How good are the Octatrack MKII inputs for direct sampling? I’d like to know how it compares to DAW recording with a dedicated audio interface with converters like Apogee or RME. I have a Duet 2, for reference.
I’d like to work with my modular standalone away from the computer but don’t want to sacrifice perceivable fidelity in doing so. If anyone can post recorded samples from Octatrack MKII and an audio interface for comparison, it would be really helpful.
…can’t give u any hard reference…
but can assure u, ot mk2 won’t do it under the level of fidelity the ot one provided…
and apart from the fact of 44.1 khz converting all in and out, everything that goes in, as everthing that goes out, sounds very creamy and glued together in a very good and pretty “musical” way…
so don’t worry 'bout loosing any high res details while recording ur trueanalog mod stuff…it’ll be harsh or smooth as much as u prefer it, along all the way…
and end of the day ur reference converters can do their job, once you capture all the madness u did with ur gear and the ot to get things finished for real…
I am happy with it.
Sounds as good as my Qu Pac.
On the MkI I’m happy with it, it’s not amazing but it’s more than good enough. On par with my Zoom H5. Pretty neutral, it doesn’t really have much character but it doesn’t really degrade the sound significantly, either. Mire that adequate for doing a live set without a mixer and I have no hesitation to same straight in to it because the workflow is better, even though my interface (2012 BLA signature mod Digi002) sounds better. If you’re noticing a loss in quality, switch to 24 bit, turn off timestretch (this is the big one, even when the pitch and speed are at unity, having timestretch on definitely smears transients and kills some of the high end and makes the lows just a bit less punchy) and work on gainstaging, or just embrace it as part of the Octatrack sound (I opted for the latter).
That helps reassure me. Did you have experience with the original Octatrack? Noticeable improvement, I’m guessing? A lot of recordings I’ve heard from the original are lacking presence.
Yeah, the idea is to record everything through the Apogee converters in the end. I just don’t want to lose much along the way.
Sorry, that is hard for me to believe, Octatrack is 16/44.1
I wish people wouldn`t read so much into audio format specs. A stellar A/D converter running @44k 16bit will do a heckova lot better job at capturing ”music” than a subpar converter running @192k 24bit. It is also very much about the supporting circuitry (clock stability and analog stages).
And tbf the OT can do 24bit… But even 16bit is enough to get a good sound, assuming you are mindful of your dynamics and rec levels. 24bit just means you can be less fussy wrt to these things, as long as your peaks hit somewhere around the middle of the meter, you can be sure all the .detail” is captured…
Yeah, 16/441 can sound absolutely fine and that’s hat I run mine at most of the time.
Even with correct dithering I find a very noticable flattening of the soundstage if I convert a 24 bit master to 16 bit, but it’s not
Lack of presence is probably because of timestretch, I’ve definitely noticed that when it’s on, too.
It’s a matter of taste but I almost always find myself rolling of a lot of highs and using plugins to blur transients a bit on digital recordings anyhow, so I don’t really mind that the OT’s sound already includes some of that. Really clean, clear digital recordings usually don’t sound very exiting IMO.
i sold my ot mk1 because i couldnt stand how much space i lost when i recorded into it
assuming the mk2 will do a little better but will never be able to compete with converters of high end soundcards
also remember you are asking at elektronauts… the place where people live who kept the elektrons (downvotes for octatracks are usually not at home here)
the OT mkII converters sound almost as high quality as the rme fireface 400, and run at 16 bit or 24 bit, user’s choice.
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the converters on a multi-purpose sampler priced at under 1.5k cannot compete with those on a 3k sound card, right?
For what it’s worth, about a month and a half ago I was practicing with a friend I’ve been playing with and I had his eurorack system running into a pair of mixer channels (a Soundcraft EPM mixer, nothing spectacular but good enough) with the aux sends routed to a pair of inputs on my OT for processing and sampling on the fly, monitoring on a pair of APS Coax speakers. When I was getting the levels set I had to a/b a few times between the direct signal from the eurorack and the same signal being sent to the OT, recorded into a track recorder (24 bit, with timestretch off) and played back by a flex machine in real time. It’s far from scientific, but once the levels were matched neither of us could notice any difference (I’ve been recording and playing since the mid 90s and he has been in touring bands on and off since the late 80s, and both of us do editing and mastering freelance on the side - not saying this as some kind of brag because there are plenty of people out there with more experience than either of us, just mentioning it to show that we both have a lot of practice listening critically). I’m sure if we had sat down and done a really serious comparison there would have been some little differences, but as it was, soloing the direct and OT channels back and forth a few times while we were getting set up, neither of us could identify which was which by ear. I’ve got no hesitation to us the OT in a mixerless live setup.
EDIT: I use a MKI but like other people already said, the MKII should sound at least as good if not better.
Thanks; this is the type of comparative experience I’m looking for!
Since the majority look to use the OT live, it’s been hard to find info about studio recording usage and satisfaction level.
Here you go.
I recorded my Analog Rytm through the Qu-Pac (24bit, 48khz) and then took a pass through the Octatrack MKII (24bit, 44.1khz).
Same mogami cables used for both passes.
Level matched.
Listen for yourself:
Thank you for this! Great material for comparison. Exactly what I was looking for. Was the OT recorded internally or passed through to your audio interface? Going to listen critically a little later.
Internally, of course.
the octatrack mk1 at 16bit is pretty rough to my ears, while my RMEs at 16bit sound much better. at 24bit it’s much harder for me to notice any difference, other than the effects of the extra headroom I have available on my RME inputs vs the octatrack mk1 inputs. mk2 specs are much closer to the headroom available on dedicated converters compared to the relatively anemic headroom and lower signal to noise ratio present on the mk1. 99% of my octatrack usage doesn’t involve pre-recorded samples, so I’m pretty sensitive to its input characteristics. I would be curious to see if 16bit mk2 is noticeably better than 16bit mk1
today i’ve filled up all the Flex memory on the mkII, sampling 4-bar phrases then Save-and-assign sample, to first free Flex slot …
and so started to question whether the 24bit extra quality was worth it.
well, i think it is and in fact the real question is: how necessary is it really to load everything to valuable Flex Memory after sampling it? Not all that necessary come to think of it. Shall start using the Save To First Available Static Slot; streaming from card is one of the tried-and-true super bonus features of the Octatrack.
another question regarding memory resources: is it really necessary to reserve Flex memory for all 8 Track Recorders?
not really. depends on the scenario but the Track Recorders are not hard-wired to the 8 Audio Tracks, so the scenario is modular, extensible; yields further capacity by just doing it and getting the hands dirty - then thinking about the Octatrack’s architecture: environment and technique.
That’s what I do.
I’m on the fence about if 24 bit is worth it. Perhaps for studio work but probably not for using pickup machines on stage. The metering is good enough on the recorders that getting a hot recording signal without clipping isn’t much of a challenge. So 24bit’s lower noise floor isn’t as necessary. Of course it depends on how dynamic your source is. Mine is usually Rytm or Monologue and I’ve got them dialed in well.
I know folks say that the main advantage of Flex is LFO modulation of retrig and start parameters, but my Sandisk Extreme handles that modulation in Static slots as well, at least for 2 tracks at a time (I reckon any more than that would be a mess, sonically speaking) so I basically just use Static exclusively.