So what you are saying is that you haven’t figured it out.
You can always warp prepare all the tracks in Ableton and export them in a fixed bpm.
If you know the real bpm of a track you can always practice how much you need to tune a track to go from 122 to 125 or what ever the bpm is on the next track. And guess what it is always the same number, so yo can even prepare a list of tune and detune intervals between different bpms
I edit all my tracks to start on 1, then you can trigger that 1 or 2 times in a bar that is looping and use the tune to beatmatch it while is looping on top of the other track.
Once you add a preperation step to dj´ing on a Digitakt is not that complicated. But just adding tracks and going from there is obviously difficult because you dont have control of anything.
If that s your aim then head over to beatport and load your usb sticks with slick tracks
Me on the other hand i take pride in analog rawness, noisy distortion circuits and hands on dynamism. Live and in my recordings. I m currently recording my first EP. MD, AR and fx boxes. Recording stereo out from the mixer, no DAW editing. Will go straight to the mastering studio.
Digital slickness is an esthetic choice, not a quality standard.
(That said, playing back the same track on a CDJ or OT would sound pretty much the same. )
Everytime I have played live I have polished the samples and stems in a DAW as seemed fit. Then I put it back in OT/AR. Some good pedal FX for other synths/vocal/guitar/rhodes and I’m good to go.
But I mean, if you want some modern ableton wizz-kid FX that can only be done abusing plugins and radical EQ:ing - not saying that’s bad, but many modern sounds come from experimenting with the capabilites of plug-ins! I’m all for that, although I mostly never like the resulst lol - then by all means, just do it in Bitwig or your DAW of choice and load it in your sampler. That’s the beauty of a sampler, right? And the 96k sample rate? Don’t bother, it will sound just fine in OT/DT’s internal 44/48. But one must acknowledge the work behind a finished song. Great writing, mixing and mastering is what makes the difference.
I am thinking about porting my sounds from Bitwig over to my Octatrack for mangling the audio there but I just love sampling live hardware. Though, I love Bitwig too.
Has anyone heard of any big names playing a set with an Octatrack as the main machine? Or has anyone heard of someone getting paid top or as close to top dollar to perform a show with the black boxes of happiness? Lookin’ for some links. I know Thom Yorke was featured recently and he owns like all the boxes, but I don’t know if he has used them live? I would love to know!
The Digitakt is perhaps my favorite instrument second to my guitars. Ya, I wouldn’t “DJ” with it, I would synthesize a song. I am sure you could DJ with it though if that was your prerogative
I love your honest opinion. Seems you’re saying NO, me and my Octatrack vs them and their XDJ is a losing battle in terms of surviving the mainstream and reaching a place where you/we are the “rock star.” Can an album written/performed on my Elektron boxes hit a bazillion spotify plays and sell out a large venue? No matter what I won’t give up on the idea that it can but I am curious more about what my peers think when they are writing a hit song on their Analog 4 and Digitakt or Rytm and Digitone, whatever your weapons of choice are. Are we imagining a place where we are professional performing musicians or is that not important/out of reach?
How is there even a debate? Making music is one thing. Playing other peoples recordings is another thing. Completey different. You cant compare them at all.
If the question is, can elektron gear sound as good as mastered recordings? The answer is maybe.
Does a band playing live sound as good as their recordings? The answer is… maybe.
Actually it probably will, MP3s on big sound systems always sound bloody horrible. Wavs sound better. They just do. So in your example, the octatrack would sound better, since the wav format is significantly higher quality sound.
MP3 is garbage, do not use it.
When the aesthetic preference of the room or venue is handmade/raw/live, then it’s the hyper-polished material that will sound out of place. It’s all relative, right? Personally, I don’t think it’s an Elektron vs everything else issue. There is no single piece of hardware, from any manufacturer, that sounds like a mastered daw-produced track right out of the box. The slick sound you are describing does not come from an improvised live performance on a bunch of hardware boxes. I agree with the posters who have said you’ll need to work in a daw at some point to get that sound. But to me that’s beside the point. We don’t get these machines to sound like big festival headliners on cdjs. We get them to enjoy what they do best - including all the rawness, mistakes and lo-fi moments that come with them. My philosophy is that if you want that slick sound, there’s nothing stopping you from tracking your Elektrons into a daw and working from there. But if you just want to play these machines live, play them to an audience that appreciates what it is you’re doing!
