How to quickly turn OT into TR-8s?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello I am a total newbie,

After investigating what would be most suited towards my immediate needs for a drum machine and sampler, and by the way of battling Digitakt and TR-8s, I was ushered deeply into the Elektron domain, after I wrapped my head around what Digitakt does, I found the light and got well into OT Mk2. What a delightful machine, I received it today.

So, here I am.

What would be the best approach to create “DRUM KITS” per se, so I can quickly start a project and load up a certain drum machine, is there anyway to make templates? Would they live as projects themselves?

I would love to quickly write drum parts, process and record into the DAW.
Also, panning would be rather important for me to get the right sonic field while programming all the parts and effects. I do not see panning options under the MIX per track. What am I missing?

Cheers

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#2

Yes and yes. I’ve made a couple project templates, but be careful because you can easily forget you’re on a template and start tweaking and putting stuff in lol. Make a template, then Save As New to get started with goofing around.

Panning is in the amp page, it’s called “BAL” (which is weird because other Elektron devices call it PAN…)

There are lots of ways you can go about this. I would set up a project/template that has a bunch of 808/909 sounds loaded into the static slots. Get–you know–four kicks, four snares, four hats, claps, etc. on and on. Fill up a good amount of slots. Then all you gotta do is load in the samples for the specific track and you’re in business.

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#3

I think a fast change between these “templates” could be with parts. So you have 4 “templates” per Bank.
If it’s ok if changing takes a few seconds you use 1 project for 1 “template”.

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#4

Great! I was just organising the drum samples. I was guessing the workflow for populating the device would be thru creating
SETS > Drum Machines
PROJECT > Template 1
AUDIO > 808
909
Dmx
Linn, etc.

Would that be the right hierarchy?

Found the BAL and tweaking that on a hat just decreased the volume rather than a pan… After a factory reset to initiate my virginal fiddling.

Thanks!

#5

Hey Transference, it sounds like you have your finger on the pulse. Sadly, I have not yet cracked the code.
How would I load the Kits to banks. It would be great to have 4 kits per project template. I wish there was a video on this topic. I think I have watched everything on youtube. After I learn how, I should make a video.

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#6

Chew on this to get some concepts in your brain, it won’t help you get there, but it will help to get you getting there… :grin: You’ll get more responses when Europes awake…
Welcome, enjoy the ride…


Sleep time for me… :dizzy::sleeping_bed::dizzy:

#7

Night Mike! Thanks for the tip. I will be a good pupil.

#8

The correct name is “balance” because the OT processes stereo files. You’d “pan” a mono file . Probably the other Elekton devices you mention process mono files.

5 Likes
#9

Make chains of 64 kicks, 64 snares etc.

Load them onto static slots/slice mode.

Then all you gotta do is select the slice for a different sound(from same type)

I suggest using Octachainer :wink:

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#10

I can’t say I understand what you are suggesting, but the mental image I got was creating an audio file with 64 hits of kicks and then importing into OT to slice and play. Did I understand you correctly?

That sounds such a tedious operation. I have folders organised with Drum Hits. All I need is to load templates with DMX, LINN etc.

#11

Woo that sounds weird. Have you checked that you’re not adjusting balance elsewhere in your audio chain, like at the mixer? (Easy check: does it work as expected when using the headphone jack with headphones, instead of the main outs?)

Is the original sample mono? Or stereo with all the audio in the L or R channel?

#12

Thats right. Apart from the tedious thing. The octatrack offers you to split a sample into up to 64 slices. If each sample in this chain is equally long (octachainer does this for you) you can let the OT slice it for you. With this little overhead you’re able to have 64 individual samples within one static/flex-slot. From here it isn’t really any different to working with a single sample, except more possibilities…
You might want to check out a little Youtube-Tut for this to check out if it suits you.

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#13

As others have mentioned use chains, I’d suggest chains of Kicks, snares etc, but also chains of individual drum machines/kits too, for these I would suggest a little pre-planning and set each chain for 16 slices, for each of these chains arrange the sounds such that on each chain kick is slice 1, snare is slice 2 etc (or whatever scheme you prefer) The idea being that you can load up a bunch of these chain kits into your slots, then use trig modes slots and slices to easily select or switch between this pool of kits and the individual slices/sounds. You can add lots of variations by use of p-locks and of course play them easily using the trig modes.

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#14

Not tedious if you use octachaner :wink:

All you do is drag 64 kicks into program . It does the rest (putting in slice markers etc)

This the way forward if using as drum machine.

Youll end up with 2 files which you can put into OT flash card. A wav file with 64 kicks and another file with the slice data etc.

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#15

Huh, that makes sense, thanks.

Also I didn’t know octachainer was a thing so that’s cool

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#16

Just a heads up up you can’t really do anything quickly that’s not uber simple with an OT until you dive in and learn the ins and outs of it for awhile, that takes some time… After that however you can do more complicated stuff pretty quickly… :smile:

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#17

So… In a basic way to start thinking about the OT structure without mentioning every detail

-Your Set holds all your projects and an audio pool which contains samples that can be shared between projects, many OT users just use one Set

-One project has 8 banks that have 16 sequencer patterns and 4 parts

-the part contains machine selections, each track can load different “machines” that do various things, also fx assignments, midi setups, and various other stuff

The “part” can be used as a template for a drum machine. You can make one with 8 “flex machines” to play samples of drums and make sequences with them on your patterns. Chains are a great option but more advanced…

It’s possible to make one or several drum machine templates in just one bank even as each has 4 parts…

3 Likes
#18

Octachainer is life!!!
If you want the kind of variation of drum sounds the TR-8S will give you, I suggest getting to know chains, in spite of them being more advanced.

3 Likes
#19

So true but maybe just a second after you learn the difference between a Set, a Project, a Bank, a Part, and what Machines are and stuff. :thinking: :smile:

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#20

touché!

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