that can take you as close to, or as far from the source as you want to. Check this out for example, from the album System Error – Nothing
“The album is called ‘nothing’, because that’s essentially what it was derived from. We wanted to reveal the hidden voice of sampling technology and play the samplers rather than the samples. Using no input signals at all, we just sampled nothing and looked really closely at it. We used every glitch and software fault and tried to listen to what the machines had to say.”
Spoiler: All off an E-Mu sampler afaik.
I’ve done stuff like this, working off just a single sample, and seeing where it can take you. But that is an exercise in stuff and things, and rather then turning that garbage truck backing up beep into that string quartet, why not just use the string quartet?
Plus I would rather do such exercises on a more dedicated sampler, like an E-Mu
And check out this by our very own Elektronauts: Octatrack Metronome Only Warp Experiment Science Lab
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There are a couple threads on here of people making complete songs on the digitakt or octatrack using only the metronome click or static from touching the end of a ts cable. Lots of possibilities.
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Good album, bobby bird is under appreciated,h.i.a albums are brilliant