Octatrack vs Mpc

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#31

[quote="“seaborg”"]

Hey SoundRider, a very good summary, would you care to elaborate on how you work those 2 sequencers together? Especially in regards to pattern changes, and general integration; from your post you sound very organised :astonished: [/quote]
Thanks,

yes, I will try … “depends” on what you want to know

  1. General set-up

My sequencers, samplers, and sound sources are connected two-fold.

Midi via old school midi cables, midi matrix, and as short as possible midi chains. Audio - well, typical mixers, submixers - nothing extraordinary.

The OT serves as a rock solid master-clock.

  1. Two sequencers at one time …

To be honest, I use them in parallel and alternatively without having the one control the other. But both are synchronised via midi clock. With this I can jam on both freely and patterns/scenes/sequences etc. are swapped by myself manually along with the overall groove.

But there are options to get control of various functions in the OT and the MPC via external midi gear. At least I remember this from the manuals.

The MPC 5000 allows to set-up a track and/or sequence to be controlled by program change messages from external gear. The sample and synths programs can be played via external midi gear also, if the MPC has been set to “multitimbral”-mode. That could be used via OT midi tracks, but 8 tracks could be a limitation.

A look in the OT manual, appendix C, shows that most of the functions we can do manually can be addressed via midi-note or midi-CC. If I understand it correctly, we can perform on the OT, let the OT transmit what we do (allmost everything) and record this with an external sequencer … to be played back later … or just dial in the “commands” in the external sequencer manually …

May be, I should built an experimental cross-over control set-up the other day myself. Could be interesting … :wink:

#32

#33

…since mpc’s have a mass storage system that is uptodate, these machines just rock like nothing else…

my octatrack is in no way comparable with it…

complete different planet…

#34

I bought a quneo and it works perfect for banging out a whole drum groove… I’m using the first four tracks as my drum sounds and the bottom 4 pads of the quneo allow my to record all 4 tracks into the OT in one performance.
not many other controllers allow you to conform to the octatrack like the quneo though.

#36

Im thinking an MPD32 with OT and a Padkontrol with Rytm.

The MPD32 should be a good version of the Oktakontrol

And this guys got a great combo with the PadKontrol and Rytm Rytm + Korg PadKontrol

Allows if you want to do MPC-style chopping on the Rytm. I have a Padkontrol scene set up where all of the pads trigger the same AR voice at a different velocities. On that voice, I turn off velocity>volume, then link velocity to sample start or sample slot. Lots of slice-y options on easy-to-play pads. You can tweak exactly what velocity each pad triggers at to control the precise start point of the chop.

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#37

This! I use the MPD32 for finger drumming, CC controls (incl. crossfader), pattern changes and sampling start/stop on the OT. A Midipal converts aftertouch, velocity and note off to send cue level (FX send to external delay), volume and volume=0, respectively.

OT + MidiPal + Drum Pad = Great!

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#39

You could also use an iPad/iPhone for that purpose (Midibridge)…

#41

Please would you expand on that, I can’t ‘see it’ … what exactly do you need to connect the MPD32 to the Octatrack and filter the midi?[/quote]
Anything that is able to transform velocity, note off and aftertouch signals into Midi CC’s. It’s not required to connect the MPD32 to the OT, just enhances the experience.

#44

It really depends on your needs. The MPC in terms of song structuring is a lot more flexible. Change the track from A1 to A2 on the Octa and everything changes, where an MPC can do ableton-type sample or MIDI triggering. Also, each can break up samples differently.

I have toyed with getting an Octatrack several times, I always stick with Ableton (but delegate all percussion to my Rytm). Octatrack is a great tool unless it doesn’t fit your needs, and out of all the Elektron gear it seems the most polarizing in if it works with a setup or not.

#45
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#46

My choice is Octatrack + Mpc. :wink:

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#47

I’m going to try that eventually because it seems like a really good combination, but since I’m mainly working on stuff I plan to play live the MPC2000xl is to bulky for me to lug around along with the OT, Anshri, CZ101 and cables. If I was going to do OT + MPC I’d do it like your photo and use only those two things with nothing else, but that’s something for the future. Just based on my experience with each of them separately, though, they really do seem to complement each other well (also I actually really like sample editing on the 2kxl).
I bet you can get a really god workflow down by building beats in the MPC and then sampling them as loops in the OT.

Personally I have no interest in the MPC Live, the last MPC that was interesting to me was the 4000 (although I never got to try one).

EDIT: as someone who has used the 2kxl for almost a decade the statement about MPC sound quality in that video is pretty unny. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way the 2000/2000xl sound but I wouldn’t call them “good” in the way he means. They’re really colored, if I’m not mistaken the well known “punch” of that particular generation comes from an OS bug where even with the filter resonance at zero and the cutoff at full there’s still some resonance that’s giving you a bit of a high boost and tightening up the bass a bit (and the filter quality is, let’s call it “functional”), and the effects on the expansion board are completely wretched sounding (but in a way I like). What makes it good is the overall workflow and the pads. My god, the pads. Although even those double trigger like crazy until you spend some time practicing with them and getting a feel for them, so it’s debatable whether they’re really objectively “good” in terms of function - they’re just really expressive once you get a feel for them. I imagine the 3000 is better in all aspects but the only 3000 I’ve had my hands on didn’t have a boot disk so I couldn’t use it, just poke at the pads and buttons and get an idea of how they felt. I definitely wouldn’t say that an MPC 2000 or 1000 sounds better than an Octatrack though, just different, and from a standpoint of fidelity the OT is way ahead of the 2000xl.

But I absolutely love the 2kxl and I’d never sell it, it’s one of the few pieces of gear I plan to keep until either it or I break beyond repair.

#48

Thanks I prefer the MPC Live to OT MK2. But, bboth can do things that the other can’t.

However, in my experience, one can do a lot more and connect to a computer if you choose to go that route on any given day. I like that flexibility.

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#49
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#50

Had an mpc1k for Years, it s really slow to load, the 128 mb samples… Sample manipulation is anoying, a bit c64 style… ;), jjos is the best, pads, thick pads, are great! Now w ot it s another game. Stream the flow out of the stuff while realtime random slicing und p locks on the fly, ot is far better hardware than mpc, much! Better support! The ot architecture is much more advanced. Serious stuff. Mpc is more suited for only beatz. Ot is the experimental eldorado… And a sort of suiss music knife, looper, player, sampler, remixer etc…

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#52

Also longer patterns. Composition by time signature. Alterable time signature.

Don’t mind me, tho. I’m just experience remorse for selling my MPC 2500

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#53

Board and Octatrack can NEVER live in the same sentence.

I went from an MOC to an OT. And now two OT’s to do my bidding.

You do the Math with that info!

Good luck!

#54

Quoted because this is simply not the case, it just illustrates that you do not understand the Octatrack, the record buffers are totally independent from the tracks unless you assign the record buffers to the tracks. So if you understand this, you would see that as well as having 8 tracks running, you could resample 8 separate things at the same time, from almost any combination of cue, main, individual track, or any of the 4 inputs. Also you can sample more than 4 bars, FYI :wink:

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#55

Hmmmm. I guess it’s not for you then.
There’s such a wide variety of so many things in the world; I hope you don’t whine this much about all of the ones that don’t work for you. You’d lose half your life to typing negative remarks on forums and suchlike. :thinking:

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#56

How is that going for you?