OT - What have you learned during the SciLab Challenge?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

To keep the device specific info separated there will be other threads in respective areas of this forum.

As the Challenge is over now let’s share our learning.

OCTATRACK

What new techniques, processes, tricks or approaches did you learn during the production of your track?

Feel free to share your project data here :wink:

For the start, here is one that comes to my mind now. I might return later with others.

Piercy BD
I spent a lot of time with tweaking the bass drum. Found the right punchy part of sample, tweaked the filter, envelope, played around with various looping/time stretching/rate settings. But it was still lacking some penetration power. I knew I need to add some transient, short initial ‘click’, to it. As FX I used 1. filter, 2. Lo-Fi so I’ve added rather fast one shot LFO to the bit reduction amount, practically using it as a fast envelope (maybe it was a distortion, maybe I’ve assigned both to two LFO’s, I can’t recall now and I’m not at OT to check it). This did the trick to make the BD more pronounced and not swallowed by the bass track.

Here is the project file if somebody is interested in deeper dissection:

1 Like
OT Special Tricks
#2

Your track is awasome! I become able to use [OCTATRACK] flanger’s feedback in a chromatic way, something new for me…I’ll post my song when I’ll have time

#3

My main discoveries have been using the slide trigs.

I’ve used them for simple pitch and filter movements before but I usually leave my complex modulations to Ableton and VSTs like Diva / Zebra etc then resample to the OT.

I really got into moving retrig time / filt time / delay time in different directions simultaneously to make big swooping bizarre bass sounds. I’m probably going to use this a lot in future as its a lot more direct than importing fully bounced stems from the mac.

#4

Sounds dumb, but for me the arranger. I used it extremely simply for the competition, but I’m now digging into it pretty hard. Loads to be had there.

#5

I made my track in a couple of hours but got to know the arranger more than i had previously.
Agree with mmkato. The arranger is so flexible and powerful.

Usually i create a few patterns and parts on the OT then bounce to logic as individual tracks for arrangement.
I will use the arranger on the OT a lot more in future.

For kicks i found the comb filter followed by a filter worked on a short decay envelope. Never really a fan of the OT distortion fx.

1 Like
#6

Things I learned:
[ul]
[li]How to use the arranger to keep a live performance on track. (rather than trying to manually change patterns)[/li]
[li]That playing the crossfader and echo freeze delay live is properly musical and not just “pressing play”.[/li]
[li]The arranger offset parameter doesn’t work properly, at least on patterns with different lengths per track :([/li]
[li]The LO-FI effect is good at turning things into snare sounds.[/li]
[li]Creating radically different hits on a track by P-locking a handful of hits then copy/pasting trigs. [/li]
[li]How to consolidate a project into a single folder[/li]
[li]How to quickly and efficiently save my work [/li]
[li]That slices are not just for break beats :)[/li]
[li]That working with a single sample and no destructive editing makes saving one’s work a TON easier![/li]
[/ul]

Here’s my Track:
[ul]
[li]https://soundcloud.com/suboscillator/we-should-not-be-looking-at-the-device[/li]
[/ul]

Here’s my project file:
[ul]
[li]https://db.tt/jRdNZw5y[/li]
[/ul]

#7

Glad I’m not the only one who struggled with offset in the arranger. Are we doing it wrong? Is it a bug?

#9

The way I understand it, setting it to 33 and setting the length to 32 would result in the 2nd half of a 64 step pattern playing. But if some tracks are less than 64 steps, they start off-beat. At least I think that’s what’s happening.
I have to experiment with it, perhaps it’s a simple matter of increasing the length of all the tracks to 64 so they’re the same length.

#10

Good thread. A good idea to reflect on the experience.

  • I used the merlin technique (from ot thoughts) with scenes to build using a single pattern. I ended up finding transitioning from one to the next, changing scene a to the same, etc a bit cumbersome. I think next time I would map 8 faders on my controller to track level or amp vol for each track.
  • First time using the dj equalizer. It produced some interesting results.
  • I’m not sure how others did this, but I was only able to give a wild guess on time until I exported the audio from the daw. I guess I could have used my handheld recorder. I guess that would be an advantage of using the arranger. Your arrangement would be a bit more fixed, making it easier to tailor to a time limit.
  • This is the first time I have been ok with the results in using single cycle type sounds on the ot. Or at least creating synth like sounds from a sample.
  • I didn’t spend much time on it. I haven’t had a lot of time for music these days.
  • Other firsts for me: First time uploading to soundcloud, also cohesively connecting multiple patterns in the ot.
  • Things that didn’t work: comb filter experiments totally didn’t end up working out, getting a deep drum sound (including bass drum) didn’t end up happening. But I rolled with it…
  • A technique I used was to create a bunch of interesting sounds using the tracks available and then turning them into a composition.
#12

I was very disappointed not being able to finish anything. Time was not the pb, I believe my approach was. I tried to build something I had in mind instead on letting my mind be driven by the sound.
But still I learned a lot. First : I have to practice much more.
The most interesting discovery was the use of LFOs (one and half) to boost the attack or get a slight vibration effect. So far I thought of LFOs as a periodical signal, that was very new to me to use it as an envelope.

Arranger is really great to have a continuity from a pattern to another, it’s still an area to discover.

I had lots of trouble with getting a high pitched note, I was stuck with highest pitch+highest rate+minimal length of the selected slice… There must be a trick there but I still haven’t succeeded in digging the magic technique. Any insights on this matter ?

I played a lot with parts and patterns, It’s clear now what is on their respective area.
I haven’t found a way to copy-paste trigs of a pattern for one track, though. Is this even possible ?

As Baddcr pointed out, getting involved in some battles would be a good way to keep on discovering new tricks…

#14

Ooooh !
Using the arranger to work on a part of a pattern is something I was looking for ! Thanks mate !!
copy the whole track -> get it
trigs copy -> OK
page copy -> used it a lot for the LFO trick
But I don’t get the “copy parts of patterns” trick. It answer my needs, but I don’t understand your explaination : could you please develop it ?

#17

Got it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#18

I haven’t been able to get this to work on my ot, I thought this was only something the analog machines could do! When I hold multiple trigs and press copy it shows copy trig then go to paste on a blank page and it only pastes one… Wonder what I’m doing wrong :confused:

#21

I learned how to make compressor of OT pump like hell. Actually I learned this with Sp404 but never tried to make the OT’s compressor do the sidechain type of pumping. I used to do this with the LFOs but now I will always let the compressor do this instead. It did a really great job.

example here:

https://soundcloud.com/leemajik/ot_leemajik_talkingaboutdivine?in=mikkelzen/sets/science-lab-challenge-feb-2015

#22

Nice track! Could you explain in a little more detail? I presume you are not talking about a compressor on the Master track. Are you ducking with plocks on compressors on all the tracks except Kick?

#23

Tnx “rikrak” but I can’t hear this track any more… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: it came out to trancy. and I hate trance… lol hhh

no im talking exactly about compression on master track.
It’s all about the levels how you prepare the melodic sounds and kick and snare.

I set every melodic track to be almost silent and kick and snare set to max. Then on compressor I let trough the kick’s and snare’s punch to bleed trough and duck everything else being lower in volume. Attack set to 127 and release around middle. Threshold around 32 and ratio around 78 then bring up the gain to get the desired volume. But it’s always the case that you have to tweak to get desired effect.

#24

Ahhh I get it now - thanks for the explanation!

#25

sure no problem

#26

Brilliant! Thanks:)

#27

I created my submitted wav file by using a dynamic recorder to capture my entire performance. The levels were low and need work to sound polished, but I am excited by the prospect of being able to spit completed works out of the octa similar to album mode on the OP-1. I also have all kinds of ideas for taking my long performance wav and loading it I to a static machine for processing with tons of scene locks in the arranger. I can’t wait to get some results out of this.