Hey OT fans… how do you remember what banks, patterns, samples & scenes you used in all your projects? After a while I forget what scene does what so I started writing everything down on paper… Although I try to structure everything it’s still necessary for me to write some things down.
So, here is my question: how do you remember everything? Do you use paper, a booklet or an Excell-sheet, … ?
Maybe you have a fix template paper that fits with the design of the OT?
I’m interested in your tips, pictures and meybe .pdf templates if there are any…
…well, it’s a pity that you need some paperwork to handle this machine…
but yesh, that’s the only chance…
but structure can help a lot…
make sure all tempo relevant files have the bpm attached to name…
fix some rules for patterns and stick to them, no matter what…
so all tracks you play within different patterns should have the same positions…
so always use 4 or 8 or 16 patterns for one song…if you need less…leave the rest free…
free scene and pattern trigs in a filled up bank/part here and there always help a lot to navigate and prevent getting lost…
specially when it comes to scenes stick to some basic rules always and forever…
like…transition ones only on the last two scenes…
and of course 1to8 is always a scenes…9to 16 always b scenes…
breaks always on the first two…
fancy progressing always placed between 4 and 6 or 13 and 14…
retrigger games always on 3 and 11…
something like that…
…i got my ot fixed to a rack…the optional rack ears give me quite some space for little papers where i can nail down some runningorder…
and indeep i gonna prepare some prefixed dedicated papers for this which will fit perfectly there and can be fixed over the rack screws, so they can’t move along and stay where i need them…
reeloy I like your rules for scenes, I will start using them. I use the arranger to remember what bank is what. Bank A is 1 song, bank B another an so on. I start a new arrangement for each new song/bank an name it. Then I just scroll through the arranger change page to choose which song to play. I am a huge fan of the arranger.
As I go through material I make new discoveries, and sometimes make changes to how I like using the OT.
I will implement these ideas into a project called “initialize.”
I use that project as a starting point for each new project.
This way I can consolidate and simplify ideas, but also modify and build on complex existing ones without getting too confused or messy.
For example the last project I worked up has a lot of good scenes I just got around to building. Not all of them are great, but lots of them are. I’ll go through that project and sort my favorite scenes/parts, then save it out as my initialize project, then clear all the samples/patterns, and re-save.
To me this feels like evolving in a way where I can go back and revisit older ideas without being completely confused.
That said, since getting the OT, some changes have been dramatic, and instead of trying to open and old project, I’ll just re-create it in the new paradigm if I feel the material is worth keeping around.
This process helps me get better at trimming the fat of my own material, and inspires me to make something fresh too.
Similar to reeloy’s scene rules I use Patern rules, like 1 is always just beat, 2 the Refrain/Hook, 3 breakdown and 4 Bridge/other Part.
Some Songs (=Banks) have just 2 patterns, but i always use just 4 patterns, 1 for each Part.
This is easy to remember, and leaves much Space for impros.
