For remixes, Octatrack MKII or a Digitakt?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Like so many others, I have acquired a heap of old, unfinished projects made over the years. Most of them are made ITB and I feel that a good way of putting those files to use would be to change the approach and load them into an Elektron box. This might blow new life into them and I think it would be fun.

I used to have a mnm and an md. Now I have an a4 mkii so I am familiar with Elektron.

Which one suits my needs best? OTMKII or DT? Edit: or am I better off looking into an MPC Live or something?

Much thanks

Octatrack And Digitakt: Experience with both and why you recommend them?
#2

OT (MK2) IMHO

Best,
Hans

4 Likes
#3

OT
better for stems.

2 Likes
#4

Thanks for your input. I was leaning towards the OT anyway. Dare I ask about the MPC Live or other gear on this forum? For my purpose.

#5

Thanks for your answer, Hans.

1 Like
#6

Yeah, I own both and Octatrack is much better for working with loops and longer pieces of source material. - the ability to slice and timestretch is especially useful. Also the OT can take your audio to weirder places, and the scene crossfader is amazing for helping to create evolving structures etc.

DT is quicker to work with and has fewer but better sounding effects, but is really geared up for working with drums and shorter samples. If you know how to use A4 and MD, you shouldn’t find OT too bad - but it’s definitely worth doing a fair bit of reading/watching tutorials as it’s not that intuitive at first! Merlin’s guide is a good one.

2 Likes
#7

Right now the main advantages of OT over MPC live are the crossfader, which can be an amazing tool for remixes, and having 2/4 inputs. Those are both really useful for remixing. The crossfader can be assigned to many many different parameters to completely mangle inputs in an expressive way. The multiple inputs can be assigned to tracks and then run through effects with p-locks and scene transitions via the crossfader as well as resampled and sliced on other tracks in real time. The combination of these two make it substantially more powerful for transforming samples in a performative way.

The MPC Live of course is also very powerful and some of the new features, built-in soft synths and the promise of more plug-ins, may appeal more to you depending on your goals, but the OT still holds its own.

2 Likes
#8

OT of course, it can handle up to 8x2 GB stereo files played at the same time.

Unless your projects are mono, with short samples only.

1 Like
#9

Octatrack is more than capable for this, very easy to render projects from your computer or other boxes and load them onto the CF card. Then go crazy with the scenes, sample editing, and onboard resampling. Can take all the music somewhere real far away. The digi could probably do some of this, but it might get hairy with file management/memory.

1 Like
#10

Have both, definitely go OT. I’m not really sold on the timestretch on it though, so that is something to be aware of.

3 Likes
#11

Thanks. That is indeed something to be aware of. What do you feel for the DT’s timestretch? And what exactly is it you don’t like?

#12

Just curious : any hardware realtime timestretch references?
With RATE parameter set to timestretch, it can be really efficient! Not realistic I admit. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#13

Cool, thank you. It sure looks like the ot will be my next purchase but I’m a bit worried about the on-board fx. Do you use external ones? I’m considering one of zooms stomp effects instead of a strymon to save some €.

#14

No timestretch for DT or AR…

1 Like
#15

Thanks, having only YouTube as a reference for both, these are exactly the type of things I need to know.

#16

Oh OK. Maybe it’s a silly question but how would you compare the ot’s timestretch to say ableton.

#17

I guess a portastudio has nice timestretch artifacts :wink:

#18

OT usual fx are not the best, but I think Filter, Comb Filters are great. Compressor can be very efficient. Delay is not so bad. Some people like Dark Reverb. Not sure Zoom Fx would be necessary. For better fx, I’d directly go to Eventide / Strymon things, or same quality brands.

The thing is fx sequencing and total control with crossfader. You can make totally unusual things with it, even if fx are not the best.

1 Like
#19

No silly questions, of course you can find better “non realtime” timestretch things. :slight_smile:
Not really comparable.

1 Like
#20

100% this.

It’s a bit of a rookie move, especially when quoting the mad scientist of the OT, but I loved the result of setting a scene to throw a random LFO on the Master Reverb Mix on a track.

It definitely led to a sense of decombobulation in the track.

Furthermore- on a MD running through- you can set up thrus and neighbors and use the MD map to trigger misc patterns on the MD from the OT while near-simultaneously changing scenes for different FX parameters and things feel so fresh and dynamic!

It’s very :ok_hand: :ok_hand: :ok_hand:

2 Likes