Hmm, I can’t think of any real adverse effects to the hardware. It’s just MIDI.
Can it even send or receive SysEx? If it could, you’d have to be careful to not send the firmware upgrade strings but I don’t think the most recent OS versions even support that.
The only problem I can think of would be freezing the OT and losing unsaved work.
from a thread on EU.
“I’m having great fun running a MIDI cable out of the OT and straight back into it. Using the MIDI seqencer’s CCs to control the eight internal tracks effectively doubles your LFOs and gives you the ability to “beat” a control pattern of one length against a trigger pattern of another length. Jolly good fun!
Additionally it allows for the CC pattern to run at a different clock division to the trigger pattern”
yeah, no hardware problems to worry about. one thing to watch for tho if you want to arp audio tracks is how the OT responds to MIDI notes… they control a bunch of different functions, and if you get outside of the chromatic trig range, you can start muting your tracks, messing with transport, etc. by accident. read up on appendix c.
Isn’t there a setting to prevent feedback loops though? I don’t think it’s the Direct Connect thing but it’s something like that. The setting I’m thinking of applies to MIDI tracks that are set to the same channel as the audio tracks: it disables MIDI input for the MIDI tracks , and disables MIDI output for the audio tracks.
Lots of activity found around here 
Well, looks like I could spare the extra cable.
Thanks to all for input !
that’s correct, which means you can still output from MIDI tracks and input to audio tracks
there’s a section called “how MIDI is routed” somewhere in the manual, which is prob worth checking out if you want to try this.
could you elaborate on some fun tricks with internal midi?
what about the midi micro timing tip, i don’t see what the poster means?
I have been trying to do this, and the audio tracks aren’t receiving any midi from the midi tracks. I have tried lots of different configurations and can’t find what I’m doing wrong. Midi track 1 has channel 1 assigned, Audio track 1 has channel 1 assigned in the project config. Cable is properly connected midi out to midi in. No midi clock sent or received. Can anybody help me?
I think you must enable Audio CC In in the Midi Control Menü.
well that’s if you want to use midi cc’s…for midi notes you have to find the ones that work. The range is rather narrow and beware of playing midi track trigs from internal midi = instant freeze.
What exactly are you trying to do?
If you are trying to send MIDI notes, did you enable the AUDIO NOTE IN setting in the PROJECT > MIDI > CONTROL menu?
i think it´s enabled by default
This method is great if you want to record grooves in real time including note offs, which isn’t normally possible for internal tracks. Just load in a short waveform, loop it endlessly and play it like a synth.
Yes I had Audio Note In enabled. And at some point when trying, the Octa just freezed while producing a nasty coarse sound, and had to reboot it. Happened twice, and just stopped trying before I broke it. Btw, midi clock was not enabled, so not sure what kind of loop was going on there. Gonna try once more tomorrow.
i had a freeze too, you gotta be careful with midi notes because they trigger not only chromatic stuff but audio & midi tracks. So you could be triggering the midi track sending the trigger = loop.
The range of “chromatic” midi notes is narrow. But it works, you can have nice arps & polyrythms.
I could finally, just had to put the damn Auto Channel back in 11. I still dont get what the hell is Auto Channel. I ll have to read the manual again.
PS: Youre right, the midi seq was triggering itself, slipped my mind.
Did you guys find the proper solution how to send midi via OT out to OT in?
I am particularly interested in controlling audio tracks with arpeggiator. Some people we also saying they can record their knobs changes to midi, which would be interesting too. So far I didn’t manage to achieve any type of sync between internal midi and audio tracks. It’s a such a cool functionality it’s a shame there’s no proper tutorial/explanation anywhere…
it works, what is your question?
how to do it…
I spent some time trying to figure it out, but no luck
you have to find the midi notes corresponding in the manual. The range of chromatic notes for samples is rather narrow. Meaning if you hit a note out of that range you will send other commands like track trigs and midi track trigs. If a midi channel triggers itself via midi note, you’ll experiment a nice midi feeback freeze ; )