+1
One downside of the OT that has to be mentioned is the FX. Theres a few okay ones but theres a lot of room for improvement. I guess thats asking a bit too much for a jack of all trades type of device though.
Itās a fair criticism in 2022, they are a bit limited/dated by modern standards. Itās one of the easiest things to improve with a MKIII imo.
Get a few Daisy chips in there and you got a stew cooking.
Apart from the limitation of delay or reverb per track, I donāt have a problem with the FX.
But then Iām mostly one of those people that thinks everyoneās putting too much silly FX all over everything these days.
The Octatrack Chorus is the craziest Chorus on the marketā¦ and to think it was even crazier before
Iād describe them as āgood enoughā - theyāre not bad, but DSP has come a long way and due to how integrated the effects can be into the performance aspects of the OT there can be limitations.
But given that this is over 10 year old DSP on an 8 track device that can do weird stuff, itās doing pretty well.
Edit: The forthcoming Ghost from Endophin.es has an ARM Cortex M7 with 96 kHz 32 bit internal processing
yeah I kinda wish that was different too and I donāt have a problem with the quality of the fx. In fact I really love the sound of the dark reverb and I like what I can do with it.
I donāt always use reverb to fake a sense of space but for manipulating different frequencies at specific points in a sequence. I like how you can momentarily add a washiness or dial it in at the other end of the spectrum and crimp a sound.
I guess itās all a bit silly really and Iām also realizing a bit more that fx kind of provide one trick pony events that quickly get boring. Thatās fx for ya - doesnāt really matter how expensive, fancy, controllable or whatever quality it is.
The delay vs reverb limitation was originally what sent me off on a quest to find the perfect sampler / FX chain / mixer setup (itās the only thing that felt limiting to me about the OT).
After a few years of buying lots of fx, rewiring everything multiple times Iām coming to the conclusion that the OT is just fine when used with a master track that can have reverb on top (or delay).
I find reverb a difficult beastā¦for one it can do wonders for a sound and its impact when sound designing, on the other hand though such application can really cause problems with space & placement when mixingā¦
Iāve gone as far as having dedicated reverb units on each of my synths and samplers and then having a reverb for spatial mixing on one of my busses using aux send to place sounds/instruments in spaceā¦and 7/10 times when I do this I end up removing the reverb I placed on a sound during the sound design phase because it just clashes, messes up the spatial placement or just muddies the whole up too much.
In other words, while I would love for the OT to be able to do both, reverb & delay per track, I sort of also realise that it isnāt always beneficial for me to have reverb per track/source available to me. So Iāve sort of come to reasonable peace with it.
Iād LOVE a filter on the OTās other pages somewhere so that I wouldnāt have to commit an FX slot to filtering, but thatās another story.
No other instrument I own excites and inspires me as much as my OT (mk2ā¦grey )ā¦it really is just such a unique performance machine, one for happy accidents and sonic explorations beyond the pre-conceivable.
If they ever were to make a OT2 / mk3 with upgraded memory/fx/etc Iād jump on it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.
Iāll wait whilst other suggestions of devices with 2 fx per track with full automation of all fx parameters are listed.
Filter, delay, comb filter are all excellent and IMHO are good enough to be standalone fx.
Most modern reverbs donāt do it for me, I favour stuff like QV, Bam, R100, and old pedals, bbd, spring etc. So OT verbs are fine for my needs too.
The modulation fx and lofi are useful on certain things.
In x amount of years time I have no doubt there will be VST emulations of some of the OTs fx.
I need to know more
I havent actually heard any demos but legend states that it was dialys back a bit after a pendling law sugit or somethingā¦ maybe its just hog wash, but thatās what Iāve been told
Edit:
I actually canāt find any info on it so itās probably BS
Oh yeahā¦ when Iām ready to mix (Ableton or Logic), I turn all the sends to reverbs and delays off, get a reasonably balanced mix together with EQ to stop stuff treading on other partsā toes, and then start reintroducing the sends, channel by channel - is it the right reverb? maybe try a plate instead? much shorter ambience? Is a delay way too much feedback? In general, I get sends to where I can hear whatās happening and I like itā¦ and then turn them down a bit more. Itās surprising how snow-deaf (is that a thing?) I can get, then listen to a rough mix in the car and think āfark! you put all that delay on there?ā. Pretty much applies to any fx, insert or send, or in a synth patch - I eventually found a Brian Eno quote that sums it up better than I can - ādo something radical, and then retreat to a position of usefulness.ā Says it all really. Heās such an Unstoppable Conceptual Bastard.
I believe it was the flanger, not the chorus. Also have zero references, but simply reciting what I read at some point.
I think there should be info on it in the old elektron forums.
I used to use them more when I was learning it but for the last couple years Iāve settled in to jsut using one 99% of the time. Although in general, the better Iāve gotten at the Octatrack the fewer features I use. Youād think it would be the other way around, but in the beginning I wanted to use everything and now Iāll just use a few specific things that ar euseful for whatever Iām working on at the time.
Looking down on it at this very moment.
And itās beautiful.
This.
I donāt know about lawsuits, but itās not totally unprecedented. I know the original RAT pedal (the REALLY original one that hardly anyone has actually seen or used) was discontinued after something like a few dozen were made (or maybe jsut handmade prototypes, I canāt be bothered to find the details now) because it was more of a resonant filter with extremely high gain at the resonant peak rather than a distortion, and the peak was SO high it not only damaged speakers but it could potentially damage the input on a preamp or mixer. It was something like 40dB.
So kind of like the Systech Harmonic Exciter but even more so.
I had an old Digitech multieffect (GSP2101) in high school, and I managed to destroy the speaker in my amp with the flanger in that thing (the teh I took it to said the spider was actually torn in half and heād never seen anything like it), and I saw a noise musician friend of mine actually crack the magned in a Traynor bass combo in half at a show with nothing but microphone feedback, so I absolutely believe itās possible the Octatrack flangerās feedback was originally too extreme and blew a tweeter on somebodys expensive monitors or something. Square waves (which is what youād get if you clipped a really high amplitude sine wave from flanger feedback) donāt mess around.
same, I have a grey unit and kind of like that itās the odd one out.
If only it had overbridge and a better workflow
No but im thinking of buying one for my syntakt, would be a cool setup.
But maybe mk3 is around the corner now that they have milked out everyone with aneversery and black versions?
Totally amazing machine