Noob questions

So today a VERY strange thing happened ! I’ve been working for weeks in a test project, from where all those questions emerged. Everyday i open the project and work on it, test new things and so on.

Today when i opened it, all my audio / midi tracks were empty, with no notes and even no midi channels programmed. Same for patterns, all blank now. The only thing that remains is the song arrangement (as the photo shows) but no sound comes out because the patterns are all empty. I tried turn off and on again, but no luck :frowning:

When i open another project, it plays normally…

What could be happened ? Yesterday everything was fine.

Doesn’t seem normal. Did you try project Reload (If saved) ?
For important projects, you can use Save to New, to make a copy of the project, and keep a previous state. Save just after.

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There is always a moment with OT when you’ve worked for a long time and take for granted that everything is saved, when actually it’s not.
You have to save what you sample, as memory is volatile.
You have to save your Parts (that are the ancestors of Kits on the Analog series).
And most of all save your Project. Frequently. And possibly “save as new” to make versions of it, as @sezare56 suggested…

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Did you save the project before you changed it?

Are the samples still in their slots?

For me, the only explanation for empty patterns would be the reload of a previously saved state, with empty patterns, but the arrangement remains. :thinking:
Faulty Card ? There would be error messages I guess. There is no function that let you erase several patterns AFAIK.

Projects are auto saved. I’ve never lost a project, even with OT turned off accidentally (and it happened many times with the power socket I fixed) or after a project change. It is safer to save of course. Once saved, CF card .work files are duplicated to .strd files.

I usually don’t save Parts, unless if I want to reload them for live tweaking. They are saved with the project anyway.

Shit happens

I never save projects, i thought the Octa auto-saved them. Will do it from now on.

The odd thing in my case is the project was not reverted to a previous version. Simply all patterns are gone, and all Midi channels configuration. Only the samples remained.

And another odd thing i forgot to mention : at the first time i powered it, when i hit the Play button, the pattern plays (with no sound) but stoped on the third step. Hit play again, it play, and stops by itself on the third step. I powered off, powered on and now the pattern plays at full length, but no notes are on it anymore.

So i’ll always save my projects and backup it often. Hope this issue is not a hardware fault on my unit.

Yes, the samples are there, but all patterns are blank. I had lots of Midi patterns, to sequence synths.

So i’m recovering about the crash and rebuilding my project.

I’m building a ‘template’ project with all my settings : midi channels, CC knobs, scenes, all mapped to my synths’ desired functions.

I tried to create a scene locking a MIDI CC parameter, but somehow could not achieve this. Here is what i’m doing :

1 - Select the midi track
2 - Click on ‘B’ scene, then on Step 1.
3 - Hold ‘B’ scene and try to change the CC knob to the desired parameter i want to the scene. But the Octa won’t let me change the knob value, it’s locked. If i let unpress the B button, i can change the knob.

Is not possible to lock Midi CCs on scenes, or am i doing something wrong ?

Thanks !

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Scenes only apply to Audio Tracks, and the first six parameters on Playback / Amp / LFO’s / FX1 / FX2 (i.e. Not on the Setup parameters)

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@Rusty, do you know if Octatrack creates a default empty bank if a bank file is missing or corrupted ? That would be an explanation of that above @disco bug with empty patterns / default parts for midi tracks channels…

Not to my knowledge, no. If missing, Bank is missing. If corrupt, which the Octatrack can do to it’s own banks in certain scenarios, then it is corrupt.

I could spend a little bit of time and sanity check that answer.

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Octa is a lovely machine, as well a very temperamental one. I’ve been learning it for 2 months and i still have moments when something odd happens (ie the sounds stops or loops forever) and all i do is keep staring to the machine having absolutely no idea about what is happening… lol

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Don’t worry about it, I spend most of my time staring intently at it as well.

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Is it possible to send program changes to a synthesizer ? I want when i play the Octa, the first step send program change to my synth (a Rev2) moves to the preset User bank 4, preset 72, for instance. Can i do this ?

Yes. There are two ways:

  • Send a Program Change whenever the OT changes its pattern. The Program Change number matches the OT’s pattern.

  • Send a Program Change only when the OT changes its pattern to a pattern that is linked to a different Part. This allows you to specify any Program Change number.

Search on “Program Change” in the manual to get the details.

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This is what i do for the Rytm, it’s working very well . But i can’t use this for the Rev2, as the pattern number won’t match the Octa numbers.

Sounds good, will try now ! Thanks !

You can move the Programs in the Rev2; copy them to a user storage area if you are using presets.

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So I checked, if a bank file is missing while loading a project you get the following message :
SOME ERRORS OCCURRED “FILE NOT FOUND” DO YOU WANT TO ABORT LOADING THIS PROJECT ?
YES / NO
Pressing NO, you have an empty new bank. :wink:
Hence empty patterns and default parts.

If the bank file is modified / corrupted, it’s a bit more complicated and deserves a specific topic.

I guess those problem are related to CF Card / Computer Eject ? :sketchy:

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Yes, you are correct. I don’t do that because of the empty bank scenario; and you know, I backup and stuff, and have an Octatrack archiving tool and so forth.

No, not necessarily. Bugs in the Octatrack OS can cause corruption of Banks in certain scenarios.

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