Just a simple Octatrack video

Hey everybody… for your entertainment… a bit of house-fun on the octatrack.
enjoy…

Very Cool! could you explain what you are doing? what do you have where and how you manage what we see in the video?

Yes I can… I might point you to some previous postings, and get longwinded about stuff. but … lets give it a go:
First: The samples used… you gotta have something to play… so for that I had to turn to renoise.
within renoise… I just grabbed a bunch of samples, that where on my harddrive… I relooped them, treated them a bit. made some cuts to it all… u know the deal, simple edditing (this project wasnt about, look at me, i know how to make cool sounds)

  • I made 4 tracks in my renoise project… Drums, synth, bass, fx/risers/assorted…
  • I made very sure all loops where 8 bars… (that lenght is necesarry for another trick, not showed in this video)
  • I made very sure, that I had 32 patterns filled with atleast something, that kinda fitted together…
    When I rendered this… I had 4 very large files (about 110mb each) filled with 8bar, 140bpm loops…
    these I loaded on my octatrack… gave each file its own track…
    So hooray, I had 4 tracks of house… and I got 32 patterns already to be filled…
    pattern1 = slice1 pattern2 = slice2 pattern3=slice3 … Keep in mind… It sounded groovy in my daw… but that doesnt mean it was fun to play with on my octatrack… So if it didnt work, as created in my daw… I could just pick another slice… So I might not end up with 32 patterns of fun… but who cares… this is me testing/having fun/learning a certain workflow… technically i just used 4 sample-slots… so i can repeat the same trick plenty times…
    So what i did, is what i described in this topic : http://www.elektronauts.com/t/how-many-samples-max-in-one-project/6170/52258
    So thats the filling of the octatrack done…
    Now for the trickery:
    As said: Track 1 to 4 have a sample on it, from 1 of the giant samples… I use the crossfader to mute tracks, with the Xvol parameter… and not the Xlevel parameter… (so reverbs keeps on ringing. delays keep on delaying and all that) . But thats just part of the fun.
    I use track 5 and track6 for realtime sample-playback, of stuff I am recording…
    Track5: Plays a loop of 4 bars, that I grab with track-recorder1 … I grab this loop manually, by pressing Track1 + part button.
    I setup the manual recorder to record the main-output… so yeah, i did have to set it up once… quantizing set to start of loop, length of 64…
    Track6: Plays portions of Trackrecorder2 and trackrecorder3… These samples, are continiously sampled from the mainouts…
    check this: Trackrecorder2, and trackrecorder3 alternate:
    Bar1 trackrecorder2 records 1 bar … Bar2 trackrecorder3 records1 bar… bar3 trackrecorder2 records again. bar4 trackrecorder3 records again. On the playback though, its reversed…
    Bar1 plays trackrecorder3 while using sample-startpoint fiddling… bar2 uses trackrecoder2 as playback buffer with sample-startpoint-fiddling… and so on…
    this way, track6 plays the last bar played… and because its recording itself… it will keep on playing back what previously heard, with sample-startpoints shifting, cutting it up more and more… is funny…
    I did not use slices on the realtime sampling thing, because that gives me troubles, when chancing bpm, while in my set…
    reasons I kinda describe in this topic http://www.elektronauts.com/t/dj-in-octatrack-without-decks/6344/53563
    So thats, tracksetup explained a bit… and how i got the samples… so its time to explain the scenes:
    I kinda did, what merlin describes in his octatrack-document: http://www.elektronauts.com/files/download/24
    a long but good read:
    Scene01 = full mix of all 4 original samples, everything else muted
    scene02= Bass, fx, drums, everything else muted
    scene03= bass, drums, everything else muted
    scene04= bass, everything else muted
    Scene05= Track6 realtime sampling trick ,everything else muted
    Scene08= synth + reverb , everything else muted
    scene09= Synth+ reverb, fx, everything else muted
    scene10= synth+reverb -2pitch, fx, drums filtered, everything else muted
    scene13= Track6 realtime grabbed loop, everything else muted
    So I can just swap scenes, and play with it… almost any combination of what i do “works”
    Basicly the same as what I did here:
    http://www.elektronauts.com/t/octatrack-jam-with-small-explanation/6508/54681
    And you probably guessed it… because all songs are uniform… I can just go from song to song… without thinking to much.
    should be a easy enough… So i can use my octatrack, to practice a bit on my mixing skills…
    cause, when i grab a loop manually… and put faderB on scene12… I hear old song… and I can change pattern…
    and slowly fade to scene09 and hear reverbed synthie of new track … (and then i switch to scene01 on the start of bar)
    of just slowly or quicky fade to scene01 … and hear the full new track…
    wash rinse repeat to get to next song :slight_smile:
    All i got to fix now is: Come up with a better way to use parts… (i got 4 parts per bank… at the moment, i used only 1 part for all songs… in my project… but i probably want to use delay on some tracks, instead of reverb)
    and i still got 2 tracks left, and a few scenes… there must be something funny I can do with those… although i am not thinking of grabbing more external gear or something… (though i could)…
    Its not rocket-science what i did… everybody can do it… with a little bit of thinking/time/tinkering… combining ideas.
    I hope I explained everything clearly… pull my hair, when i am wrong… and something is fuzzy…
    Enjoy trying it out for yourself…

better view at scene-usage in this topic
http://www.elektronauts.com/t/another-simple-octatrack-video/6636

Thats great! Thanks for the insight into your style of working with the OT!

Your welcome buddy…

Enjoy your machines…