A bit off topic, but does the machinedrum have parameter slides for midi machines and can those machines send out plockable cc to other gear? If not is there a custom firmware that allows this?
Not sure what the custom firmware is capable of, it brought many improvements. There’s a thread here where you can find the details, but the Octatrack is a great midi sequencer imho (for monophonic sequences it’s awesome! For poly maybe not soo much, but of course depends on use cases, personal taste etc.), like the audio side of it, everything feels like you’re playing an instrument, so if cc slide is the only thing holding you up, what about using a midi processor to add slew to the Octatrack’s midi cc output?
If you want continous cc output (slide/slew on all steps) having control over which CCs get slew and which don’t would be enough and that would work quite well I’d think.
I can test it later, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
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Thanks for the suggestion and that’s a good idea, but unfortunately I don’t have much extra room left for extra gear even if it’s something small like a midi processor, my table is tiny 
. I can fit the octatrack if I get rid of one if the takt boxes but that’s it. Plus patching too many cables all the time discourages me from making any music, so if I want to rearrange my setup I want it to be as pain free as possible. Plus if I want to send stepped sequencing now the midi processor would be hindering that I assume unless I reprogram it or disconnect it, which is too tedious. I try to keep things as simple as possible while maximizing flexibility.
Incidentally I’ve been wanting a machinedrum for a very long time so if it can do the thing that would be two birds with one stone.
I wonder if I should just get an MPC one, I’m just discouraged by what I’ve seen of it’s workflow (seems counterintuitive to me) and only 2 audio inputs which kind of makes it less usable as an FX box compared to the octatrack.
I looked it up for you.
If I need continous midi cc automation on my OT, I use the lfo designer set to “sync trig” mode with speed 16 x8 (which means each of the 16 values of the lfo designer wave correspond exactly to the 16 steps of the sequencer and the lfo speed is synced to the step sequencer speed).
It has one pretty huge advantage: I can use the lfo depth to vary the amount of “how much” p-lock strength I want, I can fade the “p-locks” in and out etc. With actual p-locks, I’m pretty much stuck with the value they are set to.
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Oh awesome, thanks so much, sounds like a pretty useful trick with the octatrack. Now I’m just stuck deciding between an MD and an OT 
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