I recently purchased an Octatrack and the action on the crossfader is really loose, like there’s no resistance whatsoever. I remember fiddling with an Octatrack at Guitar Center a while back and it was the same thing, but i attributed it to an abused floor demo. Can anyone chime in here and tell me if this is normal? Or does your crossfader have resistance?
Thanks!
Yeah is normal
Totally normal.
It’s an Optical (Contactless) Crossfader.
Just sat down with my brand new Octatrack MKII.
The crossfader feels very loose/light to me. There’s no vertical movement, its not like the knob feels like it’s going to fall off or anything, but just the general left-right movement of it feels very very light.
I appreciate there is literally no way to quantify what any of us thinks is loose/stiff, but I’m hoping a load of you are going to go ‘oh yea, that’s the way it is on the Octatrack’.
Please say that. Please.
Yeah thats the way its supposed to be, its not like a vertical mixer fader at all.
It’s so you can do really swift dj style slides
Yeah, you should be able flick it from one side to the other without resistance.
Both my mid-production Mk1 and early production Mk2 OTs have very light faders. As far as I’m aware, that’s how they were designed. Feels like a high quality mixer to me! (I’m not a DJ and have mostly touched low budget mixers)
Amazing. You are all on my Christmas card list.
Many thanks.
In the OT manual Elektron calls it “silky smooth crossfader” for a reason … 
It is running so smooth because it operates contactless.
Now you can get to work on your crab-style scratching techniques 
You will come to love it.
The reason it does not feel the same as most other faders is because it is not a simple resistive element linear potentiometer like most faders, but a digital optical one, it glides on lubricated metal rails.
Not sure if it is the case on MK2 models but on MK1 you could tighten or loosen a screw on the sliding assembly to adjust the friction.
Prophetic words from the early ‘90s
The faders on my TR-8s offer only a little more resistance than the Mk2 OT (I no longer have the Mk1). But the difference is substantial. I can “bounce” the OT fader between two fingers, but that doesn’t really work on the TR-8s. Which is fine, because I don’t want my levels changing if I sneeze near the TR-8s.
Hmm. I didn’t planned to open OT tonight ! 
I was wondering about this kind of crossfader lubrification. What kind of “oil”? I’d like to try silky smooth mode !
And I also want to try to add some weight to it…
No oil I think, should be self lubricating according to @Duncan post on old forum.
