Hi @j24 !
Read lots of awesome responses from people in this thread. So much OT love … and a bit of non-love too hehehe
I can honestly say that OT would be my desert island machine if I could only choose one.
I performed a live set recently using AR, OT, and A4 and I’m currently working on porting this whole set down to just OT and some pedals. This is mostly for reasons of portability and convenience. Also I have to send both my analogs in for repairs soon EEEK
Here’s a vid of my last set:
What I use OT for currently is:
- Brains of the set … runs the sync, pattern changes on the fly
- Mixer for the other two machines (I sometimes bring other synths live and it sequences them)
- FX processor for the other two machines various different FX depending on the song.
- FX send/return loop to get nice reverb, delay, and chorus on the OT tracks via EXT in on the A4
- T7 gives me the ability to record a 4 bar loop of whats playing live … I can crossfade to that and then switch patterns to the next song. I can then slowly fade back into the next song creating a nice dj style transition. This can be seen/heard a lot in the vid. This is usually the time I take a drink of wine or water This is without a doubt the most important part of performing live with OT (for me anyways)
- I have a few scenes set up for perfoming that is the same across all banks and parts so I’m never confused what a scene is going to do in my live set. One I use commonly in this vid is a highpass reverb wash and another one that does a highpass on the drums and does a phaser on drums and a flanger on the synths.
- I program all vocals, ambiance, and any percussive loops that are pre-sampled. Basically anything that requires a long sample so I don’t fill up my rytm’s memory. Since I can play up to 32 songs in my set my RYTM mem is JAMMED full of drum and chord samples already. The FX send/return loop I use with the A4 makes these tracks sound very lush and nice and also blends their vibe with the rest of the synth sounds.
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edit haha I forgot to mention that I use my T7 transition recorded material to do live remixing and fade between the remixed sound to the other sounds total fun and madness.
So pretty much without the OT my live shows would be pretty stale and extremely hard to do transitions between songs. Also I’d have to bring a mixer which would be one more piece of gear and more cables to hook up. Probably I would need some pedals in a send/return on the mixer.
OT makes my life so easy !
Now in proper response to your experiences with it. As with what many other people have said … I have to reiterate that OT takes a long time to get into. For the first few months I barely used it for anything in my songs. Just maybe some dumb things like delay locking for stutters and some scenes for filter etc.
I think it took me a few months before I was good at writing songs and designing sounds on it. Also the memory structure baffled me for the first year hahahaha Now I got it all dialed in. I think I spent about 3 months perfecting the transition system for my live set. With great dedication comes great reward, though. Nowadays I gig about once per month with it. I play/write/practice every day.
cheers,
Walter