I’ve owned a Machinedrum and Digitakt, though I’ve spent a fair amount of time with my friend’s Octatrack. I prefer the Digitakt because it’s more immediate and I don’t need the level of complexity the Octatrack offers. Once again just an opinion.
I have yet to see a show where live looping is heavily used and orchestrated thru an OT. All the professional shows i’ve seen (live or on internet) use Ableton, at least because of the great lack of outputs on the OT.
If anyone has videos of someone live looping in a pro show with an OT, i’d be glad to see it (i mean live looping where the OT is the centrepiece, not a Nine inch nails gig 
)
Most of hardware live looping I saw were with Boss loopers, RC505 or RC300.
OT can do similar things and more…
Indeed Dataline from Elektron (at that time) demonstrating… Elektron.
I meant artists who tour with a show and found convenient to go with an OT as a centerpiece.
People using RC series or traditional loopers will quickly hit the ceiling when turning with a professional show (lack of flexibility, no further editing, difficulty to work with just a few tracks, poor quality or recording…).
I see it more as a bricolage at the end of the journey (i’m speaking as one of them and i feel the limits of a traditional looper).
I actually started to read this post because of the lack of overview on the states of the tracks, scenes, etc. on the OT as opposed to a DAW where you can see what is doing what at first glance.
The organization of a bank on the OT can be pretty confusing when you don’t have the mathematical mindset.
Sorry, I’m not touring yet. 
I don’t agree. Not a poor quality, and professionnal things can be done with those as center piece. Depends on who’s using it.
2 Likes
Matter of tastes i guess.
Marc Rebillet main appeal for me is the character and his excentricity. Other than that i find his jams quite enjoyable at times but it is still jamming.
The three other videos are really what i call « bricolage ». Can be entertaining but poor quality of sound to my ears.
But we’re getting off topic here. I am still looking for videos of live looping shows with an OT
I had an OT for a bit. Sold it for some reason. Not sure why now.
I have had Ableton a long time.
I liked making ambient drone loops on the OT. I have never found it as simple to make those kinds of loops in Ableton. In the OT it was like I made them with my ears, in Ableton I make them with my eyes.
Can Live do the OT thing? Probably, but not (for me) in the same visceral way.
2 Likes
Not totally, because OT can do what RCs can do, as long as the recording length is defined. It’s not easy to find the right config among possibilities, and Pickups can be a mess.
How to make a live looping show without jamming? Why should it be a show ? A demo wouldn’t suffice ?
Do you have an example of what you’d like to see with OT ? 
Yes but opposite is not true and that’s why i’d like to see the OT in this context of live looping. Since it can sequence, act as a drum machine, do live mangling, etc how comes i never saw anyone using it in a show? Is it because of the learning curve myth? Or just because people go for the most used?
No one said you SHOULD not jam, i just said i would like to see something else as for me the organization of a full prepared set is not the simplest thing to do with the OT.
I think about Binkbeats, Hugo Kant, Chapelier Fou for instance (my network is very slow atm and i can’t find links right now).
Edit: The guitar player of Battles uses one but still all his gear is rigged and driven thru Ableton.
1 Like
The tools are only as good as the user. The tools don’t make the music.
The limitations can make people do incredible things. Too many many choices can make things flat.
Anyways, why would you not use something better designed for what you wanna do, than insist on using something that doesn’t do what you want as it’s primary function. 
2 Likes
I have used mine on a bunch of gigs, but in the context of improvised live looping, not in the context of tightly arranged music that you seem to be looking for.
This might be relevant reading:
I personally do not care which famous people use the same gear as me, but these might be relevant as well
1 Like
In this case, i do think one of the primary OT’s function is live looping. I’m just questioning why i don’t see it used with that purpose. It is an open question, if anyone has an opinion i’m interested.
Is it because you are not interested into « tight » music set or it would be easier to do it say… on Ableton?
Edit: i checked again the High profile users and did not find any live looping act. The other thread is about DJ’s so i discard it
Improvisation was my focus at the time, which was a few years ago. I used it mostly for live looping, but I am not famous so I guess you do not care about my experience, lol
I am getting into more tightly structured music these days, and that will include gaining more experience with the Arranger functions of the Octatrack.
The Arranger is how you put together a tightly structured song in Octatrack. Please consult this thread for more information:
….but how’s the sound quality 
3 Likes
You should reread my posts, you are making a wrong assumption. I’m looking for professional oriented show, wether the artist is famous or not i’m not concerned
Indeed the arranger is essential but the whole planning is a bit complicated to set IMHO. I was wondering if that is not one of the reasons why we don’t see the OT more used this way. I’m kind of reversing the OP title
Can you please quote which part of the message you are reacting at?
Sorry….it’s an on going joke re: OT
Thought I might slide in a funny.
I guess you haven’t been reading the music meme or OT thread?
….and I’m OUT!
1 Like
I was joking but, you asked
- Do people use Octatrack live
- Do people use it for live looping
- Do people use it for live looping live shows
The answer to all 3 is yes. That’s all I can offer on that.
You also asked if it is easier to use than Ableton or harder. I do find something things easier to do on OT than in Ableton but that is just my personal experience. Example would be switching FX in and out of FX slots and mapping track LFOs to destinations like sample start, filter cutoff, etc. - I can do this quickly and easily in the OT. How easy it would be to do in Ableton depends on what you want to use for your LFOs, FX, what your desired destinations are etc.
1 Like
Quick bump as I would like to do the scenes thing in Ableton. Basically have an A and B scene for a track and morph plugin parameters from dry to wet, increase the gain, tighten decay…etc. Im not trying to replicate the OT with 8 audio channels and live sampling…just the Scene morphing in this case.
Is this M4L plugin still the way to with Ableton 11? Just curious if anything else has popped up. M4L DJ MORPH – SMAO#LAB
8 parameters only? … pathetic! 
1 Like