The DOS boat lol. Riding those waves was errr fun :).
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hey I owned a Commodore 64 and used to write programs in BASIC as a kid and had a 1200 baud modem, printer, and floppy disk drive even back then and remember Word Perfect.
I was a Cobol programmer. Grounded in Basic. My weapon of destruction was a BBC micro. Yes i had a Commodore 64. Very reliable machines.
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so coming from a COBOL system programmer background the OT must be a piece of cake for you!
Haha. Cobol was a wordy nightmare. Actually the OT is very similar. Everything has to be done methodically with patience. Not many shortcuts.
NOT READY
10 PRINT āMANUALā
20 READ MANUAL
30 PRACTICE OCTATRACK
40 IF YOU DONāT UNDERSTAND GO TO 20
READY
Amstrad 6128 and Atari 1040 ST! 
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Dont get me started on Amstrad!
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Excusez-moi but the Amiga 1000 really ought to be mentioned at the same time as these two.
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you forgot the following lines
50 FOR frustration>0
60 PRINT āBITCH on forumsā
70 GOTO 20
80 ELSE GOTO 90
90 RETURN Elektron for refund
Just kidding my COBOL sucks as I do more database stuff on Linux now.
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And you call us nerds 
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I am a proud geek not a nerd- there IS a difference 
Elektron OT requires a PhD in Nerd Science
Elektron DT only requires a BS in Geekology
Elektron A4 requires an MS in Geek Sciences
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Word to that! 
with the advent of database-driven websites came the encouragement to āabstract the data from the presentationā ā¦ no more hardcoding of data directly into the html code of a webpage.
instead, it was all about extensibility, xml and javascript; the webpage was aware of what kinds of information it may or may not be interested in retrieving from the database and presenting.
the database was aware of the fact that it was the holder of the data and could organise this data in response to requests.
and so the idea of directly typing facts and figures into html was viewed as very inappropriate. instead, scripting was required, and in fact the way scripting was achieved started to change, to more fully reflect the concept of āabstracting the data from the presentation of the dataā.
in some ways, the Octatrackās way of recording and allowing access to those recordings exemplifies this abstraction of data from the interface.
being aware of this fabulously philosophical (and quite sensible) abstract layer did not really help me to grok the Octatrack the first time around.
thankfully these days things seem much easier, and itās simply a process of doing it quite a lot. also making the OT the center of the studio production workflow does in fact help.
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Thank the Sonic Gods of Funk, Techno and Cosmic Grooves! At least thereās one box out there like that! 
Thatās exactly why I love it, plenty of simple boxes available to choose fromā¦
Iād love it if they made one even deeper! 
I would thoroughly enjoy learning it for years and years to utilize!
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OT flippin Rocks!
End of storyā¦
Take it or leave it, wonāt change the fact that itās just a flippin amazing and brilliantly designed musical creation deviceā¦
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I think the difficult nature of the OT is balanced by the dead simplicity of Korg Volca devices. That gives me time to learn nerdology of the OT and not have to spend much time learning the Volca for beat generation at least.
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Most of us have been at this stuff for yearsā¦ I donāt think I said it here but in other threads Iāve mentioned as a guitar player, moving to Electronics involved messing about with computer software, a mono synth, and learning midi for like five yearsā¦
Only after that was I even ready for an OTā¦ And it took me months to get to grips with itā¦
But man o man was it all worth itā¦
Honestly just know that itās a ridiculous thought to think youāll get to grips with the OT in a few daysā¦
It takes either a lot of previous experience to learn it semi quickly (months), or it simply takes a long time if itās all new to youā¦
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Just dropped by to say that I echo so much of what has been said here.
Iāve learnt lots of music gear over the years, but the OT certainly took some focused sit down time to move past a frustrating early experience.
Learning each available function the machine offers, one by one and very thoroughly is what worked for me.
OT is very complicated and confusing at first due to the sheer number of options. But eventually subconscious operation is possible and it becomes incredibly easy and quick to use.
Iām about 3 years in now, and itās a desert island piece of gear for me.
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It takes years to become the master Operating Thetan (OT).
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Tee hee so Elektron is the Scientology of Music Production Gear? That would explain the cult like following in many EDM circles! I guess I am stuck way below OT level as a newbie to it.
At least it is easier to learn than the MD I borrow. I actually was able to get two nice samples recoded today in a few minutes from Volca Beats and my Nocoast.
Here is my first jam track that I put together today:
I sampled the 0-coast and Volca Beats.