So I bought the Octatrack during the week with a view to taking a few months to learn how to use it and get to grips with it before swapping out my laptop from my set-up. Unfortunately my laptop kicked the bucket and so I am left with the option of trying to borrow a laptop and install my software etc… on it or break my ass to learn the Octatrack as fast as I can.
What would be the best method for triggering loops within the Octatrack? I will have a few monosynths being triggered by the Beatstep Pro and my modular as well but I need to use the Octatrack for triggering drum loops, pad loops, vocals etc…I suppose in a similar fashion to using Ableton scenes.
Each song normally has about 10-12 different parts triggered via the laptop at the same time but these will change throughout the song, by that I mean say track 1 is triggering hihats, I won’t use the same high hat pattern throughout the whole song and so I might have 4 or 5 different hihat patterns, the same for some of the other parts within a song.
Given that I will be playing about 8 songs and they don’t share the same parts, what is the best method for me to look in to regarding using the Octatrack? I have started to read the manual and make my way through it but I’d really like to focus on the right method of working for my set rather than spend weeks learning about internal sampling etc…
If I understand what you need correctly, I think the easiest, most time efficient way would to be bounce the 10-12 (mono?) tracks to 8 (stereo on the OT) tracks and trigger them upon playback on the OT as Static samples and just play them back in full.
Anything else, in my opinion, will be more complicated. The method above would take you a day or two to figure out.
You Tube go watch the lessons do them one by one tbh Imwaited 3 years to really feel good about playing live and I practice everyday 3-5 hours I still find myself on here looking up little tips & tricks( I do run about 6 machines fx etc tho) I’ve forgotten about and need at any given moment… with that said if you’re a fast learner you will at the very least get the basics down keep it simple you should be fine
Read merlins guide, watch cuckoos big octatrack video, do you have a set prepared? You should be fine to get to the point of putting a set into the octatrack and performing it but I absolutely would not recommend rushing to produce a whole set on OT straight away, you’ll overwhelm yourself if you try to rush it, break it down one piece at a time, learn patterns and banks, the machines, different types of trigs, learn scenes, then learn parts. People here will surely aid you in picking it up quickly but please read the manual and keep it close, download a copy on your phone for quick searching. Its all in the manual even if a little confusing to wrap your head round at first. It will all make sense in time but if youre gonna be playing a set youre gonna have to sit with the thing daily. Watch the videos most importantly, they will help you a lot
Thanks for the suggestion. I don’t really want to play back the entire tracks from start to finish, I need to be able to choose when to move onto the next part of the track as I might keep the verse going for longer or need more time on the chorus to get my synths ready for the next verse etc…
Hi! I played my first live gig with the Octatrack amongst other equipment a month ago. I learned so much just through preparing for the gig. Here are a couple of things I learned:
Think of how long every pattern should be. It is easier to have just a couple of long patterns (set a really long pattern length, i.e. master track to 256 or 512 beats for example). This is to enable you to play really long samples without re-starting, and to work around “only” having 16 patterns per part/bank or whatever.
Since I use other equipment as well (just as you seem to do) I deemed it good to play one song per bank. But this is personal preference I guess, and maybe you have more than 8 songs in your set i don’t know. But this makes it very clear and intuitive to change songs by changing banks. That should leave you with 16 patterns in every song. Using the max length setup above it should be more than enough. You can easily set up different hi-hat samples in different patterns by P-locking the sample for each trigs.
Be careful when you use the Copy/paste commands on patterns! I found it easier to paste the "core"pattern all over the place and then go back and edit each part so that I don’t erase something by mistake. Someone on the forum recommended to have a project copy saved if this happens, seems good advice.
If you have really many samples you need to play, bundle them together (by resampling or whatever method you have available) i.e. all the percussions in one sample, pads that go together in one sample, vocals in one sample and so on. I found it good practice to make it as easy on me as possible to be able to play the other instruments.
as xidnpnlss says, go about the easiest most effective way and just trigger static samples in full, +1 on that!
don’t arrange your songs, rather just chain them by holding the pattern button and pushing the patterns you want play in a sequence. this to allow yourself to as you say, keep the verse or whatever. Makes the set feel alive.
Just my few cents, and it’s not necesseraly best practice, just found it to be the best for me
I have started with the Merlin manual and have watched several of Cuckoo’s videos and the official videos. I am definitely making progress but I still have some way to go obviously. I just need to get clear on which method to learn inside out first of all for my set and then I will go on to sampling etc…at a later stage.
I mean if you’re set on the 10-12 tracks you’ll need to spare a couple every now and then, unless you’re ok to bounce.
After which, set up each pattern to trigger the Static samples you want to play at a given time. I don’t know how you have it setup but they can be perfect loops within the pattern length or by one-shot / plays free which do not adhere to the sequencer.
Learn static machines, buy a sandisk extreme CF card in order to stream many long files without complications, so long as you keep your song structures in order you can literally just chop your whole set into songs and fill your static slots with them. place a one shot trig on the first step of a track with a static machine and play. This will trigger the sample and disarm the trig, then you can sample lock that trig to the next song, arm it when youre ready and it will change the song as soon as the sequencer passes it. Make sure its disarmed while you want your song to keep playing. Thats one way to do it, there are more foolproof ways, like using multiple tracks and setting the scenes to crossfade the volume of the tracks into eachother, that way you always have the failsafe of fading back to the other track while you sort out any problem that may accidentally arise. This can obviously all seem confusing at first, just try your best to learn the terminology
My set will average 8 tracks so given what you’re saying I should be able to use 16 patterns per song? I will just work towards that to make life less complicated as you suggested. I was under the impression that there were only 4 banks though and so would this not leave me with just 4 tracks at 16 patterns each?
When playing back patterns I assume you are only able to playback 1 pattern at a time? I was trying another method whereby I could mute and unmute elements at the same time but this only left me with 8 audio tracks and 8 midi tracks and I don’t use the OT for midi. 8 tracks for audio was never going to enough.
I was originally going to try to split each element onto a different pattern but I don’t think that is feasible and so it might be best to have each song chopped up into 16 parts which I can then jump between them.
Finally if I wanted, say 32 parts per song, Can I just load another project during the set? I will have space where the mono synths will be going and I’ll have a minute to reload on the OT?
Banks are a collection of settings over the 8 stereo tracks and 8 MIDI tracks.
(You might want to give Merlins guide another looksie.)[quote=“PeteRabb, post:13, topic:45211”]
Finally if I wanted, say 32 parts per song, Can I just load another project during the set?
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You won’t need another project. Just another bank of 16 patterns.
OK, I see, it depends on whether you want to play one-shots like drum hits, or if you need to play long evolving samples. If drums, you can set up one or a few tracks to play short notes, and P-lock the samples. This means you can have one track play a snare sound every now and then, and in between the same track can play a couple hihat-samples. This requires a bit of planning, preparation and a good bit of time of course.
-So you have 8 banks, let’s say you do 8 songs then. In these 8 banks you also have 4 parts/bank. These banks allow you to have different default samples loaded into your 8 audio tracks. This could be a workaround to your problem perhaps? As it gives you 4 times 8 samples in your song, but it’s only ever 8 audio tracks available at the same time.
The OT will pause playback when loading another project, I wouldn’t recommend that solution, altough there probably is a workaround with external clock source and manual sync.
Conditional trigs will soon come to the OT, which will help hugely in keeping number of patterns to a minimum but I guess it’s past your deadline to wait for that. Until then, I would advice you to adjust your songs so that you can manage with “only” 16 patterns per song. It’s live! It SHOULD be a bit different then the recordings IMO
In transitions i use my external synths just as you do. I mute the OT’s audio tracks and then bring in them again with the new samples to join the externals, to me it’s a good method.
Hope this gives you any help and I wish you the best of luck, you’re going to do just fine!
PS. Also, the only one who knows how it’s “supposed to sound” is you! I screwed up like 15 times during the set and no one noticed except me
Sorry, I was referring to the 1:4 2:4 3:4 4:4 section on the side of the OT, I thought these were called the banks. I will go back through the guide and brush up on the terminology. I have read so much and watched so much that my brain is a little bit mushy at present.
I won’t be triggering single drum hits at all, I have constructed loops of everything to help matters. I also won’t using any midi triggered via the OT but I am assuming you can’t use the 8 midi tracks for audio instead therefore giving you 16 available samples at one time?
So as far as I can gauge from what you’re saying I can have 8 audio tracks running at the same time and I can then also go between the 4 part/banks and trigger a new part instead, meaning I have 64 different audio loops available to me within a song? That should be fine.
So say on each of the 4 bank/patterns of audio tracks I have them as follows;
1 - Main beat
2 - Second Beat
3- Percussion
4 - Vox
5 - Pads
6 - Random samples
7 - Arpeggios
8 - Orchestra Loops
Is it then possible to play say two samples from bank/pattern 1, two from bank/pattern 2, two from bank pattern 3, two from bank/pattern 4 at the same time? Meaning I can jump around the different parts and switch it up? I could essentially have the song divided into four parts and split those across the 4 bank/patterns and then pick and choose what I’d like to come in and drop out.
Also, I use an ERM Multiclock as my master clock so there shouldn’t really be any issue at all with me reloading the OT in between songs as other synths are playing away via the Beatstep.
fwiw, I watched some friends get onstage with an OT after a few weeks usage and the set, at a big festival with heaps of punters, was a disaster. is there some reason why you must use the OT in 3 weeks and not just a laptop? my sincerest recommendation would be to wait until your better at it, but, failing that, spend the first two weeks getting organised, then lock it off, and spend the last week rehearsing
My laptop died. I will probably just use the OT for half of the tracks i.e. 4 plus I won’t be doing anything too mad on it. Without meaning to sound cocky, I am pretty good at getting my head round gear once I get stuck in, modular synthesis has taught me to be better in that respect.
What I am hoping for here is just a nudge in the right direction.
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