Help me fall in love with my OT before I part with it

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Apologies for probably a repost of this subject, but I want to give the OT a final go before letting it go. I really want to love it, but find myself time and time again turning to the DT (at least for drums) as the workflow makes so much more sense.

Can ya’ll recommend some specific videos that I can follow along that might help me fall in love.

I’d love some that might focus on a certain area, or something like building a whole track from a single sample.

Almost like Octatrack exercises to work through I guess.

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#2

A lot of the videos I’ve recently seen about the OT really seem to focus on the live mixer/remixer aspect of it more than a songwriting tool.

Son Wu and Jonwayne bother have some good beatmaking videos for the OT but I’ve actually found it more easy to find people making tracks using other gear, or even Ableton/Logic and seeing if I can replicate it on the OT.

There was a cool video of somebody sampling the OT metronome and making a whole track out of it but I can’t track it down right now.

#3

I had a similar issue.

Tried it as a “better” DT but did not like it. I love the DT for its simpler approach. Only wished it supported stereo samples. But hey. At least it supports all WAV formats unlike the OT

Tried is as a DJ style mixer like EZBOT on YT shows and I realized I am
w a y_ t o_ s l o w_ for that.

Sold the OT. Was my second one.

Bought an NI Maschine+ and I am happy (for now) Does almost everything I need and more. Nice DJ effects, too

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#5

What other gear do you have?
Or as @ghostbuddy put it; who else are you dating?

#6

Meet up with this user?

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#7

Honestly if it don’t click just box it or sell it. To me OT is so versatile that I’ll never sell, even if I don’t use it for a while. Maybe it doesn’t have a place in your current setup? Fine, then it doesn’t. Sell and move on, but I do think that an OT can have a place in every setup, depending on how you use it.

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#8

New Octatrack user here. I’m having a great time live sampling external machines and switching between live input vs captured loop using scenes.
On the loop track, add trigs as needed - instant remix!

Track 8 as master track with compressor, boom!

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#9

Not sure what vids to best recommend you for drums but I’m going to recommend you keep at it - OT can do a lot more interesting things as a drum machine. The workflow is more complicated but not slower when you know it, IMO.

I’d suggest for this job sticking to Static machines for a while and just focussing on what they can do, ignore everything else. Experiment with assigning some stuff to the crossfader. Have your hats drop into a deep reverb, reverse your snare, bring a highpass over your kick. You now have 1 scene that gives you a whole drop about as easy as you can get it.

Perhaps look for content specifically about slices too, this is one of the powerful things the OT can do and if you’re working with longer sample content it opens some creative doors. Chopping up melodies and vocals etc.

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#10

I have a DFAM which I run through the OT and a Lemondrop plus some external effects. I use the 7 remaining tracks on the OT for samples and the CUE send on the OT to go to pedals which are returned to a mixer.

I do agree that depending on what you make, the “8” tracks of the OT can seem limiting as a song making tool, especially if you’re keen on using one shots. It might not be the best solution (and simultaneously a bit overkill) as a sample-based music making workstation and if you’re not using many of its other capabilities, then maybe a DT is a better option.

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#11

IDK man, DT is great but the versatility is what makes OT so special. You could use it much like a DT 90% of the time, but that 10% where you want to do something only the OT (or a DAW) is capable of is more than enough reason to have the OT. Like, as you say, incorporating external gear to your setup, using the CUE outputs (either to a mixer or back into itself, which is how I like to use them) or using scenes to program say, a freeze delay. It has so many more options that a Digitakt and once you start delving deeper it’s hard to use any similar machine anymore.

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#12

I completely agree, was more speaking to what it seems like the usage case might be for the OP.

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#13

This is kind of the best of of OT as performance mixer. Maybe you try out some of the stuff and see if it clicks:

If you want a straight drum machine that can also do some sampling, DT is much better.

I bought it with the intention to record patterns from other instruments and finish/perform tracks this way. This didn’t work out as I had thought. But I found other ways to use it, mainly as performance mixer, to bring in recorded instruments/voice recordings/field recordings and as a hub for sending audio to pedals or tracks from my DAW into it to apply effects etc. with the fader. That’s definitely underusing it, but I found that due to its many outputs and inputs and capabilities, it works really well as a central hub for routing and mixing audio.

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#14

Why exactly? I mean apart from being a bit more immediate and straight to the point, what advantages does it have over the OT?

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#15

I wish I had 3! So many uses in my studio.
As a mixer mangler for infinity looper / cosmos on my guitar setup
Sampling obscure vinyl on a wet Saturday afternoon
Running with the drum machines
Sequencing and sampling the prophet 10 and NF-1
Etc.

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#16

Imo it’s a lot more focused and easier to operate. OT can do so much more, which makes it more complicated to navigate. E.g. on DT tracks are mapped to certain drum samples by default, on OT you first have to tell the track what it is. On DT you can hit the track button to live record a note, on OT you have to hit the root note in chromatic mode (which you have to select first). On DT, amp and filter pages come with a visualization, on It you only have abstract graphics. On DT,you have fixed effects that will always be on the same page, on OT you have to decide which effects you want to use and can’t use delay and reverb on the same track without using a neighbor track. On DT you have control all and reload for radically transforming sounds on the go, on OT you can go insane but first have to tell the slider what it is supposed to do on which tracks. On DT you can just copy over a pattern or sound and mess with it, on OT you cannot do that as easily etc etc.

Maybe one trivial thing that could help you fall in love with OT if you sequence external gear often: it has the glorious Elektron arp for MIDI tracks!

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#17

There’s your answer. Go with it. There’s no rule that says you have to love the octatrack.

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#18

Yeah, it’s more immediate for sure. But then again if you go through the effort of setting up a template project for drums, apart from the a bit more complex paths you mentioned the OT can be just as immediate. And like, you get slices which is not an insignificant thing for a drum sampler.

#19

I totally get it. But DT is more inviting and maybe the better solution, if you only want a drum sampler with Elektron sequencer.

#20

It’s difficult to help when it’s unclear what you expected it to offer you and what kind of setup you already have.

Anyhow, this channel is a goldmine for anyone learning the OT:

https://www.youtube.com/@maxmarco

Lots of “from scratch” type of videos there. The sarcastic delivery is v entertaining as well.
If you follow those step by step you will surely discover that there is really nothing else that can do these things in hardware and probably ITB either.

The OT midi seq is very powerful and often times overlooked by users.

Also the amount of creative fx you can build is pretty much endless.

If you just want an immediate drum machine and don’t want to put in the work then maybe it would make sense to sell it and move on.

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#21

Concerning recording I can’t see any. DT has an automatic normalize thing which make it unusable if you want to keep relative levels, and audio editing is really poor compared to OT audio editor. Concerning playback, DT has a flattering eq, OT is flat. Main DT advantage is pitch range imho.

DT (per project) :
Mono samples
33 sec max recording (mono)
RAM 64MB (around 14mn mono)
128 slots

OT (per project):
Stereo or mono

128 FLEX slots (RAM 85.5 MB)
8m28s max playback in stereo, twice in mono)
8m28s max recording (stereo only)
8 recorders you can sequence with trigs, play their buffer on the fly on any step of any track

128 STATIC slots (CF Card, 64 GB max)
CF CARD streaming : up to 2GB files (3h30m per track, so up to 64GB in a project)

Slices : access to 128x2x64 = 16384 different sounds per project

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