OT as a hardware sequencer

Hi,

Im looking primary for a new hardware sequencer for a modular and some MIDI synths and my first thought was a Beatstep Pro. Looking at the Octatrack features I was thinking an included sampler for reduced equipment live situations wouldn’t hurt.

I own an Analog Rytm and I really love the sequencer in it, so I guess an OT would be a good companion.

Now I’m a little insecure about the OT MIDI sequencer and I couldn’t find good information in the manual about user scales, note repeat (ratchet) and sequence direction (forward, reverse, pendulum, etc).

I’m not expecting to compose a Rachmaninoff piano concert in it but some acid techno friendly sequencing features would be nice to have.

What are your thoughts about the OT as a hardware sequencer and do you have any other recommendation?

I am not an OT ninja yet, but some thoughts from my experiences:

The OT doesn’t have pendulum, euclidean or random sequencer stuff. You can only play back the sequencer tracks from start to finish (unless using song mode, which gives abit more flexibility). Also, unlike the rytm, trig conditions are not supported, although there is a way to abuse the LFOs for creating something resembling trig probability.

Unlike kits on the AR, the OT has up to four parts per pattern bank. This means that you can only have up to four different midi channel / program change settings per one OT bank. If you do not use pgm changes, this will not be a big issue to you, but it’s important to know this as it also limitss what you can pull off on the sampler side.

Now with all that out of the way, there is plenty awesome on the OT sequencer. You can lock midi notes to any major or minor scale, and use the 3 LFOs per track for modulating any midi seq related parameters (outside of midi ch & pgm chng settings). every sequencer track can have it’s own step lenght (up to 64) and clock division setting, so polymetry is well supported. Every track also has it’s own shuffle strenght and shuffle step track, so you can also have negative shuffle as well as esoteric shuffles that only apply to the trig steps of your choice.

Reload pattern is unfortunately not available, but instead you can copy the pattern into the pastebuffer for pasting back anytime, so kinda the same functionality. Rotating trig steps by fn + arrows works just like on the AR.

There’s note retrig, although it is not accessed like it is on the AR. Haven’t used this myself yet, You can also do retrigs with the arp.

There’s also an arpeggiator, which is brilliant for mangling around with some LFOs. You can create interesting note progressions by piling strategic LFO modulations to the arp settings. In addition to all the LFO settings on the AR, the OT also has an “LFO designer” where you can create a custom LFO shape, enabling very cool modulation tricks!

Every MIDI track has microtiming and up to 4 note chords per step (I don’t say polyphony because all the four notes must start and end at exactly the same time). You can also parameter lock midi CCs, but the definitions of the midi CC numbers at your disposal are tied to those 4 parts per pattern bank.

You can record into the MIDI tracks via a keyboard, but record quantization is only an on/off, affair, no fancy nondestructive adjustable quant strenght like on the AR.

The song mode has extra tricks up it’s sleeve. If you’ve ever used a tracker program on a computer, the same idea applies here as you can define subpattern ranges for repeats etc.

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I would add (hope I didn’t miss it) you can’t midi overdub. With the lack of polyphony, that’s why I bought again an Mpc 1000 Jjos2xl, but I didn’t used it really. Boring. Sold again.

I still don’t know if I will keep only Ot for midi sequencing, use several tracks on the same channel for overdub and polyphony, record audio results and continue. Restrictions can be creative too. Lfo, Arp, P-locks are working very well together. Different track lengths, random lfo on Arp speed can make unusual and evolutive rythmical stuff.

Squarp Pyramid, Cirklon, Kilpatrick Carbon, Gothartam Fuzion, Deluge Synthstrom, Mpc Live (still not alive?).

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As said, the sequencer only moves forward*. But if this level of programming doesn’t strike you as too hermetic (FWIW, it’s assuredly not more hermetic than what the Cirklon would have you do for this level of deep sequencing), you can (1) create a 16-step note sequence as a custom/designer LFO, (2) route that LFO to note transposition, and (3) route other LFOs to modulate the speed of the “note LFO.” You can parameter-lock (3) only to certain steps so that only on those steps will the selection of notes from your “canon” be modulated by the other LFO(s). See here for the step-by-step. (I will make a video on this some day, I swear.) This can produce some extremely complex melodies that can take considerably longer than 64 steps to resolve without chaining any patterns together. I use this technique often to simulate the Intellijel Metropolis’s Brownian motion / drunkard’s walk sequencer direction.

Step ratcheting is easy. Hold down a step and press :arrow_up: for 1/32nd note repeats (IIRC). For more control over the ratcheting speed, you’ll want to work with the arp as @tsutek mentioned, and it’s a pretty fast workflow there. Note that you can use internal LFOs to modulate these ratcheting duration and speed parameters on the arp, so you can scratch any 1990s Warp Records itches you might have.

No such thing as user scales in the OT unfortunately. Only major and natural minor keys are available. Although you could use the custom LFO trick described above to create a custom scale of sorts…

For trig probability, you can enlist the OT to do some statistical sampling that will force certain steps’ velocity to 0 (preventing a MIDI Note On event) with a defined probability. Here’s one way that allows you to choose between 100%, 75%, 66%, and 50% probabilities without sacrificing any custom LFOs (but will require you to sacrifice velocity dynamics on the sequenced synth, which you probably won’t miss if you’re sequencing a modular synth) and allows you to p-lock different probabilities on the same MIDI track. Here’s another way that eats up custom LFOs and doesn’t allow you to p-lock different probabilities on the same MIDI track, but doesn’t interfere with intended velocity dynamics and is more visually intuitive.

Another simple thing that I love in the OT’s MIDI sequencer is how quickly you can “mute” steps. Hold down FN and press the steps you want muted. Their LEDs will turn from red to bright green and they won’t trigger Note On events; press the steps you want to unmute and their LEDs will turn back to red and all the note data that you p-locked for those steps is preserved.

It’s definitely not perfect, though. And all that said, I would still look at the Beatstep Pro if I were you, unless you’re certain that you’ll be making use of the OT’s audio side as well.

*edit: but it could kind of move in any direction you want if you real-time record your MIDI-sequenced synth into the audio sequencer and reorder the slices’ playback via different LFO shapes. That’s the real time-twisting side of the OT.

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Very good description of the OT capabilities by @tsutek and @Autopoiesis. All Elektron boxes provide a superior sequencer BUT to buy an OT as sequencer only may be a suboptimal decision The OT is a performance sampler in the first place. If you don’t plan to “sample”, you will pay for muc money for options you likely will not use.

It’s not an easy advice to follow, but I would recommend first to check out or try to imagine how you would like to work with your sequencer.

If you are more in Acid, the OT may be perfect … as a sequencer … but if you are more live performing, requiring to juggle and improvise your “sequences”, sequencers like mentioned by @sezare56 could be the better choice .

OR if you don’t shy away by it’s price, the Komplex Sequencer by Koma Elektronik is very interesting. This sequencer can also be used to create sequences, which create or control other sequences. It provides CV/Gate and Midi, has many patch points and is very flexible in the studio and live.

Maybe I missed something but I can’t do it.

My mistake – I think you might need to hit a left or right arrow (to enter into the microtiming menu) before hitting the up arrow, which then increments a “trig count” parameter on the microtiming display. Haven’t been near my OT all week so can’t double-check.

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Ok it’s the Trig Count parameter in the Microtiming window.
Hold trig, press right or left arrow. Then press up and down arrows to set the number of repeats, up to 8 :
1 > 1/16th
2 > 1/32th
4 > 1/64th
8 > 1/128th

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never noticed that :smiley: great

Thanks to @Autopoiesis to remind it!
I saw it in the manual before and I thought I have to give it a try later, but I didn’t till yesterday.
It is faster than the arp.
Unfortunately you can set it step by step only.