Alright everybody,
I have a very cool little setup at the moment with an Octatrack, a modular, a Digitone and a few guitar pedals (delay, reverb and compressor) and I want to dedicate at least a few months to this groupe of machines and making music only with them and without a computer.
The OT is gonna be the brain but every time I sit and try to work on something, I end up with a generic beat which never goes anywhere, so I believe I need to work on a method. So two options come to mind: either programming a cool beat and jamming it live while recording, or using the OTās recording capabilities to build songs on it with samples recorded from the other boxes, arranging, mixing on it, etc
But I canāt decide and I must admit Iāve been stuck in a sort of analysis paralysis for a few weeks now, so I wanted to ask you about it: for those of you who make whole tracks using the OT as the main box, what is your method?
Edit: moreover, I want to expand this post a little bit, so if any of you use the Octatrack as their main production tool, It would be great if we could share our methods and workflow together to get a better grasp of what this machine is capable of as a DAW replacement
Actually, when I go to my OT I usually already have a rough idea of what I want to do.
Iāve been using OT, AK, Shruthi and Micromonsta for two years or so to make my tracks, lately lots of FM8 sequenced from OT instead of the Micromonsta.
I almost never start with the beat, though.
Iāll usually either jam on my AK or start with a bassline with the Shruthi, which also determines the tempo.
Iāll think a minute about what kind of sound I want and quickly dial in patches in AK and Shruthi, trying not to get lost in sounddesign for now.
Either way, these first sequences define the mood and direction of the track.
Then Iāll think about what kind of drums would fit, my OT is loaded with drum samples, mostly just samples from drum machines.
In a break Iāll write down all notes Iāve used so far, look up a few scales, write down chords and continue to built the track.
Sometimes Iāll sample stuff into OT and use modulation + fx which serves as an intro noise kind of thing then.
I find this approach much easier than starting with drums as the notes and the atmosphere of the intro already show the direction.
Of course, sometimes theres a specific technique, approach or idea to drum programming I want to try, but usually Iāll avoid starting a track with drumsā¦
A bit like @Schnork, when I want to write a piece of music I already have ideas or directions I want to follow. Those ideas determine the main element I need to work first, like acid bass, or electro 808-like syncopated beat or poppy track with a melodic partā¦.
When I got a part I like, I write the drum part and quickly find some variations. Then jam that out and see whatās missing. Then refine a bit, and record a new jam. If itās good, Iāll edit the jam (mostly removing the bad part) and thatās it. It can be quickly written or it can take 15 hours.
I have an OT that I use a lot on stage but in the studio I use it to playback some sampled synth lines and play a bit with scenes.
Trying to mix down tracks to the OT does not sound like my idea of fun, nor efficient. I also think the OT wasnāt really designed for this. I wouldnāt say the OTs compressor and EQ are mastering grade.
If you want to avoid a computer, Iād look at some kind of multitrack recorder.
As for approaches to composition, I see you posted a nice techno jam with the DT. Of course beats are essential to techno. But instead of all ādrums firstā, try just a couple of percussion tracks, say kick, hhs, then add melody / bass / sample and add more drum / perc around them. Melodies and basslines in techno often are an essential part of the groove, i.e. they are part of the beat. Also, I find tuning drums / perc around melodies and basslines is easier than vice versa!
Hi,
i think you should get used to octatrack/new setup first. donāt worry and just jam as much as you can. i donāt think you can āādecideāā to make a nice track whenever you want. it will come from experimenting and jamming. youāll get there, every new setup requires some time. good luck and i believe in you
P.S. i would not recommend using ONLY octatrack for finishing/finalizing tracks, but that just my opinion
Iāve used both. The thing to get whole songs down for me is the OT arranger mode.
If you just play a pattern it will loop and loop and loop while you work on it. Eventually youāll get tired of the pattern and make it more generic so its listenable in a loop.
With the arranger, OT behaves more like a DAW where you play the song from a certain position to the end without any loops. You can add pattern repetition or loop pattern chains to make the song longer. Using arranger mode also frees your hands to perform on other instrumentās knobs or the scene fader. When its time to create your final recording, you can perform your full song into a recorder while tweaking some things live.
You definitely can record and mix with OT.
You can record up to 8m28s at 16 bit (without Flex samples).
Record 8 tracks at a time is possible (1m08s max)
You can mix your recordings with Statics (up to 3h30m files per track!), make premixes, add tracks, make complex arrangements with arranger. Huge possibilities.
I recorded, finished this in OT (QY100+mic), in a couple of days.
If you want professional mastering, ask a professional!
Take your cool beat, copy the pattern, mutate it with trigs and locks, remove and add stuff, change track multipliers and lengths, copy again, rinse, repeat. You should end up with a bunch of cool variations, hit up the arranger and insert them, remembering to use mutes, offsets, repeats and scene changes.
@Schnork: Very good suggestions, I have a tendency to start with the kick but I definitely want my percussions to be more sparse and āusefulā that the mess that I use to put everywhere
@loa: Thatās one of the routes I am contemplating, the jam and refine seems like a good option for starters
@Skypainter: I donāt know, a part of kind of want to try that though, just rendering the 8 tracks of my song to audio and loading them up to another project with an EQ and a comp on each track an a reverb on sends for mixing. I think I miss the visual feedback on the compressor thoughā¦
@Gloaming: thanks for the very supportive message I agree you canāt decide, itās more a matter of sitting down every day to make some stuff. But I agree, there will be a computer involved in the end for the mastering part
@fjl: thatās exactly the part of the OT that Iām scare of, the arranger seems so intimidating, but I definitely will have to try that though, thanks for the heads up!
@sezare56: thatās what Iām thinking, really Iām just afraid that the transition from an arrangement project to a mixing project will take so much time of recording that it will just suck all the energy out of the process
@darenager: thatās what I have in mind, the process seems appealing, Iām just wondering if I record the main out of a āperformanceā of the track, or if I arrange internally
Anyway, all in all, I guess ultimately I will have to try both approaches to know which one works for me
Not that much if youāre really used to OT recording. You can give it a try with a simple project.
For me itās pretty simple : I canāt stay in front of a computer screen more than half an hour!
Not even talking about the lack of pleasure / creativity with it!
Multitrack recorders are even more boring.
So I can say Iām definitely more efficient why OT!
are you trying to record everything into the OT and just run a stereo out of the master for your final mix? sounds like people are thinking thatā¦ I assumed you just meant itāll be the brain, like you said.
I did that for a while. OT sequenced all my external midi gear (often had all eight midi tracks in use) as well as played samples, of course. was awesome and worked very well. sometimes I used arranger mode (which is VERY powerful and easier to learn than you think), sometimes I just used patterns and recorded what I needed into a DAW for detailed arranging.
my approach for this was usually just to take an existing pattern, copy it and start changing one instrument at a time until something starts to click, and then I start changing other instruments as needed. Iām pretty melody-driven though. I used to try and use only OT for all sounds (so 100% sample based) and couldnāt do it. I hit a mental-block with samples where I can only take them so far. maybe thatās what youāre running intoā¦?
@sezare56: Youāre giving me confidence in this process, I will have to give it a try! So do you basically have arrangement projects and then mixing projects separated?
@chiasticon: Thatās basically my question Do people perform their patterns and record the stereo out, or do they rather arrange and mix in a more deterministic way recording stems and using projects for arranging, mixing and mastering?
Iāve done a few tracks which were recorded directly from OTs main out. Also a few tracks were recorded using main out and cue out.
OTs master track fx donāt affect cue outs, so Iād use tracks 1-4 as a drum machine going through master fx (making use of filter and also filter + delay or reverb for transitions) and tracks 5-7 for thru machines processing the other synths.
Arranger is great to built a basic structure and can then be used to automate scenes, mutes, transposition of midi tracks etc.
Iād say itās definitely easier if you multitrack, though. If you run important elements on individual channels into your daw (drums on a stereo track, Digitone and modular also own their own tracks and then dial in a rough mix would let you focus more on the creative part.
Also some quality fx can go a long way!
If you entirely want to stay away from the computer, a small mixer would help, because you donāt have to pay so much attention to gain staging and mixing in OT.
Would also free OT fx slots for creative fx
OT can sound pretty flat if you donāt pay attention to headroom.
64 parts and 256 patterns. Seems enough for a few songs in a project! If you running out of slots / ram, you can mix stems in another project.
If you mean specific patterns / arrangements in Arranger for mixing yes 8 Statics, or 7 with a Master track, that is doable.
You can mix with scenes, use Arranger for scenes changes, pattern changes, mutes, transpose, etcā¦resample.
If you record 64 or 128 bars for example, you can slice them, reorganise, repeat, delete some partā¦
I have a very similar setup to you @Martebar. Octatrack, digitone, machine drum, 4+ voice modular and a bunch of fx. No computer at all for recording. Mastering is done in ableton.
I record everything live to a zoom h4n off of my mixer. The OT is the brains that controls everything and the modular is normally routed through the OT. So your setup is very capable.
Process wise, as you see in this thread, everyone approaches things differently. More often then not I have a sound process I would like to explore (custom zoia patch, fm modular drone, sound on sound Octatrack looping) sit down, build that sound, and often a song starts to form from this voice building. But Iāll also sometimes have a melody or beat I want to explore.
The real magic is, always be making shit. Make beats. Make more beats. Make sounds, make melodies. You will figure out what works for you and what is fun to do.
Yeah, absolutely. 4 hours sleep and the cat wakes me up 4:30 am? No prob! Make coffee and switch on my synths so I can work a few hours on my stuff before my wife gets up and Weāll have to get ready.
Even if itās late and Iām super tired, Iāll switch on my machines for at least an hour or twoā¦
Usually at least on six days a week I can work on my stuff.
