i’m an Elektron noob in the market for a machine. the toughest part is choosing which one to start with. (no, i can’t “get them all” right now, much as i’d like).
for weeks i’ve been going back and forth b/w the A4 and Monomachine.
since i’ve gotten back into listening to Burial’s latest recordings, i’m considering an Octatrack more seriously. i know he doesn’t use much anything other than SoundForge for his music, but i love that he can create whole atmospheres - almost stories - relying solely on samples.
this got me wondering about how you guys use your Octatracks.
sampling external midi gear + triggering a few samples ?
loading snippets of .wav files and stretching them across 8 tracks ?
perusing giant folders of samples just to see what jumps out at you ?
i’ve used sampling pretty heavily in Reason, but i understand that it’s a pretty different ball game when it comes to using hardware.
it can really transform audio. some pretty good mangling ability once you get into it.
i tend to start off w/just the OT and whatever samples i’m interested in exploring… and then use it to sequence external synths for other things… when needed.
once you get the basics you can do stuff pretty quickly w/it… i just keep refining whatever i’m working on until i’m happy with it.
i like to have the audio out of my computer hooked into it so i can grab any interesting sounds i find while i explore the internet! esp. from youtube or tv shows
the A4’s incredible and it can do things you might not expect it to, my favourite, but I’ve recently got an OT and it really is an understatement to say it’s deep and flexible, you can cover a whole lotta ground with it and in different ways, whether you like working with the small stuff or bigger passages - they’re different and they sit very well together, the A4 is purer to its remit, but the OT is going to cover more ground due to its vast flexibility - it probably depends what other gear you may like to sit beside them which would work out best in short term
You can work with the OT in so many different ways. I’ve had mine for almost a year, and I constantly come up with new ways of using it.
Something I’ve done lately is freestyle play one voice from the A4 at a time (from the keyboard) sampled into the OT. From there you can chop and remix stuff at will, can create some pretty odd soundscapes or just glitched out mess that way.
For my next project (after the current one is finished) I’ve decided to sample drum loops from the Machinedrum into one or two tracks, and various synth bits from the Blofeld.
A friend of mine and I have a collaboration project where we’re jamming out on the Elektrons, recording into Audacity. Sometimes I’ll import the entire wave file (can be around 30 mins long sometimes) and place it on a single track on the OT, chop it up, just mess with placement of slices and see what I can come up with. Pretty fun way of remixing a jam into a more “interesting” or varied piece, for instance. You can basically work with the OT as you would work with any DAW, although it obviously has a different workflow and some limitations. But it’s basically like having 8 audio tracks and 8 MIDI tracks in Live.
The OT, once learned, is a great tool and so much fun to use. I can’t recommend it enough. Give it some time, and you’ll love it. Check out skab’s Octatips on Youtube for further creative ways of using the OT;
nice, subtle rhythms with deep synths playing melody fractions, lots of fx tweaking going on.
for this, I currently use this workflow:
create drum loops using tons of samples. use all 8 tracks just for drums. randomly pick some samples and arrange them nicely. sample them down, chop them up, rearrange them, lofi, filter, pitch, compress. sample again, etc.
then I sample from my pc some nice vst synths like oatmeal. I create loops with wild filter variations. I slice them, create random locks and add some fx.
then I start building up and arranging things… that’s how I do it - at the moment.
Use office hours to study manual/forum and write out technical ideas. To maximize efficiency in the studio, for each session/project I try to spend 20% of the time setting up and 80% playing. This applies to any instrument, but for the OT I notice that the more accustomed I become to the OS, the less time it takes to get results.
Another time saver is ‘sets’… I have a designated set for playing live with Atlantis, so when we tour or rehearse all I do is change sets.
The last two sessions I did were supplying breakbeats of doom at a friend’ studio and sequencing my modular patch of mayhem with the OT’s arpeggiator.
For both I tried to minimize time to set up and started playing as soon as possible. Especially the modular arp sequencing session required some finetuning in the menus for the resampling, but I got that done in no time whilst playing… and that is the secret to my personal succes with the OT lately. I used to spend hours preparing templates, preparing preparing preparing… now I try to hit play asap and go with the flow, solve “problems” as I run into them.
Using Ableton 9 to generate sample 64’s and longer sequences from a combination of Diva / Zebra / FM8 / Satin / N2O and a bunch of outboard
Syncing Ableton to the OT & MD using an Innerclock Synclock
Loading in stuff from step 1 and jamming along creating patterns + adding more Ableton channels to feed into the OT
Resamping the results back into Ableton
Back to step 1 (…and never finish any tracks ;))
I basically feed things back and forth between Live / Bitwig and the Elektrons until the patterns start to sound interesting or have grown some special playable tricks for live use. My main problem is knowing when to stop tweaking and move on but thats a happy problem to have tbh. Awesome fun
I rarely try to make entire compositions using Elektron machines; I much prefer Ableton/Push.
I load up a CF card with samples and drum hits, and then go nuts with p-locks, slicing and effects. Maybe make a few variations across different patterns, and resample back to the OT.
Every now and then I’ll connect the OT to the computer, delete samples I’ve thoroughly exploited and copy back newly created loops for integration into tracks on the computer.
Same setup over here, just no innerclock And again same problem over here, playing the loops/samples back and forth is so much fun i never get too finish an track because there is always a new sound or loop… -_-
Got a new workflow I want to try out for a new project now. It’s kind of obvious, but thought I’d write it here anyway.
I’m going to use a Machinedrum, DSI Evolver, Blofeld and OT. Have everything synced to the OT as the clock master. Jam out with all the machines synced, get a nice groove, and sample each individual sound into its own track on the OT by using sample record trigs and muting of the individual instruments.
Keep patterns 1-4 to part 1. Patterns 5-8 on part 2 etc. Make variations of the one pattern recorded in pattern 1-4. Record a new pattern for part 2, and make variations of that in pattern 5-8 etc.
That’s not a million miles off what Im doing. I’ve got the OT as master running a Tetra, TX81Z (with the audio fed through a Yammy A4000 for FX), iPad and, often, vst’s in Live.
What I am currently very guilty of is never saving anything or pushing things further than just mindless jams but it’s all “training” just now and working on using the OT quickly and effectiently before adding more of the sampling side of things. I’m yet to try parts out at all actually haha!
It is a lot of fun though and does a great job of recreating a lot of what I do in Live/software world.
Check out skab’s Octatips on Youtube for further creative ways of using the OT;
And again same problem over here, playing the loops/samples back and forth is so much fun i never get too finish an track because there is always a new sound or loop… -_-