Martebar Octatrack Techno Live Set

Hey guys,

I recently recorded this live set on the Octatrack with a lot of inspiration from this fine forum. Please check it out and tell me what you think.

Cheers!

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nice set man! I’m always fascinated on Octatrack-only sets, since my setup nowadays has expanded to other machines.
I’m curious about your workflow - how do you handle transitions? do you work with loops instead of one-shot samples?
thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

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Thanks a lot man. For this Template I was inspired by guys like Four Tet and Richie Hawtin. As I understood, they play one track at a time, then have a few other track for loops, and a few more for samples and instruments in order to improvise. I tried to transpose that to the octatrack.

So to break it down I have:
1 Static channel to plays full tracks:
2 Static channel to play loops which are usually 1 synth and 1 drum, and they can be a few minutes long.
And then, the other tracks are Flex machines with synth and drums sample to create pattern with.
So while I play a whole song, I pick relevant loops and samples and create a pattern to complement the playing song and then fully transition once it ends. Afterwards, I can play with the pattern, pick a new track to play on my “Full song” track and transition to it DJ style.
And then start it all over again, song to pattern to song to pattern…

I should add that everything is created by me before hand, songs, loops, etc

Hope it helps!

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this is quite interesting…
so, in order to to trigger the full track, you load it manually and trigger it by hand, pressing the track trigger? something like that?

nice influences btw :slight_smile:
I love the way FourTet mixes, he has his own way and a very special pace, had the chance to see him live a few years ago…

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Yes, his live shows are incredible! A bit frustrating at times when he starts playing to long with his delay box, but overall amazing :slight_smile:
To start the whole track I usually put a first step trig, it allows me to loop it in order to introduce it into the pattern, and when I feel like “dropping” it, I just turn the trig off.
One interesting use of that could be with slices at several key moments of the track as “hot cues” you can find on CDJs.

hahah I actually kinda like it when he does those lenghty transitions, makes the break so rewarding…

interesting… so you add a trigger at the beginning, so it keeps retriggering/looping, and when you want the track to play in it’s entirety you just remove the trigger…

so essentially you just use a single pattern and keep loading different stuff?

this approach seems fun, although I admit I have kind of a hard time preparing stuff beforehand on the computer, I’m more of a one-shot sample guy… specially now that we have conditional triggers, I would loose those… although I could use the extra tracks for that

I understand the slice method too… I’ve been tempted to try these approaches recently - I just need to find the right preparation / flexibility balance

Welll, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t :wink:

Concerning the Octatrack template, I have to admit that it’s a bit of a first time for me, I think that one of the great strength of this machine is that it’s so flexible that everyone will have a different setup. I went with what felt the most natural to me and could help me achieve something close to what a “good live show” means to me. Some improvisation but also the possibility to play tracks I wrote the way they sound the best. I can’t imagine myself redoing the whole arrangement everytime. But maybe in time!

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I agree! it’s great that the OT allows for so many different workflows, both for studio and live situations…
here’s a few tunes of mine that I’ve recorded on video recently, in case you want to listen
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK1AgX7nH-vL1aJ9eFYJ7Uw?view_as=subscriber

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Really Cool videos on your Channel, the Octatrack stuff is rad!

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