yeah luckily I bought DT first. After that Octatrack. They compliment each other very good
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They donât even compare. Only thing digitakt does better is immediacy, it is easier to learn and faster to use. Octatrack however takes more effort to learn, is somewhat slow to get started on a new project with due to having so many options at your disposal but it can do everything a Digitakt can, and so much more that no other piece of gear can compare.
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mostly - but not entirely - true.
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Care to give an example of something the OT canât do? I had both for a year or so, and canât really think of any functionality the DT had that I canât replicate with the OT.
low hanging fruit: can you plug a USB cable into the OT and record the audio output directly into your phone?
a bit higher up: not having to sacrifice a track to get master effects.
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Yeah, immediacy. Youâd need to record the track into OT memory, then move it to your phone thru a computer. Still, you can get audio from the OT to your phone without a DAW or an interface, but not directly. Not that I care about that at all, but still.
Ah, but you can get master effects. Just need to âsacrificeâ a track. Still, OT is capable of master effects. And with slices, you donât really need all 8 tracks to do what the Digitakt can do without sacrificing a track.
The Digitakt is better for granular isnât it? Way more precise sample start + way faster LFOs.
Neither are capable of granular synthesis, but both can fake it. With OT you can use multiple tracks as well as has 3 lfoâs, which bring it closer to true granular synthesis.
On the digitakt you can set up trigs with a high retrig rate and a random sample start with extreme precision. I donât know if youâd consider it proper granular but it sounds great and is very easy to set up. On the OT I canât really come close to the same effect because of the lower resolution outside of the audio editor.
Itâs not granular, really. Just an approximation using LFOâs. True granular is more complicated. But yeah, OT has multiple tracks as well as 3 LFOâs which IMO make up for the lower resolution. At least Iâve done granular experiments that sounded good enough. Do you have an example of this difference?
itâs not just immediacy. I can literally use the DT as an audio interface. yes you can record the OTâs output internally and then transfer the file over, but itâs not the same thing.
whether in quotes or not, you are losing 1/8 of the polyphony of your sampler when you use a master track. also, can you have delay into reverb on the OT master track? DT you get delay into reverb into compressor. canât do three effects on OT or delay into reverb, I donât think.
oh and uh⌠Overbridge.
and Control All.
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Digitakt has much better pitch range for playing samples chromatically now. Not 100% on how the gain staging works prefilter on the OT but I would think this pretty different as the filter is end of chain effect on OT and doesnât have and amp envelope after it (personally I really enjoy starving the filter on DT and cranking the resonance). I think there are work arounds for most things at the cost of tracks or extra time.
But yeah if you want master delay reverb compressor, filter plus bass width filter, the gain staging structure of the DT I donât think you can really make it all happen on 8 tracks at once like the DT. That said there is a whole lot more the OT can do that the DT doesnât even have work arounds for.
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Timestamped it specifically to the bit where you can somewhat hear the effect. Basically because you have 100x the resolution of the OT outside of its audio editor, you can get a way better granular effect going. My attempts on the OT sound more like timestretching at extreme values, very glitchy and cool, but not at all convincing âgranularâ synthesis.
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Sadly not true, as far as I know you canât record external audio like an interface? Only with samples saved to the DT, which are limited by the 64mb per session limit.
Also the idea was to compare. You donât need all 8 tracks to do what a DT can do, as you have slices. Sure, you lose a track but thatâs irrelevant of you only want to replicate something the DT is capable of. Also the OT can go reverb to delay or vice versa, but not on all tracks. Should be possible on a master track tho.
That does sound cool and different to the OT, granted. Still, very limited as far as granular synthesis goes.
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plug the DT into your phone, tablet or computer via USB. then plug another synth into the DTâs audio in. you can record that audio. i.e. itâs an audio interface.
Hmm, has this changed? Last time I checked you couldnt record external sound with the digitakt, only in monitor mode but not at the same time with the Digitakt itself. Canât remember if you can use the sequencer at all when monitoring a source for sampling, probably not. Either or, basically.
Yeah I generally agree with what youâre saying, the OT is far more fully featured than the Digitakt. The one thing I much prefer the DT for though is creating new sounds out of single cycle waveforms or short loops. The envelopes are full ADSRs, the live recording actually records note length, and its granular sounds are a lot more pleasing to my ear (less glitchy).
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Youâve got a couple options now. In Overbridge you can record your input along with the tracks. Since the 1.3 update you have the option to record your inputs along with the internal tracks without Overbridge. And thatâs just the stereo out over USB. Class compliant and all that. So you can just use it as a sound card now. You can also route your signal through the fx and the compressor. Itâs pretty cool. I like it a lot.
The Octatrack looks very cool and Iâd love to get one. But thereâs no scenario I can envision where Iâd have the money to make that happen.