Hi - i recently just picked up an Octatrack to complete the quadrology (MD, MnM, Octa, A4).
To get a view on how to best use the Octatrack i’m focussing on using the A4 but am stumped on the best way to use it.
I’ve currently got it coming in on track 1 as a Thru machine and then sampling onto the other tracks.
Is there a better way to set it up?
Thanks!
Better depends a bit on how you work with it… My “better way” might not be cool in your book so to speak…
but basicly speaking… Yes… as a beginningpoint… just your a4 into the inputs.
and using a thru machine to get it in… is fun… I would almost say:
make sure your a4 is full of nice patterns you can play without the need for anything else… … So you can focus on sampling… and just have “difrent” things to play with right then and there… It got anoying… when i did something on the octatrack. and change my machinedrum… sample it… play on blabla. I had so much more fun sampling continously while playing with my machinedrum.
anyways 
have fun with the thru-machine… add some samples… play with some scenes… when this is working for ya… try 2 patterns… in the first pattern.
setup a recordertrig, to record whatever your a4 is doing… use a scene to mute the recording-track… On pattern2… make your sample-play… simultanious with your a4… and use the scenes to unmute the recording while you mute the a4 itself.
Now you can play “the basic version of the transitioning-track” … by switching to pattern1 to record something and pattern2 to play something…
You can extend this trick by learning realtime recording triggered manually…
after you mastered that… you can basicly do the same thing with 1 pattern…
U could play with slices… but slices are absolute and not relative… this is no problem for static loops… but… if you realtime record something… slice it… change bpm (everything still in sync) and record something in that recorder… the slices stay where they are… and at the new bpm, this does not always “make sense”
Still havent tested it… but something inside me says, that sample-start is relative… so plocking sample-start might be a better idea if you want things to stay in place at ANY bpm…
anyways… like i said… million ways to do it… or learn something… depends a bit on what you want and how you like doing things… how to get there…
There are some really good tutorials on youtube… and this guy called merlin made an excellent document on his thoughts how to sample and use scenes and all that crap… I would give that a read… and thank him for his hard work:)
Enjoy your machine buddy…
Thanks for taking the time to write that - you captured what I was trying to do e.g. Mix between a live a4 part and a mangled octa loop of it. I’ll try some of the things you mentioned.
I’m actually thinking of music in a completely different way since buying the octa. I basically made the elements of a full song earlier today by creating a pad on the a4 (using poly with both oscs on sub 5ths tuned until I like it (complete disregard for music theory)) and a bass sequence then sampling them, detuning, plocking pitch and then playing some a4 drums with some maschine loops. Having a solid groove I them thought to sample a gospel accaapella and mangling that. I then set up a simple scene with heavy reverb and delay and a few variations of the main pattern and hey presto a musical idea was born!
Basically it’s good to break free of western music scales and just use the ear to craft something that sounds good.
I’ll keep exploring!
Apologies, I know this is probably a RTFM question but can you use the xfader to switch patterns?
You also mentioning scene locking recorder trigs ( it sounds as though you’re saying you can use the xfader to automatically record the incoming then automatically play it back on another scene)… can you explain that a bit mote please?
I’ll owe you a beer!
Just reading through the Merlin guide… Some really good stuff is contained within!
Hello… back again…
Sorry, I might have brought some myths in the world… so I need to explain some things extra. incase you didnt spot it in the merlin document.
myth 1: Sorry. you cannot switch patterns using the Xfader.
myth 2: nor can you switch parts using the Xfader.
myth 3: neither can you turn on a recorder-trig with the Xfader.
What I ment is this:
If you place a record-trigger in a recorder-track. by default it would start to record whatever settings you dailed up in the parameter pages… Lets say you set it all right… and you record 16 steps. and your pattern is 16 steps…
So you put this recorder trigger on trigger-step01. It will never “stop” recording.
Here is what happends on the machine.
Pattern A
Step01:
it will start record the 16steps as specified.
Now a few things… You cannot play “nothing” … so in case of patternA
you cannot play samplestart-04 . because the 4th step isnt recorded yet.
You can however just Play that recording from the start.
So Yeah. you can “build” your own “thru-machine”
Pitch however doesnt work. because if you pitch-up, the audio you want to play doesnt exist yet.
Now For the fader… Lets say we want to hide the recording thats recording for whatever reason.
lets make one up.
Track 01: A thru machine for your A4… with a filter and a compressor.
Track 02: A neighboor-machine for track01 With a lo-fi and a delay.
Track 03: A flex machine pointing to recorderslot 03. recording track02.
Pattern A
Step01: Place A trigger on Track 01, 02, and 03 … Else you get NO AUDIO AT ALL.
Place a Recorder-trigger on track03’s recorder-track
it will start record the 16steps as specified.
When you press play, all this stuff is going to run… and you prob hear way to loud because:
track3 is playing the audio (you placed a trigger) and you dont really want that Yet
So Press SCENE_A button and turn XVOL parameter of TRACK 03 To min
Now it should sound ok, if the fader is pointing to the left.
Now Press SCENE_B and TRIGGER 8 … now sceneB is attached to scene8 so we can alter it.
Press SCENE_B and track01:Xvol min
Press SCENE_B and track02:Xvol min
Press SCENE_B and track03:Xvol max
If you push fader to right… you should hear whatever you played on step01 to step08 repeated.
because of the playtrigger on step 09… if you push the fader back to the left… you should hear your a4
if you make 2 patterns… you could play with the playtriggers on track03. why not have one each 3 triggers. for example…
Make a pattern without a recordingtrigger on track03… and push the rate to backwards… because your not recording (remember, the recorder always stops after 16steps cause we said so) the audio exists… and if it exists we can play it.
Go nuts, it should be fun…
anyways buddy… I hope this clears things up a bit… sorry for the confusion… and read the manual… just search it for words i used… u might find what i am talking about… because honestly i typed this from memory, i couldnt sleep… so i might have missed something or used wrong word… hope its not ramblings when i wake up… if so I am sorry 
Enjoy your machine…
Thanks for your help and taking the time out to reply. The Merlin guide is really great for conceptualising how the OT works and I will give your notes above a go later.
It’s quite apparent that this thing gives a wealth of possibilities - I just need need to spend some time playing around with scenes and parts to optimise my workflow.
I’ll post a demo when I get my head around it all 
Of and what you’ve described is exactly what I was trying to do
Your welcome buddy… I couldnt sleep anyways… better to give out some good advice, then sit in a cold kitchen being an insomniac.
Send me that demo, when you figured it all out… always curious what people do with ideas.
And yes, its a strange machine the octatrack… its a very limited machine technically speaking… but once you get your head around it.
you can do really neat stuff with it… i just have no clue how to mimic that on my other machines… parts of it… yeah. but the whole deal…no
So for my own fun… I chose to progam my machinedrum until it fits no more ideas i can practically always put a nice groove on.
which basicly means… all tracks have simular sounds on it. Kick Always on track 1… Snare Always on track2… Claps/toms Track3 etc etc
and a control8 machine on track 13. and that control8 machine (its a machine to control 8 parameters somewhere on the machinedrum)
Means, that I can always find “the correct button”, and i always have a list of the 8 most fun parameters to change.
All this goes into octatrack… gets the recording treatment… I add samples of fx/vocals whatever i feel like… and i make darn sure
my octatrack is “clean and configured the same” so i delete all scenes that dont work… and each scene will have simular effect each pattern. as in scene01 will mute this… scene02 will mute that scene03 will turn-up delay here… scene04 will… etc etc and just like merlin described… I do that scene-stacking… so I have “the reverse” on scene08 and scene09 etc etc
The only thing what i do not know is: I know that my machinedrum-pattern can be switched by midi-notes.
never tried it yet… but as far as i recon… I could have a midi-track on my octatrack, running in a difrent scale.
and use notes to swap patterns on my machinedrum… So I have a pattern on the octatrack… triggering 4 patterns on the machinedrum in the correct order… so the fills and shit makes sence…
If you can do simular with the a4 (and i honestly do not know) … u should be able to have shitloads of fun with that.
u might be able to transpose it to… (like the monomachine) …
Anyways good luck on your quest dude…