Alternative to OT to pair with DN + DT?

For a while I’ve been using the Octatrack along with Digitone and Eventide H9 effects box for my minimal live setup. To be honest, I’m not crazy about the OT. As a multitrack sample/stem playback device it’s decent but it basically does A LOT of things I don’t need and doesn’t do (or at least not in a non-laborious way) some things I’d like. I’m basically hoping this community can recommend an alternative to use along with a Digitone and Digitakt for a live setup.

The DN & DT both have great sequencers so I don’t need that functionality from the new device. It can be a sampler, groove box, multi-sample/stem player, performance mixer hybrid. I’d consider using an iPad as well so if it can interface with iPad that would be great. The OT as is, makes doing things on the fly live too convoluted and unpredictable for me. It’s timestretching is often off which makes sampling cumbersome. I’m also not a fan of its effects. When I turned off all effects on all tracks, the sound quality improved noticeably but I still find that the OT thins and dulls my track stems. I need good sound quality, with high quality effects and a user-friendly interface. The DN and DT workflows on the other hand totally make sense to me and I love both units. Maybe I’ll hold on to the OT for experimenting and going weird at home to record into the DAW, but for live performance, I need something else.

Btw, before I get a bunch of Deluge recommendations, I just want to say I’ve looked into it, and not into it’s sound and don’t like the launchpad / monome style grid interface. Some might recommend I go modular, but I’m looking for a small footprint and modular is a rabbit hole I know nothing about and scared for my wallet. Plus, wires / cables spaghetti gives me anxiety. I’m open to a small modular setup, but don’t want to get into something that’s going to take so much time away from actually making music. So I’d prefer non-modular if possible.

Most importantly, this device needs to be something that compliments both DN and DT well for live performance. Thanks!

so what exactly do you want from the device? Playback of stems, effects… Timestretch?
What else?
I personally didn’t find an alternative to OT for stem playback of considerable length + effects so far, besides Ableton + controller.
MPC’s maybe? MPC live doesn’t stream from sd card, internal memory is probably too small for a liveset with stems.
The new Roland MC707 maybe? It can timestretch and play loops. Has effetcs. I have no experience with it. For me, it has too few options for sample editing.
OT has certainly some barriers when making a liveset, but it’s very flexible on the other hand. Depends on what you need. For me playback of stems, the crossfader as ultimate live performance weapon and the on-the-fly sampling are hard to beat when it comes to livesets.
Resampling is perfect for making fluid transitions.
The realtime sample mangling possibilities and scenes leave enough room for improvisation.

If you are not dependent on stems from you “studio tracks” there many more options. DT+DN could be sufficient for playing a whole set I assume, if you prepare some nice patterns before, or you even improvise completely.

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I think I’m more into playback of multiple loops that can be easily changed more so than stems. Loops that can be manipulated in real time with quality effects. I can make the loops in the DAW then export them into the hardware device. That’s not a problem for me. In fact I prefer it this way.

The other option would be to ditch a 3rd option and just focus on using the DN & DT along with an iPad. Minimalist but powerful.

Loops are stems for me too :slight_smile: Let’s call it wav files. Usually 4 to 8 bars. sure, I make smaller loops from my stems too. Depends on how many loops you want to play back. As I mentioned some devices which seem perfect for a liveset on the first look (e.g. MPC live, Digitakt) have not enough memory for playback of wavs

which app would you use for loop playback?

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1010music Blackbox ? I sold my OTmk2 (which I loved but was not fully using) and bought the Blackbox

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mc-707, akai force/live/X… 1010 music blackbox too (does streaming from card, so no memory problem)

This is perfect for the OT. You can have 128 loops on the static machine launched at will at any quantized setting. It takes a lot of settling up but once it is set up you can jam for hours and never even have to sequence a note. I agree the OT does compress the sound a little but this actually works in your favor in a loud sound system. OT sounds excellent in a club! The effects are not for everyone but the ability to do stutter effects or filtered sweeps on the fly will be hard to find on another device. I’ve owned the MPC live and the OT and for what you want to do the OT is the better choice. You gotta dig in a little more and learn the OT secrets!

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I would suggest giving the OT some more time too.

I’ve let the OT defeat me a multiple times and I ended up selling and regretting. I’ve got a flow with it now that makes sense to me. I’m only using a fraction of what it is capable off but that’s fine with me.

I could imagine a life with a DN/DT/Ableton combo - I’m a big fan of OB so capturing loops that way via all the integration would be a lot of fun. I know that isn’t an option you listed though.

This is actually where I’m at with things. My OT will sit unused for periods of time but it gives me a fun alternative when I’m in the mood and I’m way faster on this thing than I was a few years ago that’s for sure. Still haven’t got a clue what I’m doing 50% of the time though…

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The iPad would be for using some crazy apps such as Sector when I want to take things into weirder territory. I don’t want to use loops with iPad bc the whole process of importing / exporting on iPad is a total PITA.

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I’m more of a Bitwig Studio guy myself but people don’t want to see laptops at live shows anymore - especially when half the people you’re playing beside have impressive modular setups and whatnot

Ok. So it seems you can imagine a liveset mainly based on DN+DT. In that case, I would concentrate on these two boxes, there is so much you can do with these. They would keep me busy enough live, I personally can’t really handle more than two boxe at once.

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Akai Force

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Hard to beat OT in that concern.
Up to 128 loops per track accessible with the crossfader.


1 bar pattern, 1 track with loops, 1 track with drums.

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Yeah that’s really cool and all but my music doesn’t have so much drastic changes and glitching type stuff. It’s more repetitive and hypnotic. Thanks though.

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now I got interested the blackbox. went completely under my radar

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Demonstative examples related to what you wrote. It can be very subtle depending on your loops.