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!