But I’m curious to hear about gtr level into OT, most opinions prefer going to desk and taking line level to OT.
Line is better of course. I tried with a passive guitar straight in Ot. Max gain and compressor, you have sound. 
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PUM buffer loaded to many tracks pre-sliced is precisely what I’m looking forward to trying later today, actually.
This will make some of the things I’ve tried much easier; for one, ReTiming a PUM recording is a good way to practice jumping to a new tempo immediately after stopping record… sometimes even better n the subsequent overdub.
I’ve a feeling that loading the PUM buffer to a track presliced gets around this elegantly while offering up more options.
There was a challenge years ago from the Yahoo Logic group or another… it’s goal was to create long evolving textures through the use of Aux feedback, limiters, gates… I learned a lot about that program doing that. Started looking at the Aux channels like water flow spilling into each chamber and then slowly ( or quickly ) filling it to its spillway that fills the next chamber and so on…
I’ve had about one of those moments per month in the 6 months I’ve owned OT.
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Electric guitar level (traditional passive pickups, no preamp) s too weak, even when you use the Gain param on the track amp page. You might hear something audible but you probably won’t like it.
A mixer (what you call a “desk”) is one way to boost the signal. But really anything you can use as a preamp before entry into the OT will work. My mixer for example has mic preamps, and it also has a gain level control on the aux send.
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I have a small army of boost and drive pedals. May experiment with going from pedalboard to OT direct then trying as aux sends from desk. Chances are I’ll go straight in, art is long and whatnot. This way worked fine with sp16 for clean sounds, fuzz not so much.
As GovernorSilver suggests a guitar signal is too weak, and also has completely different impedance characterstics than line level…
Here’s a brief description of levels from the other day:
Most guitar pedals have instrument ins and outs, so would not be appropriate for best sound, a pedal board may have a line out, which would work fine…
You can very well plug all sorts of things into the OT and hear them, but an electric guitar is designed in a way that it’s actual tone is affected by not connecting it to a proper instrument impedance input, so conversion is required to maintain the proper signal…
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My own rig is admittedly atypical of a guitarist’s rig. Instead of some pedals and a guitar amp, my rig looks more like this:
Instrument -> guitar-level pedals -> mic/preamp input of my mixer -> House mixer and PA (aka “The Desk”)
But if you don’t want to get a mixer, you could try getting a signal splitter, so one signal continues to the rest of your pedal board, and the other goes into a preamp or other kind of signal booster, then OT. I thought about going the route of pedalboard signal splitter, switchable FX loops, etc. but the cost of all that stuff adds up towards a decent mixer. Your call in any case.
One reason I prefer a mixer over a bunch of splitters and FX loop pedals - the Volume knob on the OT only works for headphones - does not work for Main Out. By putting it in a mixer aux send, I have a lot more control over the OT levels.
Another reason is I can quickly set the levels of my dry instrument signal vs. the OT, and be 100% sure that my dry signal really is dry.
Just made a “if you were on an island with only Ot and a guitar” test with a passive Lapstick travel guitar straight into OT.
No preamp, No samples, only guitar. Gain 32, comp, eq, realtime pitch up, pitch down for bass sound, filter hipass on incoming distorted noise for hihats.
Little loop with a Pickup.
Next is jack only. I already made sound with nothing plugged. 
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That sounds pretty good for running off coconuts! 
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Yeah that sounded great! Im gonna have to start learning PUM soon
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Man, it seems so hard to get a footswitch thats not behemoth to work with OT. Sucks that Disaster Area stopped supporting it.
Softstep is too many pieces with the needed MIDI expander, FCB1010 is way too big, what do? I really wanna do all my looping with the OT so I dont have to mess with trying to sync my Boss RC202 up, but i cant seem to find a simple two button pedal for PUM!
Elektron, please make an Octafoot controller 
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Mind controller please
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It would sound the same with a Flex, but with PUM you have a permanent monitoring.
T1 = PUM Comp Eq
T2 = NEIGHBOR Filter Chorus
T3 = FLEX, Recording T2, played with pitch - 12
T4 = FLEX, Recording T2, Fx
T5 = FLEX, Recording T2, played with pitch + 12
T6 = FLEX, Recording T2, filters for “drums”
T8 = Master Fx Reverb
Yamaha Mfc 10 is quite big but well implemented.
Softstep 2 is very well implemented.
With a midi processor you can use Disaster Areas or almost any midi foot controller.
I’d like a Rc 202 too, sync is quite easy.
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I love the sound you are getting with the Octatrack and guitar, and it is really handy to see the settings you are using, my head is exploding with the possibilities at the moment - in both a good way and feeling out of my depth to some extent. This is really handy as a starting point for me.
A quick question - what would be the advantage of adding an RC202 to your setup? Would this work better for looping than the Octatrack alone? Wouldn’t you lose a lot of functionality my moving the loop to the pedal?
Mainly for looping freedom, add tracks, undo possibilities. It let you make a loop, mangle and record in Ot, make another loop, etc…
In term of sound processing, it doesn’t change much.
RC 202 is almost same size as Mpc 500 I have, and I want a analog heat.
Setup I’d like, with Rc 202 instead of DT.
Maybe a 2nd Octatrack instead of Rc 202 but I’d need another Dark Elektron. I’m a bit obsessed by black and Elektron size format.
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That would be a sick setup. Guess im just going to integrate my 202 into my rig for now instead of trying to get my Ot foot controllable.
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I’d be careful about offloading looper duties from the OT too early in the game.
It might keep one further from learning all the amazing things the OT can do with loops that a regular looper can’t.
I suggest learning the OT’s looping potential in and out and then later deciding if a synced regular looper would be beneficial…
Here’s a tip for mostly hands free recording without a foot controller that might help:
With qrec and qpl at plen, and rlen set to 64, you can press ab during a pattern cycle, and then a 4 bar recording will happen on the next pattern cycle and begin overdubbing automatically, so you can have both hands during the recording and you can either play into overdub, or just stop playing when it enters overdub and then press cd for playback and let it overdub silence for that cycle…
With one2mode, rlen at max, and setting qrec and qpl to 128 or 256, etc… You press ab, wait for the next pattern cycle, the recording begins, and if you quickly press ab or cd immediately after the recording begins, you’ll get an 8 or 16 bar recording that begins overdub or playback automatically so your hands are free…
Sometimes I begin playing a synth line with my right hand while the left quickly presses cd then moves over to the keyboard…
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Check that you have ConsCiousness Direct Connect enabled in Control/Mind Sequencer menu…
Thank yoouuuuu. I kinda wanna go all in on OT!
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