Another “is the OT for me?” thread

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

i’ve pondered the OT for years but now feel more of an urgent need to acquire one. my current studio consists of microwave xt, peak, A4, RYTM, digitone, and op1. i use live and reaktor a lot too.

my want of OT is mostly based around the role of chance and experimentation in my music. obviously live and reaktor offer plenty of sample mangling possibilities but i feel like/hope OT can offer more at the level of happy accidents and unexpected results.

i make textural music, for lack of a better term-ambient, concrete, post dance, collage type stuff.

would love some input on whether OT makes sense for me or if it will seem redundant to live/reaktor (or even RYTM)

thanks for any insight :slight_smile:

#2

What makes you think that? Are you just bored and thinking that buying gear will help you? (Genuine, open questions)

5 Likes
#3

OTs pretty rad for that kind of stuff, but there’s plenty of happy accidents to be had in software land too.

1 Like
#4

I can’t speak for Live or Reactor’s capabilities, but what I can say for sure is that once you get to know the Octa then spontaneous, sound mangling capabilities can happen beyond what you thought possible. Live resampling of individual tracks, or a combination of cue tracks, to then put down trigs and slice and mangle and add FX to again is a very powerful sound design tool.

For instance: Record the master track to a buffer and set that rec buffer to turn “on” (basically) while everything else turns off on scene B, now you’ve got something cooking. Play with trigs and fx and more scene locks, then go back to scene a to get what you started with.

But I’ll add that I’ve had the Octa for six months and only recently started diving into that world.

I actually recently had a bout of frustration where I realized basically everything I was doing could be done more quickly and easier in Sample One in Studio One. Then I asked myself what makes the Octa unique and decided to keep exploring. I’ve had some big aha moments lately of stuff I know isn’t as quick in a DAW. At least not in my DAW.

I literally spent two hours today just playing with a recording of a train… And I still want to revisit that sample lol

4 Likes
#5

i work on computers all day and love the elektron workflow - and yes kinda bored with software i suppose? appreciate the question though bc this is good for me to continually interrogate

#6

The answer is “no”, if you happen to hate deliriously fun exploration.

#7

Do you want to keep using software? Are you happy and addicted to your software flow? does it make you happy?

Not saying the OT will make you happy, because no one knows that. Thing is, and I think most people that have used an octatrack for a few years will agree, what ever you think you want to use an octatrack for, you wont end up there at all. You will end up somewhere completely different.

If you expect the octatrack to behave like a computer software, it doesn’t. If you expect it to behave like other hardware, it doesn’t. If you are willing to put time in, and learn the octatrack architecture, then it can become a literally endless modular web.

For me personally, I dont like using computers. I like the octatrack because it forces me to use my ears, and not get blinded by visual representations of ‘what I think I should be hearing’. Is the OT for you? no idea. Only one way to find out…

5 Likes
#8

I’ve had an OT for a couple of months now… and it’s definitely for me.
My goal wasn’t to play out stems from stuff recorded in a DAW – though I have used it that way at times.
My goal was to use samples and really wring out songs from them.
It’s for you if you like music that takes samples and really messes with them. Probably not the best machine if you want to make house or something.

2 Likes
#9

I’m going through that now. Studio One is awesome. But Bitwig still pulls at my heartstrings. Octatrack is sitting silent.

#10

Never used Bitwig so I can’t say nothing

Getting a sample recorded and chopped up in time is way, way easier in a DAW. It’s far less fiddly and if you’re doing a lot of it on the Octa it gets very tiring very fast. I usually try and get a 4-8 bar loop and have that set perfectly then tell it to slice to grid…that’s about as efficient as it gets when sampling raw material (which is most of what I pull from). That still drives me nuts though and my Octatrack is always right in front of my computer–taunting me with its efficiency.

Even playing with a sample on the surface level is more straightforward in a DAW. You’ve usually got a filter and pitch envelope right there, you got your slices laid out, you can put as many FX on it as you want, you can arrange it all without being confined to four bar loops…The list goes on. Having this realization a couple weeks ago made me a little mad at my Octatrack and had my consider selling it.

Then I took a deep breath and a step back and decided to dig in some more…It’s an instrument after all, and six months of practice with an instrument is really nothing.

You should try it again with these ideas in mind. Really try to take a sound to a place you never would with a DAW. Sample it with a neighbor track for awesome stacked FX, then sample that. Then, slice up that sample (which now will be much easier because everything is perfectly in time, so no fiddly business) and resequence it, putting random P locks in–or musical P locks if you want. You also have LFOs and FX for this new sample, too. Play some other samples that fit with this mangled one you just made. Cue all of those, and sample the cue to another track. Take that mixdown and resequence it, mangle it, change scenes…

It all really opens up when you come to terms with the Octatrack on its own terms. To be perfectly honest with you, I went from sort of “making” myself sit down with my Octatrack because I felt I had to invest time and energy into an expensive piece of gear I bought, to now coming home from work and being delighted to get my hands on it. Every time I turn it on I don’t know where I’m gonna go, and before that was a sort of dreadful, sinking feeling, but now it’s more of an adventurous, experimental feeling. There are so many moments in my sessions where I think everything sounds good, and I like it, but I just keep going and going until everything sounds completely, utterly different and I can get back if I want (I save recordings frequently), but I just don’t.

It’s a crazy instrument and it takes practice

7 Likes
#11

I’ve tried making a beat in the Octatrack in a style of something I would make in a DAW.

It was pretty painful, in terms of workflow. And by the time I got sick of working on it, the product was something I could’ve banged out in Ableton for less than half the time. This was something I expected, as I was not taking advantage of Octatrack’s workflow.

I then decided whatever I’ll be making on the Octatrack will have to embrace its designed workflow. So using its resampling, trig conditions, scenes etc. I’m so much happier with my output if I work that way.

So now I’ll approach the Octatrack as another instrument and not as a DAW replacement. It’s such a powerful instrument as well.

3 Likes
#12

Amen. This is what I’ve finally come to terms with just in this past week or two, actually. And if I want to use my DAW, I’ll always have my DAW right here and it can record my Octatrack if it wants.

It’s slightly telling that I know I can dig into Studio One’s Sample One and get similar results, but when I make the decision of Sample One vs Octatrack in my sessions lately, I go for the Octatrack every time. Yeah, I won’t be able to get grand, evolving, 24-bar chord progressions out of it, but I’ll get something I’ve never heard in my life.

FWIW, this is the video that finally sent me over the edge with resampling:

(btw this is some serious muscle memory on display in this video. this guy REALLY knows how to use this thing. it’s the equivalent of seeing a guitarist play a scale he’s practiced to death and can bust out without question. i can’t stress how much this thing is an INSTRUMENT)

I took this idea and ran with it. I don’t even make the kind of music this guy makes (though I like it and it sounds really good) but the idea of live resampling and then fading back and forth, then mucking about with the settings and playing that way. I mean the guy is essentially playing a one-bar sequence and he keeps it interesting the whole time just by resampling and playing with knobs. Pretty powerful stuff.

2 Likes
#13

I think my end game now is to try and do composition and arrangement in the DAW. My hardware will primarily be a feeder into the DAW or receive sample stems out of the DAW. I have moved away trying to compose full songs using Elektron workflow in many ways. I end up spinning wheels on patterns. It is just to tedious for my non-concentration span brain. My OT is really a sequencer - fx unit currently but it gets very little use right now to be honest.

2 Likes
#14

I totally feel you. DAW is my go-to method as well.

The big reason I bought the Octatrack was solely for sound design/experimentation, which I find lacking when I sit at a DAW. Generally when I’m in DAWland I go through presets and tried and true stuff to get a working composition out there. When I’m in hardwareland all bets are off…I realize this is all mindset and could probably be changed, but whatever lol.

2 Likes
#15

Yes I go through stages but with hardware I end up spending hours trying to get settings all working. I’m in a bit of a learning curve faze right now to get workflow nailed down so anything can change at anytime depending on what mood I’m in. It’s kind of frustrating and nothing substantial is getting produced but I feel progress is being made. My OT is definitely not up for selling but it may take some time for me to find it’s place in everything.

2 Likes
#16

I just sold my Octatrack after 9 months of trying to use it. I grokked it pretty quickly, but in the end I found I had to spend far too much time programming it before I could make music.

Loop a guitar? Decide between Flex and Pickup, then set them up, then make sure you have all the settings right, then tweak the settings again when your loop doesn’t work.

Chop a sample? Easy! But wait, why is it only recording half my sample?

Etc. Along with this frustration is the Octatrack’s amazing ability to surprise. I’ve made at least two songs that are based on a chopped up sample combined with p-locks. Once it’s set up and running, the Octatrack is amazing.

However, you’ll spend a ton of time setting up. Over and over again.

If you don’t like using a computer because of all the menu-diving and so on, the Octatrack won’t help. It has plenty of menus, and plenty of ways to trip you up.

In the end, I found I prefer the Digitakt, plus Egoist for sample chopping.

Put a sheet over the computer!

1 Like
#17

This is what’s been getting me.

I sold my 404 recently and the thing it had going for it was its immediacy…You just plug a cable into it, hit REC, tell it where you want it to save it to and then play your sample. Yeah, fiddling with start and end points is annoying, but if you just wanna get a quick sample in there you’re good to go.

I still find myself double checking all sorts of settings when setting up my Octa. It’s becoming more and more muscle memory/second nature to me, but there is a lot of setup every single time I want to put a sound into it.

I’m curious why you prefer the Digitakt for sample chopping? What makes it easier?

Doesn’t seem like you “grokked” the Octatrack as well as you thought then :stuck_out_tongue:

Also I agree, looping a guitar or what have you is very cumbersome. It’s possible, but shit just open up a DAW and do it that way man.

1 Like
#18

I would say not so much more, different maybe, but see below.

Regarding your experimental approach … for such results I would recommend to go modular, maybe even west-coast, and use Buchla-esque “Source of Uncertainty” modules. There are some interesting eurorack modules in the market from Endorphin, Make Noise, Mutable Instruments, Pittsburgh Modular, Verbose, and others, but there is also VCV-Rack with a couple of west-coast like modules, which is totally free of charge. Its not too complicated to make patches, which create a flow of happy incidents :wink:

For this the OT could be the best out-of-the-box solution indeed. Better than MPC I would say, because of the direct hands-on operation of all those p-locks and the quantity of parameters at our fingertips.

I would combine the OT with melodic instruments and equipment to generate my own samples.

One method to create happy incidents on the OT for me is

  • to record live audio into a recording buffer
  • have an automatic chopping prepared for a flex machine (each new take will be chopped - for example - to 16 equal parts)
  • use this material with a flex machine, and pick this or that from the chopped audio by using the sequencer
  • set and change the p-locks (live)
  • change the kind of recorded material (live)
  • let everything run constantly … on and on and on …
  • I even use the midi-tracks of the OT to control melodic instruments, to generate different inputs for the recording.
3 Likes
#19

Good point! What I meant was that, conceptually it’s not too complex. Just different to what I’d used before. The problem is in the implementation. The interface is opaque, and unintuitive.

I’ve found that sampling into the Digitakt is way more robust, and easier. I do miss the live-resampling of the Octatrack though.

#20

Not really if you use conditional trigs and slower scale modes!