[decided - I will keep it!] OT mk II, thinking about returning it (why I decided to keep it is now in the main article)

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#53

I recently heard something—without knowing what reverb it was—and remarked how much I liked it and how much it suited the sound source. “Damn that’s my kind of reverb.”

Then the poster mentioned it was done on an Octatrack and it was the Dark Reverb. My jaw dropped. I guess I like the sound of not-that-high-fi reverbs!

I’m still going to grab some high-end reverb pedal for the cue send… I like high-end reverbs also, I just think each one has its character and that higher-end is not always better for all musical applications.

My Octatrack MKII has arrived in the city. I will take delivery of it in mere days. I’m ruthlessly excited.

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#54

You could always sell/return it and get something simpler like a Beat Squeezer or Granny sampler? I have an OT MK2 but want another sampler to use in parallel for fun.

http://www.hypnotriod.org/beatsqueezer/

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#55

Micro granny is cheap and looks fun:

https://www.bastl-instruments.com/instruments/microgranny/

#56

Totally third this . ! You just having purchase sweats man, the OT is not to be compared in my view with anything out there, even a DAW in the box because you’ll find your own way of using within you setup, thats the magic in it! Just stick with it and don’t rely on the FX so much, I actually like them for what they are to enhance samples and add subtle moods and spacing for sounds in the mix. Personally I use a few choice stereo guitar pedals routed out of 1/2 3/4 (cue) for live FX manipulation. It took me a month to fall deep in love but that was only after concentrating fully on just the Octatrack, no computer or other gear distractions.

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#57

I LOVE the effects on the OT, they sound bad ass to me.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
The best part is using a Thru machine and 3 Neighbors, start making scenes with almost all of the effects at your disposal.

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#58

I sold my OT mk1 also because of the not so great sound quality. It’s not only the FX sounds meh… the sound engine quality is not great.

Moved to Ableton Live/Push2

Not interested in the MK2 either and keep my eye on the Percussa SSP https://www.percussa.com
That might be interesting when it’s got further in development.

But the way you can manipulate samples on the OT is just major awesome. So for me it was 50/50 decision that I sold the OT.

#59

Yes :thup: Think I have under-appreciated that - you can lfo them really fast too

On (off) the subject of OT reverbs. Anyone got some settings I can dial in? I know it’s all context specific and use your ears but I like dialling in starting points. Thanks!

#60

I have an OTO Bam and I find the Octatrack’s Dark Reverb equally useful, if completely different.

I think part of it is just the fashion right now. There are a lot of lush, high quality reverbs of various flavors around right now and people tend to really put reverb in the forefront in a way that wasn’t as common even a few years ago, and the OT’s reverbs aren’t really meant for that. I find Dark Reverb surprisingly good for sitting in the back of a mix and gluing everything together, I regularly have to mute my send track in the OT to remind myself of how much it’s actually changing the sound because it’s the kind of reverb that you can pile on fairly heavily but (once you’ve dialed it in) it stays kind of subliminal even when you’re actually adding pretty excessive amounts, until you mute it. At least, that’s my experience.

The aux send trick is key, though.

At any rate, you aren’t the only one, I like some of the OT effects a LOT and even the stuff that I don’t find as interesting personally still has a lot of potential once you start to use LFOs and scenes and plocks.

2 Likes
#61

I’ve been noticing this too. Maybe it’s just my “punk” methodology when it comes to reverb(just pumping it up, blur the sounds a little bit- make it sound all funny and stuff), I can’t imagine what I’d do with a real high quality/pristine reverb.

OT’s reverbs are just fine to me. I dunno.

#62

I don’t understand why people look at the Octatrack’s complexity as a negative issue. For me, it is a positive attribute. If I spend all that money on a piece of gear, I want something complex and powerful that I will get some mileage out of, and that will continue to reward me for many years to come. The relative simplicity of the DT compared to the OT is a sign that the machine is inferior. Yes it is more immediate and easier to master, but that means that there are far more limitations on its use and ultimately its lifespan.

9 Likes
#63

I have to say - that is a neat little item… It sounds like a sweet little addition… not sure it is an OT replacement but it sure would compliment it.

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

Brett

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#64

I like using a bunch of Thru machines with the same source running through different effects in parallel, too.

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#65

If you set the filter up with a 12db slope, Q on the base (highpass) only, and set base around 30 (it will be program specific but the sweet spot is usually around 28-32 for me) and turn the Q up you can get some HUGE bass out of almost any source as long as there’s at least a little low frequency content in it to work with, but without it getting completely muddy. A tiny bit of distortion in the setup menu (really mild, like 2 or 3 if that) can help, too. It’s just the standard “resonant hipass as a bass boost” trick but the OT does it well.

It’s actually enough that you could probably damage a monitor speaker if you’re too aggressive with the Q and monitor loud, actually.

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#66

I think it’s a combination of the whole 80s revival thing (when digital reverbs first showed up in wide use, everything was drenched in them), the recent availability of really nice sounding high quality reverbs at low prices, and the fact that there are more people than ever out there making music who don’t have much mixing experience yet and tend to be pretty heavy handed.

None of that is actually bad in my book,I like overuse of reverb, I like weird “unprofessional” mixes a lot, and I like a lot of 80s production, but it does seem like a factor in why reverbs that do best when they’re used more subtly, like the reverbs in the OT, might seem useless to a lot of people. Not to say they’re incredible reverbs or anything but they definitely have their strengths and can be really good for gluing stuff together, but aren’t so amazing for big, long, up front, Lexicon PCM type sounds or highly realistic sounds. They’re kind of in between. For me they feel at home in places where a mid-tier 90s reverb like a Quadraverb or Boss SE-50 or something would have been used, and stuff like that was all over all kinds of classic 90s electronic music so it definitely has a place.

4 Likes
#67

Yeah I have a typical routing I like to give me a wee bit of everything.
Tk1 Thru - LoFi > Comb
Tk2 Neighbor - Flange > Delay (lock on, sync on)
Tk3 Neighbor - Filter > Delay (lock off, sync off)
Tk4 Neighbor - EQ > DarkVerb

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#68

Thanks!
Other good stuff to try here too :slight_smile:

#69

Did the other MKII units (a4 ar) get a fx revamp? I kinda thought they were the same as the MKI which was already quite good… I have a Digitakt and a A4 MKI and I find the fx to be really great on the MKI, especially considering you get all that extra modulation and sequencer dedicated to the fx never tried out a MKII though but also never saw that listed as a feature improvement over MKI. That said the A4 MKI sits very nicely next to the Digitakt and maybe extra voices and sound processing you can do with it would be enough to add some extra spark to your set up with out overly complicating it.

#70

If you set up a track to work as a send (good instructions in the first post here, and if you go a few posts down the thread there’s a link to an older thread with a lot of discussion about it, too), try putting Spatializer in slot 1 and Dark Reverb in slot 2. That’s pretty much my default aux send. Put Spatializer in M/S mode, turn the side up a bit and the mid down a bit (just 2 or 3 in each direction works for me) and set up the stuff on the main page to taste. I also find turning up the predelay in Dark Reverb just a tiny bit, 1-3, works really well in this context; the microtiming for the trig on the send track (it will make sense when you read the post I linked) adds a bit of predelay as it is. The end result is a much more open reverb sound that really blend sin to the mix without it getting muddy. With reverb on a send it’s also usually a good idea to set the HP so that most of the low end of the tracks you’re sending to it doesn’t get to the reverb, and also obviously set the mix to 100% wet.

Just adding a bit of send reverb to all of the tracks this way (or using an external effect obviously, this basically works the same way in practice, you’re just trading one track in exchange for not needing to use any of your inputs, plus you can take advantage of scenes and modulation and everything else) goes so far toward making what you do in the OT sound like a finished mix.

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#71

Thanks! Will try

Yes the internal send thing is a nice setup. Downside is the flashing cue lights everywhere. Never been a fan of those.

#72

If you change to studio mode in the setup menu then no more flashing cue lights and you have adjustable send levels for all of the tracks instead of just cue on/off. But make sure you turn down the cue level for the send track itself when you’re in studio mode, otherwise you’ll get LOUD feedback. But once you have a feel for it, you can play with microtiming, multiple trigs and feeding the send track back into itself with its cue level to create your own delays from scratch. And even though you only have one send level control via cue, there’s nothing stopping you from having more than one track in parallel set up as sends, or using the internal send track and outboard effects on the cue outs at the same time.

The down side to studio mode is that if you change the level of a rack it won’t change the amount of it being sent to cue, so it’s possible to find yourself in a situation where, for example, you’ve slowly faded a track out using its level control but it’s still being sent to the effect track at full volume, so you hear its reverb but not the dry signal. Which can be a problem or a useful technique, depending on whether you meant to do it or not. Adjusting the volume on the amp page or muting a track affect both main and cue, it’s only using the main track level control in studio mode that you have to remember to adjust the cue level separately.

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