Pardon for asking a question that has probably been asked a number of times before. I’ve spend a good deal of time trying to find the concise answer here, but alas. Feel free to point me to the right post if there is one.
I am the proud new owner of an Octatrack MKII, and is having a great time digging around in it and its manual.
One thing that surprised me was finding that Muting in the MIX page (using the [TRIG] buttons) or using [FUNC] + [TRACK] essentially zeros the volume of the corresponding track, rather than Muting its Trigs, like I know it from Machinedrum, Digitakt and Analog Rytm.
Is there a straight forward way of muting all Trigs of a Track? If the answer is NO, I am happy to receive that.
As a follow question, I anticipated that perhaps one could use the MIDI Tracks to trigger the Audio tracks, similar to how it would be possible from an external MIDI controller. I understand that with a simple MIDI cable looping back from OUT to IN could allow this, but I am in need of that Input for external control.
Question: Is there a setting I’ve missed that allows routing MIDI Tracks’ output internally to either of the the Audio tracks?
The latter would be a passable shortcut for achieving Trig Muting.
Again, if the answer is simply NO, I am ready to accept that and move on with what it does a good job at.
Unfortunately the OT mutes the audio, not the trigs. You can work around that by using the amp volume (amp vol is pre fx, so turning it down does not kill fx tails). You can map amp vol to scenes or indeed control OTs audio tracks from it’s midi tracks. Loop back the midi out to the midi in and check the manual for the correct notes and maybe midi ccs you want to use.
Also OT has different midi note mappings. Check APPENDIX C: MIDI CONTROL REFERENCE
Glad I could help. I guess it actually makes sense that OT does not just mute the trigs as every loop would continue to run and even longer samples and thru machines would run until they completed the release stage. I sometimes run into this problem when I use a 1 bar loop in my Analog Rytm. Muting the track at the end of the bar means it will continue to be audible for the length I’ve set my amp hold and release to. When release times are too short, I often get clicks, especially with low freq content, so I have to leave some room. With some fiddling around, I can usually make it work, but OT is basically built around spontaneous sampling, looping and mangling, so it’s probably a good idea to not mute at the trig level.
Btw, OT works really well when you use the midi tracks to trigger its audio tracks.
When muting a track it imedistly stops playing the sample, is there a workaround where i can mute and it finishes playing the sample instead of immediately stopping it?
Makes sense when you consider Octatrack was made with loops and looping samples in mind. If OT had trig level mutes like other Elektrons, you would have to potentially wait until the amp envelope’s release stage is completed - which might be never.
Like mentioned, use amp volume to fade tracks in/out, use scenes (xlvl/xvol) to quickly mute tracks and practise muting on point a bit.
Also plays free tracks and quantized sample start can be used to get Ableton style clip launching which is another method to mute audio on point (quantized to 1/16ths or a bar or whatever you like).
On paper it might seem a bit odd, but OT has the tools you need. It’s not exactly straight-forward, but once you’ve wrapped your head around, it works really well and leaves you all the options (except simple trig level mutes lol).
What do you think would be best for OT? Zero crossing detection clickless mutes? That would be neat.
On the Rytm for example, when you mute a track, the next trig the playhead encounters simply triggers the amp envelope. It goes through hold and release and the the audio goes off. If you have hold set to 64 + some release, you’ll have to wait 4 bars for the release to kick in (please correct me if I’m wrong…).
That wouldn’t really make sense on the OT. Maybe Elektron intended track mutes to be more of a utility thing and scenes + amp vol were intended for muting during performance…Idk…
For an over ten years old sampler, OT does pretty well, imho.
Personally I’d love it if the mute buttons still allowed reverb/delay trails to fade out. the xlev control works like this so we know it’s technically possible on the machine.
Ah okay, really clear explanation. Do scenes work without the crossfader as well? Just sad i have to use a scene to make muting tracks seem more natural.
Of course.
Eg.
Scene button A.
Map scenes 1 to 8 to track 1 to 8 amp vol respectively. (Amp vol to min)
Now when you hold scene button A, trig 1 to 8 mutes tracks 1 to 8, punch in/out style.
(If that was a default mapped function from date of release, ie mutes are activated by holding scene button A and trig buttons 1 to 8, no one would have questioned it)
Scene selection and crossfader position can be midi controlled or you can leave the crossfader on one side and mute/unmute scenes to activate/deactivate them like explained above.
Lately I’ve used a midi processor to apply slew to the midi cc controlling amp volume, mapped to a button. This gives me 8 mute buttons on my controller that I can use to mute tracks, but instead of being simply on/off, there’s a slew and an exponential curve applied which basically results in a quick fade in/fade out (and importantly, it does not kill fx tails).
But a simple knob style midi controller (potentiometers, not rotary encoders) also works well. It let’s you turn down amp volume so quickly and precisely, much better than the encoders on the Octa.
Or get a controller with 8 faders and slam them down.
Doesn’t necessarily need fancy midi processor math.
For some reason I feel all Elektrons really shine with a midi controller attached to it…
