Just a little appreciation for this forum and Elektron

Elektron Gear
#18

Again, I would use it alone for a while, make a few different tracks using different techniques.
My biggest struggle with the OT was always having to resource some reading material just to remember what a simple key combo did. Working with it exclusively will trim a lot of that fat with muscle memory.
Dont just set up a bunch of tracks for loop recording, set up 1, maybe two, and abuse them, make songs with them, tweak them.
Same with scenes. Pick a drum loop, a bassline, and a melody.
Stack tracks, make tons of scenes, make your own “delay control” mode in scenes instead of the delay control mode, set a bunch of scenes to different pitched combs or delays, build transition effects, etc etc.
Try the Scene technique as described in Merlins Guide.

Those few things will kick the door open for performance with the OT.

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#19

Manual indeed, but let’s not forget @Merlin’s “Thoughts on OT” that really helped me find my way in the jungle of possibilities offered by OT features…

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#20

The OT is best when you ignore preset loops and sounds and start getting into resampling your other two boxes. Think your A4 sounds insane with 4 voice layers going on used for a single bass sound with fx? Resample that and free the A4 up for more ideas! Once it is in the OT there are so many avenues to explore in terms of fx processing, slicing, and transposition that things can get weird pretty fast. I mostly use my OT for thick layered sounds and beats that I want to have a lot of cool random but musical variation in.

As for your live setup, I am doing almost the same exact thing in terms of channel assignment and functions, so you are well on your way in that department. Killer jam!

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#21

For me the OT plays well with my modular gear too. Some unusual sound of the modular may become very interesting (and lasting) with some help of the OT :wink:

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#22

it can. in the Arranger.

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#23

Some contributions and collection of documents and tips here :

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#25

thanks @JuanSOLO, I will dedicate next few days just to experiment with ot
and will read the Merlins guide again :slight_smile:

#26

thanks @knobgoblin,
my idea was to resample loops from A4 and rytm live,
with presliced buffers, but I get lots of clicks if I dont slice them again, after I sample them.
any advice on that?

#27

thanks @William_WiLD, this is a great resource to read.
I will need to buy extra toners for my printer, because I find it more easy with printed on paper :slight_smile:

#28

yeah, modular is another great avenue, but I am trying to stay away from it at the moment :hushed:

#29

I recommend the Arranger too if you want to use different tempos in a project.
It can recall scenes, mutes, you can write reminders…
You can recall a pattern with those settings with Arranger, and go back to pattern mode if you wish.

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#30

…this damned arranger…
only thing i never touched in the ot, after i accidently activated it once during my very first live gig with it, ending in a sudden death full stop…
and the shock still reverbs on me…all these years after…
but always face ur fears, right?
i’ll better give it a second chance…in fact, with it’s jump and recall capabilities, it should almost catch up with the nice control all madness and bang jump back to zero gimmicks of the digi’s…

…and whaaaaaat???..how to make audio with ot?

yes, it’s a sampler…so the deal is, it always needs something recorded to play back again…
given that, realize what that really means…all u can hear can be recorded, no matter what source it came from, all ur choice, ant the ot can play it for u…in a million different ways…

and ot does’nt care if this recording is only one single cycle wave…
which means, way way way shorter than a blink of the eye…makes it a great wave table synth, too, by the way…

or minutes over minutes long recordings…

wow…given this simple fact…see what u got there in front of u…all there waiting to manipulate any audio recording bit you catched…

there is some thread here, running a challenge of guys who only use the damned metronome click sample to start with…and take it ALL from there with the ot ONLY…

guess u get an idea what to do with ur ot beyond playbacking pre fixed loops once you dive in there first…

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#31

If you loop a pattern in the Arranger and use its Mute functions, reverb tails last. :slight_smile:

You can use inputs without anyrhing plugged, max gain compressor + LOFI = noise you can sequence, generate notes with comb filters, retrig, kicks, snares, hihat, etc…

Octatrack Metronome Only Warp Experiment Science Lab

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#32

…more reading closely…less checking key words…no function…just good advice…

#33

Welcome to the boards sir!

Merlins guide to the OT is mandatory reading for learning the OT paradigms. Start by reading it. It’ll all start to make sense.

Remember, nothing is exactly the way it first seems in elektronia. Pretty soon your drum machine will become more like your synth, your synth more like your drum machine, While Hector’s smile will make you remember that time machine you hid in your basement after visiting the 35th dimension… Just dont panic. It will all make sense one day :3lektron:

Dont forget to light some ceremonial incence every now and then to venerate the machine gods. Omnissiah will protect your machines as long as mutual respect is maintained…

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#34

Clicks happen when you have a huge difference of level between the end and the beginning of two successive waveforms.

To get rid of this, you may use short fade in / fade out so that these beginning and end of slices are “normalized” to zero.

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#35

thanks @tsutek, I have read the Merlins Guide many times, but it feels kind of short when you get to the end :slight_smile:

Yes, this is most important thing, I do it every morning

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#36

thanks @LyingDalai, I have been experimenting with fades, but I am not sure how to fade the slices in advance, so when I record the sequence live, it will be presliced with fades ?

#37

I am away from home and need to test this but… don’t “FIN” and “FOUT” parameters of RECORDING SETUP MENU 2 suit your needs ?

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#38

If I understand right …

  • you are recording live from an external source in one of the recording buffers, and
  • there has a slicing been made in the audio editor (example: with CREATE SLICE GRID), which will be applied to every new recorded sample automatically

The start and the end of a recording can be faded in and out by the “FIN” and “FOUT” parameters in the Recording Setup menu 2, as @LyingDalai says , but AFAIK this does work on the start and the end of a sample only and not somewhere inside.

Inside a sample we can prevent clicks, if we create a slice grid and activate “ALIGN MARKERS TO ZERO-CROSSES”. But this will only be applied for the one sample in the buffer and be kept static, until a new grid is generated. Every sample recorded or used later in this buffer, may by chance fit into this grid or may not.

If you have clicks between the slices you could:

  • copy a slice, create a new short sample, and apply some fade in/out or find the zero-crossings manually, but this wouldn’t work in a live situation
  • try to get the audio source not only synchronised to the timing as accurate as possible, but also have the signal amplitude as low as possible at the slicing positions. Best would be to have a real silence at the slice position. Maybe the envelope of the synth sound could be changed to support this.