This ting is amazing

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

New owner alert! Expect gushing praise and/or utter confusion.

AK was my gateway drug. Got the OT a week ago after much research on forums/YT. No regrets despite selling some prized kit to fund the purchase.

My ‘practice’ project is turning into the best-sounding track I ever did.

This sequencer is so tight. I’ve been making tunes for 20 years. I’ve owned many ‘classic’ drum machines and synths. I’ve tried every DAW and was a Cubase user from the Atari days. This machine beats them all for tightness.

FWIW the sampling is also excellent. I’ve read a few posts with qualms about the converters etc but to my ears this thing sounds great with full mixes coming out of it. (Pay attention to gain structure and all is well!)

Again I’ve heard a lot of criticism of the on-board effects, but they are actually really good as long as they’re used sparingly as ‘effects’!

So a week in and I’ve kinda got sampling sussed. Likewise slices and scenes. Had it hooked up controlling my old DX11 and the MIDI side seems really straightforward.

I expected a steep learning curve - and okay, I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this thing can do - but already I’m firing out really good track building blocks and feeling incredibly lucky to be alive and to own this little (And it is TINY!) box of tricks. My wife played with it the other day for ages - the first time she’s ever been so intrigued by a piece of music gear!

So my advice to anyone considering pulling the trigger on an OT - Do it. Even if you have to sell other gear to get it. As long as you can deal with the limitation of working in 4 bar sections. Its an amazing machine and really pretty easy to get started with despite its fearsome reputation.

#2

Nice!

#3

I sold my 1965 wurlitzer 200A to fund mine :slight_smile:

#5

To build off what Baddcr said, you can stretch the 4 bars with the Scale ADV mode and 1/2 speeds.

Plus, sound locks turn 7 to 8 tracks into “lots” of tracks!

Love the OT

#6

Cheers for the tips, I agree - the 4 bar thing is work-aroundable and not really a limitation as such! Just thought some folks expecting a linear-type sequencer might find it hard to work with.

#8

save, save, save your stuff this machine kills patterns!

#9

Yeah… BUT - When in doubt, press the button combination again to undo. (should have, could have, would have)

#10

… or just record your stuff via an external recorder and you can always load good segments back into the OT, and maybe even add further mangling. it’s just audio. you don’t really need source files.

I experience myself throwing audio away inside the OT all the time, overwriting it with new samples/pickup machine contents. it’s not as static as a DAW software where you draw in all your lines etc. of course you can also use it like a DAW, with a lot of discipline. it that’s worth it for you or you just let it flow is your decision.

#12

All good advice. I had the Analog Keys for a few months before getting the OT so was well warned re saving constantly. (saving kits with patterns in the case of the AK)

A bit trickier in the OT as you’ve gotta keep an eye on recording buffer contents as well as patterns.

So far I haven’t done anything complex enough to get lost in but I can see things start to get complicated pretty quickly once you start resampling etc.

Still, great problems to have…

#13

even if you save, unpleasant surprises will happen like incorrect saved parts.

Now i save all parts and after that i save project, call me paranoid :astonished:

#14

Yes, and accidentally loading a previously saved version of the part in stead of saving the new version - so annoying

#15

i am very new to octa, after md, mm, and i am amazed what i got!
i find the ot very good for live jamming, the fx, the filters are very musical, the workflow is intuitive, and u feel, beside the quality of the hardware, that the machine was made by musicians for musicians!
it s really good engineered, worth every cent, i like to have quality hardware…

#16

I’ve had my Octatrack for 6 months or so and it has become the center of everything music-related I do. I absolutely love it. Like someone else here said recently, it feels like a machine made just for me. Probably at Area 51.

The OT and I are BFF.

#17

Its a bit like the early MPCs in that respect (60 and 3000) - Its a brilliant hub for all your gear. I’ve got the added luxury of the Analog Keys - so I’ve got the Octa syncing that via midi and the AK passes sync24 to my tr606, passes midi to my DX11 and still have the option to control a CV/Gate device with the AK.

I’m mainly into producing soul/electro/boogie shit so maybe not using the Octa’s crazy warping capabilities to the max but as a solid (and the timing is soooo solid) sequencer/sampling drum machine its peerless IMHO.

Forgot to say thanks to everyone on this brilliant forum for their perseverance in sussing this little beauty out and for all the great tips and info. I doubt I would’ve taken the plunge without all this detailed info and the benefit of other users’ experience and knowledge. I would never have known what I was missing out on…so thanks Elektronauts!

Now back to work…

#18

Yes! I’ve had mine for around a month now, sold an LXR to fund it and despite being very happy I did miss the feature of trig probability for making random/constantly evolving patterns. After spending some time in this thread OT Special Tricks it turns out this is very easily doable using a custom LFO mapped to amp vol! This machine keeps surprising me. Very much a blank canvas, this is probably the most exciting and deep piece of hardware on the market right now.