Efficient Track Usage - Looping

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi Everyone, getting into looping on the OT but hoping for some advise on how to best utilize tracks.

My current first full foray looks something like this:
T1-T4: Drum/Synth parts
T5-T8: Available for looping bass guitar

I am aiming to play a song in arranger, play a measure of bass that loops, for a total of 3 unique parts (intro, verse, chorus).

I have T5 Flex track dedicated to Bass Intro using recording buffer 5. Pattern 1 is a record trig and Pattern 2 plays the sampled loop.

T6 for Verse, T7 for Chorus.

My question is, is there a more effective way to do this on one track? Say use only T5 to record and play 3 different recording buffers? I’d like to eventually loop guitar so I’m worried with multiple song sections that quickly eats all of my tracks and recording buffers. Maybe a different paradigm all together?

I’d also like to avoid hands on the device to say, save the buffer to sample, then arm, etc. I’m fine with using Midi foot pedal if needed (Morningstar MC6) but would prefer to hands free this since I’ll be playing/juggling instruments.

#2

Why are you using different tracks for different song sections? Isn’t it much more convenient to use different patterns (each pattern being its own song section)?

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#3

Can you be more specific about your use case? In particular, do you want to do everything live or can some parts be prerecorded? I agree that changing patterns and/or parts is the typical way of moving through different sections of a song.

There are only 8 recording buffers. Any track can play any buffer. If you want to record everything live then you will be limited to 8 loops if you don’t want to overwrite anything (as far as I know). So that could work for you - 3 for bass and 3 for guitar? You can plock a different buffer on a different pattern - so track 5 can be just bass and each pattern plays a different loop. Hope that helps :slight_smile:

Edited to add: judging by it’s name, you could probably overwrite the “intro” loop - just re-arm your recording track when you are ready to do the next part. Should be able to do this via foot switch, search the forum a bit for footswitch and Octatrack thread. This could save you a recording buffer

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#4

I’d also use different patterns for intro / verse / chorus, different recorders plocked on the same track(s).

Other approach : record constantly on pattern 1, change to pattern 2 when the recording is ok.

With that principle, you can also resample automatically, with a specific pattern recording CUE.
EX : with 4 recording tracks (T5-T8), record bass, guitar, synth, voice, resample with CUE to get 3 more recording tracks, and so on.

So you can record much more than a bass line with 8 recorders and 4 tracks to play recordings.

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