I’m new to OT and here because I read that it can be used as a brain to run backing tracks and sequence external hardware via midi. I’ve read a lot of posts but no one seems to address my situation so I’m hoping some more experienced users can shed some light for me.
I’m basically trying to reconstitute my Ableton Live set on the OT. I have 17 songs of various tempos. Each song has 2-4 song-length one-shot tracks that all run simultaneously (click, bass, drums, samples, etc.). Each song also has 1 or 2 song-length midi tracks that I send to external hardware. In Ableton Live, I would have each of these elements arranged as clips in a scene, and each scene is a song in my set.
Most of the backing track threads I’ve seen recommend slot mode, but it seems like slot mode won’t trigger my midi tracks or play multiple one-shots at once (correct me if I’m wrong). I know OT has a lot more under the hood than Static Machine playback, but what’s the easiest way to get to my goal so I can at least have a starting point to play shows as I get more familiar with all that OT offers?
This is a pretty involved question with lots a different things you need to learn in order to get fluent at what you want to do. The OT’s 8 midi tracks are seperate to to the 8 audio tracks so you can combine midi sequencing with backing tracks very easily.
Here is a neat approach to transitioning between songs that might give you some ideas.
Right, so I’ll need to chain patterns to get the midi files to the right length, which means I’ll need to work everything out in Arranger mode right? Then, you’re saying I can add a trig on step 1 of each Arrangement that triggers my audio stems to each play once, and route them to separate outputs. Each song is it’s own Arrangement. Do I have that right?
Cool, is there a limit to how many one-shot samples an Arrangement can hold?
As for transitions between songs, I want everything to come to a stop when a song is over, then I would manually start the next one. How would I make the arrangement stop and start that way?
When I load a long (4 minute) sample into step 1 of a pattern, it starts over from the top on step 17. What’s the setting to make it play all the way through?
Thanks. The problem Im having now is that OT’s internal tempo is falling behind my long samples. Everything’s set to 125, the samples are bounced out at 125. I edited their properties in OT to 125, I turned time stretch off on all the samples. I can tell by the 3rd or 4th bar that the tempos are separating. Any ideas?
No the samples are in sync relative to each other, but I can tell from the lights in the sequencer that they’re running faster than the OT sequencer’s tempo, even though they’re all set to 125 bpm.
Is the actual rhythm of the audio material at 125bpm or was it just bouced at that bpm, in other words do the beats or melodies line up with the daw grid at 125?
I just checked them against a common metronome. Ableton and OT’s internal sequencer clock both stayed dead-on at 125. My samples are just paying back faster, they’re both playing back at ~130 bpm, perfectly synced with each other. Oddly the samples are both still in the correct pitch, just playing back faster.
