Creating an octatrack live rig

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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Hi all,

Im looking for some help in putting together a live rig. For reference, Im making techno/house similar to This and this (Or at least trying to :P)

Ideally Id like it all in one self contained rack case as seen in the photo Ive attached.

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While Im able to do without a mixer currently (octatrack cue out to virus in, virus thru track to out 2, to H9, to octatrack CD, with Virus out 1 to octatrack AB), I would like to add another element to my sound such as a nice analog monosynth or something, and am not sure how I would add that given my limited inputs. Im not sure yet, This is where I need your help!

Things I feel like would help me:

Rompler-type sounds (I feel like octatrack could take care of this if I can track down some good sample packs, or maybe I should buy a cheap emu and sample every patch and then sell it?)

Dedicated Drum Machine (I can fit all my drums onto 4 or 5 tracks as it is right now, usually split Kick, snares+clap, hi hats, other), but I find it difficult to put together samples that work well together and I also find it difficult to achieve a intentional groove, though that may just come down to practice.

Analog Mono - Something like the OG waldorf pulse or another rackmount mono would be nice and give me some of that rich goodness Im missing in my digital setup right now.

For mixers, I feel like my rack options are limited in this configuration, with mixers such as the xone s2 lacking aux sends. I was looking at the DJ style mixers because this allows me to seperate the 2 stereo outputs from OT and the 3 outputs from Virus and fade those individually. Alternatively, I wouldnt mind picking up a faderfox MX12 and using that to mix.

One last thing is I currently put every song in its own project, and would like to transition with a looper pedal or something, dont know if you guys have any ideas about that either.

Let me know what you guys think, Essentially I would either have 12U or 14 U to work with. (Octatrack being 5-ish U due to cables, and Virus being 5U), so 10U already taken.

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Grab a Proteus 2000 as it will give you 128 voices, six outputs, and then add some cards for more extended flavor.

Analog Rytm MkI or Machinedrum MkII UW+ or something else?

Pulse is a good call for a synth; but from a programming perspective… you won’t be doing much of that live via the matrix ?

Put everything in One Project. Not in separate projects. And then you don’t have to worry about loading new Project’s on the fly.

Treat each Bank as a separate song; or two separate songs.

Use the crossfader transitions trick; or check out Boss RC-202 (RC-505 might be a bit big?) or a Kaoss Pad 3

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Cheers I’ll check out the proteus 2000.

Also thanks for the tip about banks. I’ve only had the octatrack for 2 months now and I havent messed around to know what is saved where with regards to machines and stuff, I just knew that the program changes are only sent by project or part changes which is why I was doing that. I have my Virus Multis setup in a logical fashion though so I suppose I can just change the multi when I change the song.

I just realized that the octatrack and Virus are actually about 5U each, so the space I would have available is actually much smaller than I thought. Maybe if I went with the top rack case, used the top for OT and Virus, and the horizontal section for a small line mixer and the proteus? But then Im still missing some analog flavour!

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I recommend / advocate [ Sequencer ] mode.

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I read that sequencer mode doesnt actually save anything and is only for use with a computer?

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Try the AH QuPac for a mixer.
I went for the Qu16 and love it.

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Why do you want to haul a mixer around to shows? The whole point of the OT is that you can get by without a mixer thanks to the 4 inputs and flexible routing options. If you really need one just spec it, any decent venue will have a mixer for you.

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Im looking to have my entire setup in one case, so its for home use as well as live use

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I’m after the same goal.
Ideally I only plug in stereo XLR, and power after removing the lid to my case.
Just dive in, & sort it out along the way, eventually you’ll realize what you really need/want

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Oooops, that’s a bald statement! I use a mixer, it’s absolutely neccesary in my set-up and I use hands-on control for a lot of stuff. There are many different approaches, some people go minimalistic, some don’t!

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For studio, sure, but for live I still think it’s silly to drag a mixer around unless you need really specific functions like patch recall, FX or complex routing. They’re big, heavy and most venues have one or can find you what you need.

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So I’m silly and happy to be. Most venues have a desk (I hope so and it’s required on the rider) and they will get my L/R feeds. I take care of my 35 (and counting) inputs and 20 or so outputs. As I mentioned before: not everyone is going minimalistic or even wanting to. That’s a choice, not an obligation and noone is silly for making it’s own choices :wink:

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Agreed from my experience also - most venues have a pio nexus mixer that I plug into.

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I would say that fits under the ‘specific functions’ exception I mentioned - if you’re using 35 inputs then carrying an extra mixer is probably not a big deal. But if the mixer is more than like 50% of your entire setup’s weight/volume then yeah that’s IMO silly for something you can just spec.

No shade anyway, mega setups are great, was just letting OP know they have that option

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When you’re looking up the Proteus you should also check out the Roland JV1080 and JV2080 - both classic ROMplers that were so successful (IIRC the 1080 is the best selling synth of all time, even beat the DX-7) they’re easy to find and inexpensive and sound great. It would definitely cover a lot of classic 90s house/techno/trance type sounds and it’s easy to program. Only downside is if you want to add expansion cards some of them have gotten almost as expensive as the 1080 itself, but there are more than enough built in sounds - you could program new patches for years without ever needing an expansion.

EDIT: I’ve played a lot of shows at a lot of different kinds and sies of venues and I’ve never once in my life seen a venu that had a mixer for artist use. They’ll have a board for the hosue sound system buthaving an extra one just lying around in case an artist just happens to need one is unheard of IME, and even if it was common I wouldn’t count on a house-provided mixer to have the features you need (or even work).

Maybe it’s jsut a USA thing, live music is in pretty bad shape here and I know European venues, at least, are a lot more likely to provide basic backline equipment like amplifiers and drumkits for touring acts, so maybe they provide hosue mixers too and I haven’t heard about it because all of the friends I 've had who toured there either played in bands or did noise or eurorack, and none of them ever needed mixers on stage.

My solution is to keep any live solo setup minimal enough that I can carry everything in one load (which makes it a lot less likely you’ll have gear stolen), so as much as I like working on mixers that’s the first thing to go when I’m getting a live set together. I also stopped bringing outboard rverbs and jsut use the OT’s internal stuff for live performance now. The thing is, most venues have fairly live room acoustics and I would always end up needing to cut back on the amount of reverb I was using so much that it didn’t really matter too much what I actually used, so that’s one less box to carry. For a while I was taking out my OTO BAM but in most rooms if I turned it up enough to justify using it, the mix would get muddy. If I really need a sound with a big, lsh reverb on it I sample it with teverb baked in, but really very little reverb goes a long way live.

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I bought an A&H Xone 96, it has a lot of usable inputs, also for synth, drums, touchable EQ, additonal 2x analogue filters, with HP/LP/BP. Its 7 kg, and its very big, it feels very sturdy, and i like it better than my qu pac as its more immediate.

I normally bring some gear to friends to jam with, but for now it was a bit too heavy to lift everything by foot. (laptop, cables, NI Maschine, Headphones, Digitone.) in backback & one additonal Laptop bag. (I walk through my city, maybe less of an issue when using a car.)
Maybe with a trolley it would be possible. Having everything in one go is a must, if you dont have a roadie imho.

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Are you dead set on all hardware non negotiable? For another amazing sounding synth that could be sampled down into Octatrack have you considered Omnisphere?

With the new hardware integration the Virus becomes a controller for Omnisphere with every function on the panel doing what it says to Omnisphere… The new library contains faithful multisamples most modern poly and mono synths. The thing is huge.

For drums I have my Rytm mk1 sitting next to my Octatrack mk2 which I bought a month or so ago after having the Rytm for a year… such a perfect combination just beautiful.

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That pretty much was the point attempted to make. What seems to be unclear, is that some artists use a mixer creatively, having specific cues in memory. It’s part of the set-up, part of the routine and can’t just be “spec’d”, or rather, it could but it should be the exact same brand/model so that we can load the showfile. One might also “spec” an octatrack, a blofeld, a sub37, an analog keys, a jomox whatever, some eventides, all the wiring… and just bring some CF cards and a laptop (oh wait, why bring a laptop, you can spec that as well and leave your files in the cloud).

And to be clear, noone ever said “you MUST use a mixer”… I just reacted to @nfim 's statement that said that said

which I found a bit one-sided.

I live and work in Europe and never heard of that either. If you’re a bigger act you can spec a backline, but all of the riders I have managed spec’d reasonably common gear, nothing specialized (a Nord Lead for the keys, a couple of fender amps for guitar and such: stuff you can expect to find for rent easily). Artists that needed a mixer on stage always brought theirs. Besides, nowadays digital desks are super compact and lightweight, and so are ABS cases to protect them. The Qu16 from A&H that started the discussion is particularly compact. But of course if you live and work primarily in a big city and use public transportation or Uber to get to your everyday gigs, than you have to adapt to that fact.

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Indeed, actually my rider also includes the music itself and someone to play it. I don’t even need to show up!

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Holograms are hype these days :wink: