For some reason Ableton Live 9 isn’t seeing my octatrack mkii in the preferences. It sees my Digitakt and AK no problem but not the octatrack mkii. I had everything previously clocked to Live but obviously I need to change my entire clock setup to hardware if I can’t get this functionality. The octatrack mkii went into windows fine and it was recognised by the os.
Hi,
Octatrack is not ‘USB Midi’ you will not see OT in preference in Ableton or any Daw (Only for transfer). Just like the Overbridge for Octatrack, sometimes it is hard to understand some choices from Elektron, it still the best creative sampler around here (for me).
You may use a TM-1 (with turbo midi) or any midi to USB interface to connect OT to USB-MIDI.
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That’s great, thanks for the info. I’m assuming that’s midi din from the OT into a USB interface and into Ableton, to be clear. Will Ableton recognise it in the preferences after that? Need to look up the TM-1.
TM-1 is just 1-IN and 1-OUT, then, in Ableton, you will see the name of the interface. Not a big deal… Between OT and TM-1, you will be able to activate turbo midi (Elektron protocol) to speed up the communication between OT and Computer.
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Thanks, much appreciated cheers for clearing this up I be just been looking at some other info in the forums and apparently I can set the OT up to simply receive the clock info from my Digitakt which is receiving clock from Ableton?. Kind of solves it with one short midi cable. I’ll give that a go before buying more interfaces.
Yes, you’ll have to setup DTkt to send and receive midi clock MIDI>SYNC. And at least receive by USB and send by Midi DIN in MIDI>PORT CONFIG (there is a convenient USB+MIDI choice 
Finally, OT to receive midi. (Normally, no need to setup any midi port. You may first close all midi ports to avoid mistakes, and open only what you need.
I assume you want to sync Elektrons (and others?) slaved to Ableton ?
You have other gears in the chain ?
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Yeah I’ve got the Digitakt and AK synced to Ableton via usb and the FA synced by midi din and Mininova synced to the Digitakt (via a mindburner interface) so yep it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll just run another lead from the mindburner. It’s just a simple 1 in 3 out midi interface (only powered by usb) which I got to take advantage of the digitakts midi tracks, just a few weeks ago and then I went with getting the octa. I know it’s a bit strange clocking everything to Ableton with a hardware setup like this, it was just easy and I’ve had no sync issues surprisingly. It needs rethought and tidied up but atm I jus wanna get a clock on that Octa so I can get going with the learning curve. Covered sample slots, short loops and flex yesterday, next it’s recording the gear in, getting CD to main (Digitakt), recording AB and main outs… all the mixer stuff and audio routing. I simply didn’t realise the octa didn’t do midi over usb… thought is was a bug or something, but thanks for clearing that up! Much appreciated
Hey, nice setup.
I use also a lot of hardware gears and it is sometimes a bit tricky to imagine the ‘midi network’. For example, I use Elektron grears with (if wanted) it’s own clock to separate ‘Live’ setup from ‘studio’ setup without unplugging any cable.
And lot of sequencing gears on ‘studio setup’ with Cirklon, Squarp Pyramid, Zillion, KordBot, …
When I start Cirklon; all gears start (Even Ableton slaved by USB). But When I start by OT, only the ‘Live’ setup start.
Drawing ideas on a paper board helps me a lot to prepare this unconventional hybrid setup.
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Sounds cool! My Kordbot is also just on its way soon! It will be interesting to see how that goes in. Currently all my synths are fed to my Zed12fx, Octatrack is on Aux 1 and 2, Eventide H9 is on Aux 3. The octatrack and H9 return on their own stereo channels on the Zed… obviously this means I can record everything to the octatrack, send it to the H9 Effects, return it, record it again, add more synthesis, etc etc Unlimited effect and record options… with the Digitakt into the octatrack that also gives me a lot of audio tracks to play with… I’ve just got to make it happen. Only had one day with the octatrack so far. Excited to get back to it.
Interesting, I use also a way to plug any out anytime to an Octatrack In. This sampler is not simple to use but simply amazing.
Is OT much faster than without ? Because it’s normally a bit unstable on ableton… DI have a TM1, will he be a real improvement for MY OT Connection to live ?
What is unstable ?
I mean if it is sync issues, or freeze, or lost midi ? Your midi setup is “clean”, no loops, no double tempo, etc ?
I will need more infos, because normally midi is very stable on Elektron gears… And Ableton is not the best fiend of Midi Clock
Basically, TM-1 and the turbo-midi protocol from Elektron (10 time faster) were made to transfer samples and waveforms to silver devices (Machinedrum)
Bye
On that, I’m finding I think that I can’t have OT on remote start from Ableton because it’s only synced to the Digitakt, is there no way to send a remote stop/start to the OT easily? If that’s the case then it seems I will have to clock everything the OT and as you said probably slave Ableton by USB to the Digitakt instead?
Are you using the ‘midi thru’ output from the DT or the ‘midi out’?
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Ah! Yes I’m using midi out. Thru sounds like the better option now! Thanks I’ll hook that up