Tips and tricks for using the Octatrack as a quadraphonic panner?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

A friend I collaborate with a fair amount is talking about starting a quad project and we’re looking at setting it up so that he plays his Eurorack setup and feeds me a few different outputs from that, and then I process them, mostly spacial/panning type stuff. Since live quad panning on a standard mixer is a pain (especially since I don’t have a mixer with subgroups anymore, got rid of that when I moved back to ITB mixing a few years ago and regret it now) and even the most inexpensive dedicated quad panning hardware is out of our budget right now, the obvious first step is to use the OT for all of the panoramic stuff, with the main outs driving the front pair of powered speakers and the cue outs driving the rear pair.

I already have plenty of ideas but I’d love to hear how anyone else who does this sort of thing approaches it. Mods, feel free to merge this with the other quad thread if you think that’s more appropriate.

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#2

Go ahead!

I’m really interested in since many years, and OT is perfect for that!

#3

I have been thinking just yesterday about exactly that setup! Please keep us posted how it works out!

My first question was: How to automate panning and manipulate live as well - I have a few XY Livid Instrument expansion boxes …though the knob snaps back to center… but should work for recording automations.

And there is of course TouchOSC / Lemur which should be perfect for panning (and MIDI Feedback)

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#4

I won’t be able to actually get started for a while since I don’t have any options for monitoring in quad, so right now I’m just coming up with a game plan.

As far aouadditional controllers we have basically no money to spend on this (we might try to get a grant fsmallset of powered speakers at some point next year, but for now it’s going to be down to pooling our monitors when we practice and hopefully being able to borrow speakers when the time comes to start performing) but I have an Axoloti, so I will probably get a couple of small analog sticks and maybe some faders, and build a custom MIDI controller that way. Tracks 1-4 will be dedicated to front channels and 5-8 to rear channels, so mapping a joystick so the X axis controls balance on both the front and rear tracks while the Y axis controls amplitude from 0 to 127 on the front tracks and 127 to 0 on the rear is all I’d need to have manual quad panning. maybe 8 buttons channel assignment (so for example button 1 would assign joystick 1 to send CC on the control channels for tracks 1 and 5 at the same time, button 2 for tracks 2 and 6, and then buttons 5-8 would assign the same 4 pairs of tracks to joystick 2, all on the fly with the possibility of assigning one joystick to multiple channels and provisions in place to make it impossible to assign both joysticks to the same channels at the same time - pretty straightforward).

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#5

So if you want rear to front automation you’d need midi tracks no?
Correct me if I’m wrong, you’d also need opposite values for Track Level and CUE Level, so I was thinking about a midi processor.

#6

Reviving this topic a bit.

a friend of mine has great connections in the municipality i live in. He is a musican and live audio engineer for almost every big function happening in our town. We started talking about quadraphonic audio and the conversation led to him booking a venue (small black box in our municipal library) were i am basically free to do whatever i want in November.

My first angle of attack is to use Octatrack as the central hub for quadraphonic audio, splitting the Main and CUE outputs to four different speakers within the local.
Audio sources will be Modular for drums, MNM and OP-1 Field for Synths and Octatrack for Vocal samples. Audio routing would be:
Modular into OT AB
MNM into OT CD
OP-1 into MNM
OT MAIN and CUE split between four speakers.
Hopefully i can get a Sub as well.

The panning will become the most important here, my thinking is that i will use my ZOIA to take CV signals from my modular and convert them to midi CC 26, 46 and 47 for each track being outputted. In theory the panning should follow the beat.

to top it off i will set up a OP-Z for visuals and possibly have the same CV signal alter the visuals track on the OP-Z.

I wonder if this will be enough to get the spatializing effect from quadraphonic output, or will i need to add reverberation to get a 3d distance effect as well?

did you venture down this rabbit hole @Supercolor_T-120 and @sezare56
how did it go? any tips or recommendations?

#7

I would start the thinking in imagining how to get a simple sound rotate.
You would need to balance independently right and left for main and cue.
So two different tracks per voice, I’d say.

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#8

ZOIA will be the device taking care of the actual panning.
key here is to have invert CV between CC 46 and 47. this way front and back is isolated.
and then using offsets to for each each track on OT so that each sound has a slightly different position in space. to get it to rotate i will maybe have to invert the outputs from OT. sending CUE R to speaker 3 instead of 4.

The easy route would be to have something like a Joranalogue MORPH4 handle the rotating CV, but im not sure i want that module in my rack.

on another note.
Would it maybe be better to split each input into 4 mono inputs into OT instead of 2 stereo?
it feels like i would get more freedom to rotate specific sounds that way…

it feels like this will boil down to trail and error instead of theorizing. or rather theorizing will only take me so far.

#9

If I were going to revisit this I’d build a small joystick that I could hoiok up to the expression pedal inputs on the Morningstar MC6 (because that’s what I already have, but there are plenty of other options) and program it to control the active track’s balance on the X axis and fade between main and cue on the Y axis. Would be pretty easy and cheap (the hardest part would be cutting the hole for the stick in an enclosure). Beyond that it would just be hooking up a few wires to two cables or jacks and programming whatever controller you’re using with the stick.

Or if you wanted to spend more there are plenty of fancy control sticks available from RC car/plane/etc. hobbyist shops (going up to anything indiustrial would be ridiculously expensive and not worth considering unless you could salvage it - last time I looked you could get a secondhand model:cycles for less than the cost of a typical industrial grade thumbstick)

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#10

No I didn’t but I’d try with 2 stereo sound systems.
Keeping Zoia ? :wink:

#11

Yes Im keeping ZOIA :laughing:
But Im keeping it in a separate case and Will probably add a a modulator of some sort to it at a later point.

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