How do you keep your tracks organized?

[Sherelle]

plain paper and pencil: very flexible in taking notes

This seems like a great idea. I have a little memo block with square sheets of paper in it. Perfect for this, then scan with phone camera to archive in case the paper gets lost.

I write everything down (I use graph paper). I keep everything in a notebook.

[Tokin_Tone]

I have one project that I named ‘template’ with settings that work for me, so for a new project, I open this, then ‘save as new’
It saves time in setting up midi channels, machines etc

[djenzyme]

Don’t forget you can make notes (remarks) in the arranger, and also use those notes to ‘divide’ the arrangement into sections such as intro, first drop etc etc

I find this is really useful when coming back to unfinished projects later down the line

[hrrld]

Here are some of my thoughts from a while ago: New thought: 16 patterns of a bank as a 2D grid

This particular setup is nice for the problem you’re describing because it abstracts musical ideas away from their implementations on specific tracks. In each bank I can use whatever tracks I want to implement whatever musical ideas, but each bank uses patterns in the same way to achieve different musical feels (more rhythm/less rhythm, more harmony/less harmony).

This way, when coming back to old projects/banks, I can still control them reasonably without needing to know the details of how they were done.

I think this idea has more usefulness in some genres than others, but it has worked well-enough for me.

Hope that helps.

[Mistercharlie]

I just read your linked thread. It’s a good idea, although I’m not that advanced yet on the OT — I’ve only had it a couple of weeks.

Your clever use of banks made me think that they could be used as a way to expand the number of tracks you have. For instance, you could always place drums, bass, and percussion on track 2, 3, and 4, with track one used as a pickup, track 8 for resampling, and so on.

Then, if you need a new pickup, instead of squeezing one into a spare track, you could duplicate the current bank and reuse the PU on track one. That way you always know where the various track elements are in a pattern.

That leads to a different set of confusions, but it’s a thought.

[Mistercharlie]

This bread also looks quite handy;

Using pre-configured bank

This an answer to a question raised in the “im afraid to resample” topic. For a long time, I thought that the OT was a complexe machine not so easy to use compose new tracks … until a got a simple idea : designing a template where a few banks would be preconfigured for specific tasks. It is then possible to use the transition trick to “move” the audio from one bank to an other. For instance, if I work on pattern A1 and need more drum tracks, I will sample it, and use the transition trick to …

[sezare56]

May vary, nothing planned but usually :
Tracks 1-4 for recordings, samples.
Track 5-6 Thru machines or fx (CUE recording), or samples.
Track 7 for additional samples / fx
Track 8 as Master Track

[Transference]

First 2 tracks are fix:
Track 1: Kick
Track 2: HiHat / Snare
Track 3 & 4: other Percussion sounds or fx sounds
Track 5 - 8: Thru machines if needed with neighb.
Sometimes track 5 & 6 are also used for Percussions.
Usually I don’t use Master track.

[Transference]

I have one project that I named ‘template’ with settings that work for me, so for a new project, I open this, then ‘save as new’
It saves time in setting up midi channels, machines etc

I’ve never done this but sounds very helpful. I need to try this.

[sezare56]

Yeah template is great. If you want to use all banks the boring thing is to copy and replace / rename banks with a computer preferably (possible in OT, but…)

Save as New!

I made 1 template project, but after I found interesting to start from scratch all the time to master more OT.

I bought Octaedit so of course I plan to make mega templates!

[electrow]

I started this Project tracking sheet. The third column is for pattern/track info. Scene actions to describe scene changes and movement.OCTATRACK PROJECT TEMPLATE v1.pdf (114.7 KB)

[Open_Mike]

Being loop based, I tend to use one main pattern for looping with:

-tracks 1-3 pickup machines for main loops
-track 4 plays spoken word samples
-tracks 5-7 are each a flex remix of pickups 1-3
-track 8 master

I get tons of mileage from that pattern as I can just redo the loops and get lots of different results. Other patterns/parts are used for tricks, breakdowns, or other ideas and they are made mostly with the recorder buffers so that what they do is based from the material I have looped in the main pattern. I jump to them from the main looping pattern for variations during jams then always back to the main pattern for more looping. For the most part I keep things similar across patterns if they have the same element, usually drums loop1, bass loop2, rhythm or melody loop3, spoken word track 4, and the rest get switched up, sometimes any of those first four tracks get switched as well. The variations can be quite extreme with their own sets of scenes and whatnot.

I do have some copies of the main pattern mostly the same but with different flex remixes, usually accessible always on pattern 1 of a bank, sometimes another on pattern 9. I tend to keep similar things on the same pattern number of different banks, they are mostly the same but have some kind of variation to them.

I use one project that I keep adding to. If I start experimenting and have something going I like, I save as new and test the concept thoroughly to see exactly how it behaves then reload the main project and enter the new settings. I only enter changes to my main project after extensive testing to make sure It’s completely reliable the way I’m doing it and that I can’t mess up my jams by doing something weird. Since I always use the same project and continually use the same remix patterns over and over with different material, it keeps getting engrained in me so I keep the whole thing memorized as far as what patterns/parts do what…

So basically I have one main pattern that records loops and all other patterns create variations of what was recorded on the main pattern. I’m always jumping from the main pattern to other ones and then back again. Easy to remember the tracks of the main pattern, if other patterns use the same tracks they are always in the same spot, my variation patterns I just remember how they are set up since I use them over and over…

[Mistercharlie]

These are some really excellent tips. I’m just beginning with the OT, so I don’t really know how I’m going to use it yet. I bought it to use as a guitar looper and mangler, but I’m already using it to compose, and to remix my own songs.

I plan to start a notebook. @electrow I like your PDF, but if I don’t keep everything in a book I’ll lose the pages. I’m going to make a rough page plan, but like the OT itself I think I’ll just see what kind of order appears for the chaos.

[sezare56]

I bought it to use as a guitar looper

Me too, not for guitar only, but I didn’t know how much OT could be a realtime mangler. Pretty complicated to use it both way (realtime processing of recordings + loop recordings of what you hear), especially when you start with OT. At first I think it’s better to concentrate on different applications like parts of a puzzle, with an evolving creative puzzle goal.

I don’t know why, but now I want to compare it as to learn a solar system. Don’t try to learn everything about it globally at first. Concentrate on each planet first, go back to the system and its meaning, then to planets and so on. New territories of creation for sure.

For basic stuff, I’m pretty sure OT is not the best. OT is the star of an unknown solar system!

No I’ve never been inspired by @Open_Mike!

[Rusty]

How do you keep track of what’s going on in your tracks?

I just know these things. I’m also ridiculously organised; and have certain ways and means of doing stuff which no one else has / can do.

Do you always use track 1 for drums, and track 2 for bass, for example? Always use track 1 as a resampler?

These days?

Track 01 Thru -> A/B
Track 02 Thru -> C/D
Track 03 Flex -> Vocals
Track 04 Flex -> Crossfader
Track 05 Flex -> Misc Samples
Track 06 Flex -> Misc Samples
Track 07 Flex -> Misc Samples
Track 08 Master

Track 09 Virus TI Part 01
Track 10 Virus TI Part 02
Track 11 Virus TI Part 03
Track 12 Virus TI Part 04
Track 13 Virus TI Part 05
Track 14 Virus TI Part 06
Track 15 Secret Squirrel Business 01
Track 16 Secret Squirrel Business 02

[sezare56]

Track 03 Flex -> Vocals
Track 04 Flex -> Crossfader

Samples, your voice?
Track 4 for mangled stuff, with CUE recording or something?

[Rusty]

Samples, your voice?

Vocal samples / not live singing or anything.

Track 4 for mangled stuff, with CUE recording or something?

Cues / crossfader transitions

[Neimad]

personally i like to keep all drums and perc on t1-4 and samples on t5-8. Helps me remember things for mutes and solos. lil bit more reliable to hit trigs 1-4 for dropping drums out.

[sezare56]

For drums I usually use 1 track with plocked BD/SN/HH with lfos for slight variations, and an additional track if needed.

Ideally I want to make sliced drum kits I can use on 1/2 tracks with slices plocks, lfo on slices variations…

[Open_Mike]

Drumz:

Rytm is my drummer and I do loop based improv jams so I always like to have options available. OT sort of multiplies my AR into live signal, recorded loop, and remix.

On pretty much all my patterns Track 1 is a flex/buffer that captures a loop from my AR with a one-shot record trig. I use a scene on the left that monitors mixer direct for the AR and one on the right that fades out the direct signal and brings in the Track 1 loop. This way I always have two AR patterns going and can crossfade between them. With all my scenes I always have mixer direct AR on the left (1-8) and the Track 1 loop on the right (9-16). The scenes do different things but there’s almost always a version on the left with live AR and a version on the right with the loop, if I don’t want the drums to change I select both scenes from the same side…

There’s almost always a flex remix of AR on Track 5 using the same buffer as track 1 but all sliced and diced and whatnot. I also blend this in with scenes. So I always have 2 AR patterns and a sliced remix and I can mix and blend between just one or a combo of 2 or all of them, or just add a touch of one them with the fader. Good times…