New Octatrack onwer, sets and file management question

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Just received my Octatrack today. I’ve been reading the manual and watching many tutorials for the last several days in anticipation. First thoughts after having my hands on it for a few hours:

  1. Awesomely happy I made this purchase after months of indecision (already own Digitakt and Octatrack is not inexpensive)

  2. Glub Glub! Help, I’m drowning (in a good way).

First thing I’m wondering about. In the manual it says " Since a set can contain many projects, some users might find that one set is all they need." I also watched an EZBOT tutorial where he said the same. So my question is, when and why would additional sets be useful? My first inclination was to create a new set right away for my own content, apart from the factory content, but then I realized that I can create exactly the same kind of file structure as I have on my Digitakt, except with both factory content and all my own samples nested inside a single AUDIO folder, and everything inside the factory “PRESETS” set. I guess I don’t understand what use cases there are for more sets, since you have to put all your sample content within a set’s audio pool for it to be accessible to any projects, which could lead to (seemingly) unnecessary duplication. Guess I’m just not getting the purpose of an additional layer of data structure, and wondering what limitations (if any) there would be to just keeping everything inside the factory PRESETS set.

Thanks for any insights.

#2

Imo OT has a lot of options like this, you get to decide if it is useful or necessary but elektron has provided you the tool. One case I could see with this if you are working a couple different music releases or events say working an album and preparing for a live set of different music, you could create two different sets that would give you separate folders for all your data, you could load up just the drums you need for your live set and more easily backup your set with only the specific files for your album

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#3

Inserting a visual to move the discussion. Maybe you can think of any reason why one might decide to still put a few smaller storage boxes in a bigger storage box (??) when we can just access the contents directly anyway. For organisation purpose I would think. For me, projects are good enough.

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#4

I’ve never created multiple sets; I just use different projects inside a single set. I’m yet to find a reason to create another.

When I first started with the OT, I thought “set” was like a live set – it’s definitely not! Changing projects (even within the same set) requires stopping playback. So, if you’re going to play live it probably makes most sense to keep everything within the same project, unless you’re ok with stopping music to change. I know this isn’t the original question, but just thought I would point it out, in case you read “set” and think the same thing I thought! :slight_smile:

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#5

Another thing to add is that changing sets takes longer than changing projects.
if you want to change from one project in one set to another in another set you will have to wait through two loading processes along with the extra menu diving.

I’ve only ever used one set.
The only thing I could imagine its for is different genres which wouldn’t share samples or two or more different users who don’t want to mess each other’s directories up.

protip: think about how you will name your projects because after a wile you wont be able to find anything. there is no audio preview so all you will have to go by is names which you will forget after a couple of weeks/days.
I start each project with the date (yymmdd) so they are in chronological order, followed by whatever name. works well for me.

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#6

This.
Plus the fact that OT saves in alphabetical order. Not like DT or DN.

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#7

I add a letter before date, so that projects are listed after AUDIO folder. My project template is before AUDIO.

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#8

I’m glad I’m not the only one that only uses 1 set. I’ve never been able to work out what they’re for…

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#9

Duh, youse lot.
If you open up the second set thats where the polyphony options are.

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#10

Maybe for people who want to finish a musical project without being distracted by inappropriate samples in AUDIO folder ? OCD ? Keep it tidy ?

Because imho that’s the most annoying, you can’t access to other sets samples.

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#11

If you have a set that is reaaaalllllyyyy big. Consumes tons of storage.
And you want to prepare something for another purpose, you can move the big set with all it’s samples to your computer to store it to make place on the card, so you can put it later back onto it.

That’s the purpose of sets as far as i can understand.
It helps to group projects and samples so you can backup, move and restore if space is an issue.
Or perhaps you create one set for an album, etc.

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#12

It kind of feels like the ‘project’ and ‘set’ labels should be the other way round - but then that would make things too simple - OT has these quirks to bring us together as a community.

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#13

Yes, good example if you don’t have time to clean it all.
You can also buy another card.
1 card per set ! :content:

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#14

Im shy when it gets to put or remove card into octatrack :smiley:
those pins do not look really solid to me. :woozy_face:

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#15

Not shy but carefull and sober in my concern. :wink:

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#16

Sets can be handy if you have lots of samples in your audio pool, especially if you don’t always have samples save in the project folder. A good example of using sets is one per album, it makes things a bit easier to find I think.

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#17

…the card slot is the only truuly fragile part of the whole thing…handle always with care…
get a truu pro card, fast and solid…64 gigs max…always have a folder on ur desktop that mirrors it’s whole content…u’ll will need only one set forever…and only one audio pool…make sure u got one top folder structure to ur liking and stick to that…always think in sample chains…enjoy the ride…

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#18

Screenshot_20230308-121938_Chrome
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Misunderstood parts ?Octasmacked!

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#19

wtf-gif

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#20

Because imho that’s the most annoying, you can’t access to other sets samples.

Yeah, that’s why I’d probably work mostly within one set. I can see why people might use separate sets for backup and archival purposes.