Fun fact, I am still recovering from Jamuary. I rarely get sick, but the <6 hours of sleep a night all month really threw my physiology out of whack.
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Jesus, you guys need to sleep more! 
Overwhelmingly it seems like the common approach is to perform the song instead of building it DAW style inside the Octa. Looks like itās the more accessible way of doing too, so Iām gonna be pushing the record button tonight!
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Yesterday I finally tried using the cue out for resampling parts through effects chains (Platform to RE-20 to RV-6) and the power it provides blows me away. I was only unsing it for a delay send during live sets before. Being able to sequence a synth, hear it with a thru machine, route it to my pedals and record the result on the same track is amazing.
I need to get into the mindset that 6-8 big sounding and moving tracks can sound as interesting as 40 highly mixed in a daw. And that you donāt need 20 percussive elements to have groove or progression.
This is going to be interesting!
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Hi @Martebar,
Iām at a similar place and set up - OT and DN with peripheral gear.
Itās a great set up and with just the first two boxes thatās enough and so much already.
You could try to do a bit of both your ideas coz OT can capture some parts of a song ,especially the synth modular as it happens - the jam out a beat and record it live with whatever tweaky bits you can make on top.
I like to be able to record my gear at the touch of a button so I dont record stereo masters inside my OT but use an outboard CD recorder. Anything that records quick, maybe your PC- keep it simple, so the moment you hit a sweet spot you hit record and jam.
Iāve been trying to get quick at sampling with ot so sampling 4 ,8 or 16 bar passages of synths,which is good, but the live resampling that the heads do here may be a better way forward.
Digitone itself can do whole tracks so there is a lot to take in and options to avoid or explore.
I love @Schnork s idea of starting out writing down what notes are used already to help generate chord structures because with these complex digital machines we cant see or remember everything.
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Something like OT? 
QREC > Track + Rec > Track + Rec > Save
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Oh yes, I have a small Tascam recorder that Iām gonna use just for that for sure!
Thatās what I was thinking about recording the modular as it is the most unstable part of the whole setup, you can never be sure of the tuning when turning it off and on again. The Digitone Iām less worried about.
I also want to be able to use those patterns for possible live sets later with a simpler setup of OT + DN, so I definitely will have to record the modular.
Thanks for the input!
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Yeah, it helps a lot! Going through tracks and holding each note trig on a few patterns to check which notes are used certainly isnāt fun.
I always have a track in my DAW with a notepad plugin (or a notebook on my desk when Iām working without the daw) where I write down all notes, scale and some chords.
The notepad plugin is used to write down the pattern structure, transitions, performance elements etc.
This way I can build my tracks in a jam like situation, refine patterns and key elements without losing track of the direction I had in mind.
Iād also sometimes describe in a few words what my intentions were when I started a track, where the inspiration came from etc.
I use the arranger on the OT to have a fixed structure, makes it easier to do overdubs and also helps not getting lost in endlessly tweaking sounds while the same pattern loops which then just sounds like endless boring tweaking of one pattern on the recording 
When itās time to record, Iāll copy my arrangement/performance notes into a text editor and pull it over to the second screen.
This way of focused production really helps me to get stuff done.
Part 1 on my OT is always named with the tempo so I donāt have to dig out my notes when jamming.
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Just want to consign the made suggestions
Gratuitous Pattern copy paste: find a basic groove, copy it and put it somewhere safe. fill up a bank with the copy. Then: tear it up.
Key: yes! Figure out a key and itāll always be musical (learn modes to get different)
Arranger: cannot speak more highly about it. Itās seriously good.
All my compositions are done on the OT. Some mixing and fx. Multi track. Further mixing itb.
Edit: thought of another one : know and accept your moods. This has helped me a lot. If youāre in a creative place, experiment. If youāre not feeling the aether, do mindless things, like cleaning up a daw session or velocity programming or such. This way youāll have a blank slate for when youāre in the zone again.
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Haha yes Iām a bit of a newb
Sometimes though I max ram with stupid long programs of banks with little recording memory.
The quickest way and less thinking the better (for me ie no thinking or menus).
Definitely why I use OT for that. 
Pretty easy/fast to set internal long recordings.
- Personalize > ONE2 Recording (for all Projects)
- Memory > Dymamic Recorders + Reserve = None (once per project)
- SRC3 = Main, Cue or T1-T8
Ready to record!
Track + MIDI/REC3 button to start / stop.
I usually use T4 recorder, close to MIDI (SRC3 recording for MKI), set QREC to PLEN.
You can quantize a defined length, and slice accordingly.
Using an external recorder can be much more menu diving (I donāt use my H4N), boring to plug, levels, recording, saving, naming, transfer, quality loss, etcā¦
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Hey really appreciate your input.
I did think I ran into problems though ,that left me over cautious, with dynamic memoryā¦
It seemed to rob my old banks in the same project when I took lengthy samples of 5 minutes? Like it stole samples from the flex list. When I rebooted, old banks were faulty, losing samples out of memory. I would of thought Iād saved the long one to static before shut down also.
Do you know anything about that?
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Ps I will save your key presses as snapshot for later use .
I didnāt experienced things like that.
I usually use a minimum of relatively short sample in Flex slots, longer samples in Statics, and assign long recordings to Statics.
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Yes I got the feeling you make short projects specific to each task/song.
Makes sense now.
Lazyness! Too much projects! I tend to experiment more and more on the same project, even for different purposes.
I usually change bank (lazyness), pressing same button twice (bank 5 = pattern 5, faster).
For same purposes, now I force myself to change parts. @Open_Mike
And I usually play / mangle external instruments live, use midi tracks, so I donāt need tons of samples.
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Your music is very good.
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I have to say, this thread, especially @sezare56 comments, gets me so pumped up to jam with my Octatrack. I keep learning so many little workflow tips, which ends up reminding me that the Octatrack is a lifelong investment (for me, at least). It has me thinking about a topic that I may bring forth in a new thread about the pros and cons of having ādeepā synths (multitaskers) vs. āshallow/simpleā ones (specialists). With the flexibility and depth of the OT, Iām finding that I lean toward more straightforward gear to go along with it (Digitone nothwithstanding).
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One little workflow tip, especially when youāre new to a machine;
Print out imortant information!
All Elektrons have a list of shortcuts in the manual.
For the Octatrack, thereās also this one
Also handy is the Elektron Octatrack LFO Speed and Delay Time Conversion
The wall behind my desk is plastered with stuff like that and on my computer are several text files, that have the midi channels I use, midi ccs of my synths (some manuals contain mistakes, so I wrote them down myself), which numbers correspond to which delay times on my gear and stuff like that.
Having to stop the work to dig out manuals and search for such stuff is very distracting.
That sounds oddā¦Did you by any chance forget to save the sample (recorder buffer needs to be saved before you turn off the machine)?
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Hey loving that short cut list for the OT @Schnork - thanks !!
Going to try and print that 1 myself also.
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