I think the Octatrack has finally clicked for me…

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

I’m on my third OT, and I’ve never really took to it previously and just shelved it.

For some reason, I spent a few hours with it last night and had a bit of a Eureka moment where it made sense to me! It’s like the veil was lifted!! :grin:

I think a combination of using my MPC and Rytm over a period of time has finally allowed me to see the OT’s workflow, and, watching a few Jon Makes Beats videos helped because he has a similar ‘play things in’ approach.

Anyway, I’m feeling enthusiastic that the OT is now in play for me, and thought I’d post this as encouragement for anyone else who’s tried and bailed on the OT previously.

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#2

It has a crossfader ! :star_struck:

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#3

Nice! It me four goes until it clicked. Still constantly learning. JMB is a great source of OT knowledge. I watched a few old Ned Rush OT videos recently & there’s a whole new world of mind blowing to explore there…

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#4

One day the OT will be discontinued, within 6 months they will be 3 grand used, nothing can compare with it, and yes it has some flaws, but what it does well it does with such finesse and directness, it can be surgical.

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#5

jeah, i was blown when i saw in his recent video how you can just bounce all tracks (with their rec trigs) to their buffer, save them, usb->laptop. so cool that i dont really miss overbridge now :slight_smile:

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#6

I’m still waiting for it to really click for me, and I’m on my second Octatrack :upside_down_face: Can you elaborate on what it was that you realized/heard that went you by the first two times so that I know where I should look? :eyes:

#7

I still don’t get it, why is he using flex instead of pick up?.

For example, he sets rec trig but he plays his synth but how does the ot know when to stop?. I understand you can set length but it seems like he’s not doing that?

#8

not sure i get your question here.
for me being new to the OT, its the easiest to record straight to a buffer!
no setting up of channel, thru, pick whatever.

#9

Because pick up is head fuck :laughing:

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#10

OT doesn’t need Overbridge.
vO7q9P

Me neither, generally ! :wink:

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#11

Why using Pickups ?
It can be useful to set tempo after a live playing recording, eventually overdub, otherwise it is PITA, change og tempo, don’t overdub randomly, no trigs, can’t disable timestretch, etc…

#12

General Lee.

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#13

Nice…. Nice….

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#14

I never ditched it, but had been struggling to use it in a way that made sense to me. The recent Jon Wayne vids helped me a lot to find a methodology that I enjoy & not worry about the million other ways I could be acheiving something

#15

Oh man, I’ve been dreading this since I had my own Octatrack eureka moment some years ago!

I was pretty late to the OT party. I only got one around 2020 or so and it really clicked, but at that point it was already on the market for years, so the possibility of being discontinued was already plausible.

On one hand, I think “it’s a product, products get discontinued, that’s life”, but on the other hand I think of this as a unique instrument, so the idea of it being discontinued is quite sad. Like if one day someone told me the guitar was discontinued and the only way to get one was to pay crazy inflated prices, that would really suck.

What makes it unique to me are its 8 independent recording buffers — I’ve probably mentioned this in a few threads around here already, so I might sound like a broken record, but I just haven’t found anything else with that functionality.

When the OT is discontinued I think I need to sit down and patch up something similar in Puredata or whatever. Either that or buy a bunch of Octatracks to last me years, because I doubt there will be a proper equivalent

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#16

Holy fudge! How long has THAT been there?!

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#17

I thought pick up machines were ideal for looping, so I assume once he has the beat down. He want to be playing his synths and looping it to get ideas?. Guess I’m completely wrong hahaha

#18

Yeah it’s fiddly, but I been watching so many OT tuts online and assume the de facto when you want to play stuff to loop.

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#19

I love that there’s so much personalized functionality just waiting to be explored/discovered. At the moment I’m really trying to get the most out of mine as a live mixer. I’m a bit shocked how many pedals can come off the pedalboard because I’d been under utilizing my OT. My live template (inspired by EZ BOT) is that tracks 1-4 are for my live instruments (bass, baritone guitar, trumpet, violin). Tracks 5-8 are for my Syntakt.

  1. Thru
  2. Neighbor
  3. Neighbor
  4. Flex

Same thing on 5-8. Sounds so simple yet there’s a silly amount of possibilities for experimentation

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#20

I originally bought my OT for the pickup machines…which I haven’t used in years. Life is too short to mess with those for me :slight_smile:

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