(Newbie) Mono Synth and OT - how to get it to work?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi beautiful people. I’m hitting a glass wall here so I’d really apreciate some help.
I have my mono synth plugged into the AUDIO IN A of the OT.
I would like to be able to hear the synth in STEREO (and not only coming out the left speaker). I have been trhough the track modes, either using FLEX, either, usinh THRU. I had found this advice this board:
“The only way to have mono monitoring of each of the A, B, C, and D inputs is to use Thru machines, set the INAB and INCD settings to be ‘A+B’ and ‘C+D’. So you can have a single audio track with a Thru machine assigned in order to listen to the four mono sources without the sources being hard-panned left and right.”

But whatever I do I can only hear my synth from the left speaker. When I sample it it’s fine though, the samples play back trhough both channels.

More background information:
In REC SETUP 1 i’ve set INAB to A.
In mixer I have set the DIR to 127, and SET the gain to an appropriate level.
I’ve set TRACK 1 to a FLEX machine and I can sample OK from source A (sample the plays bacl on both left and right) BUT I can still only monitor my synth from the left speaker only.

How to use Korg Volca series with the Octatrack
#2

I’m not 100% sure on this, I only used thru machine couple of times, but vaguely remember having to do something along lines of ‘track + play’ (which changed the little icon next to track on display to a ‘play’ icon) before I could hear the thru machine audio. Not near my OT right now tho and my memory sucks, so I could be way off!?? Sorry if bad info/no help…

#3

How about if you set in the mixer DIR to 0 and use a THRU track with A+B. Press track key + play to start monitoring (or put a trig in the beginning of pattern). This will sacrifice one channel just for the input, but you can add effects and mute the channel easily etc.

For the recording, you can then use another track with flex machine and set the THRU track, for example T1 as the recording source. Or record straight from the input A.

(edit: As said above)

#4

I like using OT with mono synth.
Usually I have one or two MIDI tracks to control it.
And a Thru track to add FX.
Now on the Thru track you have to

  • set it to “INAB” to “A” only : this will take your mono signal in stereo
  • push the first trig to activate the track when you hit play

Let’s say you use the MIDI track 1 :

  • set it to the MIDI channel of your Mono synth (e.g. channel 13)
  • if your external keyboard is configured to play on OT auto-channel (e.g. channel 16), you will need to go to the MIDI page and activate the MIDI track 1
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#5

Now on the Thru track you have to

  • set it to “INAB” to “A” only : this will take your mono signal in stereo
  • push the first trig to activate the track when you hit play

Thank you for your wisdom, although I am not using MIDI to control my synth, I play it myself. But I am getting confused with the THRU settings. When I set my TRACK to a THRU machine (i.e. after I double click the TRACK button) I don’t see any settings page. It just shows THRU on the left pane of the window and blank boxes on the right pane. Where shall I set the THRU to INAB A? I might seem stupid here ;), sorry for that…

#6

Select THRU machine from the list by pressing Yes, then press No to get back to the main view. Input settings are on the Playback page, set with knobs A and D.

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#7

You might also want to pay a look at OT’s manual annex A-1 :


The page with Thru machine config is the first one (Playback button).
It’s not on Setup page (Playback double-click) but on Main page (playback one click)

(no wisdom here, I’ve been through this countless times that’s all ^^)

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#8

Everyone has you pretty setup on what to do, but the key thing with the Thru machine is to make sure it’s active for monitoring. I prefer using the method of pressing Track+Play. That way you can monitor the input from the Thru machine all the time without the sequencer running.

Edit: Take a look at this video from Cuckoo. He’s a really good resource for tips on Elektron gear. He is a bit eccentric and sometimes all over the place with explaining things, but he gets the job done. This particular video tackles the exact issue you are having.

#9

hey comunity!

iam new at this forum as well as iam a proud new owner of an a4 and an octa.

i had your problem at first time i tried to sample some sounds of my korg ms-20 m + sq1 kit (wich is for sale now). the only way i could make it sound stereo was an mono to stereo adapter at the ms-20. so the signal was coming out left and right.
hope thats not a newbie-mistake, but i heard sound stereo and the adapter cost me less than 5€…

maybe i could help…

bye

#10

Thank you all a bunch for all your kind efforts.
I was doing something wrong here. And I found the reason thanks to your pointers. But I missed one step (step 4 -goddammitt). So
Let me summarise how I made it to work,:

1 - Mono synth line out plugged into OT’s INPUT A.
2 - In the MIXER page, setup the DIR to level 127 for inputs AB.

My synth comes thru the OT on left channel only.
3 - Then I set TRACK 1 to a THRU machine, end then, in the PLAYBACK page (which I overlooked previously) i set the input to A.
4 - Then I set a playback TRIG at the beginning of the TRACK 1 pattern, and press PLAY on the sequencer; otherwise (the manual says) THRU machine is not picking up sound. (“Trigging the the Thru machines is necessary for them to start passing through incoming audio.”)

At this point everything works as expected. I can apply TRACK 1 parameters (filter, volume etc) to my incoming synth. But I can still hear more synth on the left channel… So i went to MIXER menu and in DIR I set the AB value to 0. At this point step 2 above can be completely ignored of course.
Actually it was in the manual too:
(“Open the MIXER menu by pressing [MIXER]. Make sure DIR for AB and CD is set to 0. This will make incoming sound available to only Thru machines.”)
Gosh. Have I been stupid!

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#11

That mono to stereo adapter advice is actually pretty practical. I should get one of those. Would be nice for when I don’t want to set up a thru machine…

#12

Glad you got it sorted :slight_smile: but, like I said way up this thread, you don’t need to place a trig and run the sequencer, just hit ‘track + play’ button combo (‘track’ being the thru machine track) for constant thru machine monitoring. At least from memory and other people’s comments I think that’s how it works…

#13

thx for sharing! I had the same issue here :smiley: