I Heart the OT!

Allerian · 2014-08-25T13:24:19.000Z

Hades of Spades, I love the discussion of programming performance features. Often I run into that same quandry: Render the FX or perform them? Talk about problems I enjoy having!

One other theme deserves a little discussion. What I talk positively about the OT it tends to leave the impression that I think the machine is perfect. Nope! Like all Elektron boxes there are weak points. And like all other synths and drum machines there are weak points. This is an ordinary part of the world of music-making. Do I run into limitations and problems? Are there features I wish were better or more detailed? Yes and yes. Does any of this stop me from creating what I want to hear? Nope.

The trade off is that I can show up at a gig with one box that contains the sum of all my gear and effort. A box that allows me to creatively perform as an instrument rather than pressing play on a laptop and waving my hands around. A box that allows me to think of a musical idea and to immediately construct that idea.

jayphonic · 2014-08-25T14:57:08.000Z

we use two OTs on stage, both of them are prefilled with loops, sounds and samples.
mainly we use them as the carpet on which we build up our tracks with the two A4s and 2 ARs.

i can’t really go out to play on stage without them… this machine is just too good!

clunky · 2014-08-25T16:13:50.000Z

""Allerian"":

[quote=" clunky"][quote=“Allerian”] mostly ad-hoc material created on the fly which is so amazingly easy on the OT.

Yeah its a good machine but, note this is my personal experience and taste , that style is easy to do on the OT though isn’t all that musical to my ears after a few minutes of playing and/or listening to…
Can be lots of fun, no doubt, but a lot of the good stuff I get out of it goes down the wormhole and is quite often unrepeatable.
There’s no hate from my side as some would suggest, just frustration [/quote]
Interesting comment but I’m left wondering what style you’re referring to? My ad-hoc stuff has been called hip hop, techno, IDM, complextro, shoegaze, and ambient. Octatrack![/quote]
Like the track at the bottom of your posts, where you slide between slices, effects, etc etc, not a specific music style, that’s what I’m hearing anyway. (haven’t listen to much of your other stuff)
So re-iterating
I know it requires talent to do that well for any length of time, though as you say it is quite easy to get that going, and even easier to turn it into a complete mess.
While I was initially fascinated with that, I wanted to be able to reproduce the stuff I really liked. I found that is hard and requires a good bit of pre-planning or stopping and writing stuff down, which ends up fighting with the fun jamming side when you get going wild.

virtual_flannel · 2014-08-25T17:25:13.000Z

I also love the Octa if only for the Transition trick. I re-bought it just for this feature. I really like the RPG analogy, that is my fav thing about it now. I find I am most creative when learning new tools and experimenting. The Octa is so deep you could keep learning new stuff forever. Although it can be tedious to program, I look at it like a modular sampler. All the stuff you could want a sampler to do, but you have to program it to do that first, and hopefully customize some tricks along the way. It can be a sampler, Daw, mixer or anything in between.

Dogma · 2014-08-25T19:40:27.000Z

Whats the transition trick? Does anyone just use it to “play” samples? Unmolested? I cant imagine that. Ive got a DAW for that. The Ot is one of he best synths Ive played. Its just remarkable

GovernorSilver · 2014-08-25T19:41:59.000Z

I love mine too.

Sure, I was disappointed when I realized it’s not the looper that I was hoping it would be (a next-generation Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro combined with Ableton Live-like clip playback/management/etc. capabilities). But I got over it, especially after I realized I didn’t want to go down the pure looping route after all - that build-a-song approach to looping is very common these days and I have nothing new to say with that approach.

With other devices I have a tendency to fall back on burned-in habits - I tend to create derivative music - bad to mediocre impressions of house techno and post-rock. The OT has a way of, ahem, encouraging me to explore new territory.

Swissmaster_Cheez · 2014-08-26T08:14:22.000Z

Well, the only thing where I see the Octatrack lacking is when you want to do and record some complicated midi-stuff. Lots of chords with Pitchbends, etc…

The sequencer is just made for a different thing…

But you can always record stuff directly, so it’s all good…

clunky · 2014-08-26T15:27:34.000Z

""coralhex"":

clunky wrote

Like the track at the bottom of your posts, where you slide between slices, effects, etc etc, not a specific music style, that’s what I’m hearing anyway. (haven’t listen to much of your other stuff)
So re-iterating

I’m sorry but I can’t see anywhere in this thread anybody asking you to give your opinion on Allerian’s work. Navigating this site would be an incredibly tedious experience if we constantly had to wade through barrages of unsolicited opinion about ours and other people’s stylistic choices and preferences. Most people come here to trade ideas about the tools of the trade of making some permutation of electronic music. More specifically, this is “a positive thread for experienced users who get it done (p. 1)”. If you feel frustrated about your work, or some aspect of how the OT relates to it, try creating a thread of your own and let people chime in and help you.

As for what you’re describing being a “specific music style” or not, here is some rudimentary reading:
Glitch (music) - Wikipedia
Oval (musical project) - Wikipedia
Autechre - Wikipedia
A Thousand Plateaus - Wikipedia
Raster-Noton - Wikipedia
Warp Records - Wikipedia

so you with your fake elektron sig in your avatar and claim to be anti authoritarianism is telling me i shouldnt post here, funny stuff
you got OT tracks that show your pwr user stance? i like to hear some

tomes · 2014-08-26T16:29:09.000Z

(ignoring the pointless rumble)

glad to see some positivity posted about this machine as well.

it truly is amazing.

it gets super boring reading everyone moan about it.

coralhex · 2014-08-26T17:55:02.000Z

I used to go nuts about the OT not feeling like an ‘instrument’. Felt like I couldn’t just sit down with it, dial up a sound and GO. I mean, I could, but there was always the risk of breaking something, not having saved, something being shuffled around or written over. Then I gradually realized that this very bottom-up process made me more structured, and also frequently had me craft more individual sounds, all while knowing that at the end of a session, there would be something there, something jugglable, something invertable, something usable - instead of just a stream of vapourous soundwaves (however brilliant) that you may or may not have recorded.

Someone recently said (i believe @virtual_flannel) that the OT is the closest you come to a modular sampler. That’s pretty much it. You can make it a synth, a meta-looper, an FM/PM groovebox, an 8-track from hell, a 4 track from beyond hell - or anything in between. It is the unholy shapeshifter queen of outer space.

I my OT.

sicijk · 2014-08-26T17:58:54.000Z

Octatrack is simply, for me, the funniest piece of gear…I would like to have two…so I could write: I HEART OTs

Big Love for OT.!.

virtual_flannel · 2014-08-26T19:23:42.000Z

""Dogma"":

Whats the transition trick? Does anyone just use it to “play” samples? Unmolested? I cant imagine that. Ive got a DAW for that. The Ot is one of he best synths Ive played. Its just remarkable

That is the famous transition trick. You can get really creative with it, but also an essential tool for live performance with electronic instruments. I do enjoy using the Octatrack like a simple drum machine too though. Just loading each track with a drum sample and going to town with p-locks and scene manipulation. I like making a really simple idea and tracking it out to ableton as well. More fun than using drum racks or software. Ableton is a great compositional tool though so I’m using it more.

sicijk · 2014-08-26T19:30:26.000Z

""virtual_flannel"":

[quote=“Dogma”]Whats the transition trick? Does anyone just use it to “play” samples? Unmolested? I cant imagine that. Ive got a DAW for that. The Ot is one of he best synths Ive played. Its just remarkable

That is the famous transition trick. You can get really creative with it, but also an essential tool for live performance with electronic instruments. I do enjoy using the Octatrack like a simple drum machine too though. Just loading each track with a drum sample and going to town with p-locks and scene manipulation. I like making a really simple idea and tracking it out to ableton as well. More fun than using drum racks or software. Ableton is a great compositional tool though so I’m using it more.[/quote]
This one has better use of the sources

virtual_flannel · 2014-08-26T19:32:32.000Z

""coralhex"":

Someone recently said (i believe @virtual_flannel) that the OT is the closest you come to a modular sampler.

I my OT.

GovernorSilver · 2014-08-27T17:48:41.000Z

""clunky"":

While I was initially fascinated with that, I wanted to be able to reproduce the stuff I really liked.

I agree that unless the music you are trying to reproduce is house techno or some variation thereof (music stays in one key, not much harmonic movement, etc.) the Octatrack is not ideally suited to reproducing songs. I am fine with that of course.

I also agree with the observation that you can’t sequence the likes of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Stravinsky’s “Firebird”, or other music with a lot of harmonic movement, tempo changes, etc. I’d rely more on my combo of Korg M3 and Emu Command Station to do that.

I find the Octatrack best suited to exploring new territory instead of the familiar - that’s why I love it.

Allerian · 2014-08-28T00:47:09.000Z

""GovernorSilver"":

I also agree with the observation that you can’t sequence the likes of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Stravinsky’s “Firebird”, or other music with a lot of harmonic movement, tempo changes, etc.

Recently made a track entirely from Firebird.

Monopete · 2014-08-28T20:45:43.000Z

I really really want to heart it too. I bought the dark trinity few weeks ago with the romantic intention to ban the computer from the stage, but it´s really not clicking with the OT. I started to learn first AR than A4 and finally the OT. I had the fear that I will not understand the structure of the OT. That is not the problem. But I don´t get a flow with it. Sometimes I get nice results with all the scenes, efx and, x-fader, but it always needs a lot of preparation and is often not reproduceable. Sometimes something goes wrong and I´m starting seeking for the error, because you don´t see it immediately. Or I don´t find fast enough the right samples or loops. After a few days I had put the OT aside and started to jam with Ableton/push + AR & A4 and wow. I´m flying through the 3 Interfaces and everything flows and is fun again. So i realized the only use of the OT for me would be to import the Ableton parts into the OT in the future for live use. I also called the prior owner of the OT and discussed how he used it for his 3 year with it.And he used it also for stems of his DAW and also told me how complicated it was to export and import them (equals parts and a lot of problems with the volume).

So after all this I have to realize that the OT it is not for me and the computer will not leave the stage. I really want to heart the machine, because it´s so unique and an amazing instrument. But unfortunately not for me.

Accent · 2014-08-28T21:05:52.000Z

^ I would set aside the OT and focus on really learning one or both of the other boxes first. I’ve found there to be a very cumulative learning curve with Elektron’s gear, and trying to learn all three at once sounds daunting and like a sure source of frustration. I bet if you pull it out in a month or two, you’ll navigate it much better.

Dogma · 2014-08-28T21:26:32.000Z

Exactly. I got my OT and my A4 at the same time. Honestly doesnt matter which one you learn first although I learned the OT first and Im so glad I did. If you need to wrap your head around how they work you would have to be a pretty special individual to be able to learn both at once.

Monopete · 2014-08-28T21:40:46.000Z

No that´s not the problem. I understand and operate all three machines. I had extensive experience before with elektron machines. I owned a mduw/mnm before. So it was not hard for me to learn them. Ok, I scratched a few times my head with the OT, because it´s different in the structure than the other Elektron products. For me the OT breaks my creative flow a lot of the time. After I put it aside and jammed with AR, A4 and integrated Ableton/push (for samples and loops) with them, the the creativity process flowed again. It´s sad, because I wanted to get lost into the sound world of only hardware machines.
Leaving the computer alone that I operate the whole day at work.