after lurking and reading this forum for a while, i wanna hear your thoughts about this how you would solve this problem, or see any incoming problems with this.
i consider my current setup multitrack oriented. i do have a Rytm, a novation peak and some mono synths, and a midi sequencer to send midi to all my synths and a clock to the rytm.
My current workflow looks usually like this: I sequence some midi to my synths then do the sound design on them, adding drums from rytm, and if i reach anything that i think is worth an recording i’ll arm all my inputs in my daw hit record and record all modulations synth and drum-wise as audio into my daw.
im currently learning more and more about the Octatrack as i am considering to include it to my current setup.
My Goal with this would be to make part of my setup more performance orientated. My live-setup would only include: Rytm, Octatrack, any Synth probably novation peak, and maybe another synth. I would like to be able to perform dawless, with pre-recorded stems from the OT and with live input from rytm and at least one synth, so that i can arrange the tracks live and play with effects from OT on a Master Track
So the firstquestion is how do i integrate an octatrack into my whole setup, without losing the possibility to multitrack but also have the live setup handy and ready to play and practice. Secondquestion what kind of gear do i need to make this possible?
One way i think solves this is using a patchbay with a half normalized config. i could then mult audio-signals that i need for live-setup and for multitrack purposes
Love to hear your thoughts on this, i hope everything is understandable. thank you for reading this far.
Write your tracks the way you describe. Then take the Rytm and the chosen synth out of the main set-up and make a separate “live set-up” with the Octatrack. Export stems from Ableton to the Octatrack’s CF card. Work on on the live show with just that.
Pros: No need for clever/complex routing; cheaper; fewer distractions;
Cons: takes up more space; swapping over might be fiddly (but actually I see that as a Pro because it draws a physical line between the “writing” and “performing” roles).
I know you said also have the live setup handy and ready to play and practice - but I think this will end up a distraction.
I play live with 2 Octatracks. Before, it was one Octatrack and the Rytm.
I create ideas by sequencing my outboard gear with the Hapax, and record this into the Octatrack one synth at a time.
What I’ve found though over time is that once the material is in the Octatrack it benefits from being buggered about a bit. My favourite tracks that I’ve performed and that have been best received (all within the realms of deep techno/progressive house) are the that have been influenced most by Octatrack manipulation of the original material.
All that to say - if you’re going to use the Octatrack as a simple stems replaying machine…I think you’re ignoring the greatest strength of the Octatrack. I’m not big into samplers - The Octatrack and Ableton are the only two I’ve used - but I’d imagine there are better stem playing samplers out there.
If you get the Octatrack give it some material, work that material over and have the Rytm on drum duties, and you’ll have a great live setup before you even add a live hardware synth.
for really long stems octatrack and mpc are pretty much the only options i believe, for what i know atleast oh and a 1010 blackbox maybe. Anyway stem playback would just be a small part, for sure i wanna play out octatracks strength to manipulate sounds with that. Thanks for your input, only having octatrack and rytm for a live setup also brings some nice limitations
ur about to run a dedicated live rig AND a studio set up…
sure ur ot will do great stuff in ur studio too…and u just give it some inputs for such duties…
but then, once u got it all sorted out in studio ur able to decide for each track ur going to perform, in which way u wanna stem it out…
which parts will be the backbone of ur track, which parts u wanna mess around with for live jamming…and no, u’ll never gonna need more than that rytm (u might even skip it totally at one point in the future) and one more external synth to feel totally free and happy to perform for real…all midi sequencing will/can be covered by ur ot also…
thank you for bringin this up, i dont agree 100% that it will distract me. i also dont want to spend time fiddling around and repatch while switching between “writing” and “performing” mode since i also wanna use the octatrack within the writing process and when sketching out tracks and recording into my daw for further processing and things i cant do on my current hardware. But a blurry line between those might also bring it cons. Overall i think the pros of building such a patchbay setup with outlay its cons
Strongly agree! to each their own but the “performace mixer” & “stem player” ways of using the OT are not very exiting to me, and it seems like a very expensive way to not use Ableton or DJ software. It shines brightest as a sample mangling powerhouse and I feel like once you do that you really connect with it as an intrument and not just another piece of gear