Noise music on the OT?

Working on a site-specific a/v show in an old factory in Sweden and looking into good old systems of psychic warfare. Gonna try a no-input mixer and resampling it with OT and maybe ship it another loop around by the cue thru an old amp and back again. This is just theory by now but home alone all weekend=Total vortex mayhem. Vermona Retroverb might be a wonderful noinput box also.

The Octatrack is a great noise machine. I like to run a bass guitar through it and turn up multiple distortions and fx. Here I use 0-input mixing with the Octatrack :

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Same here ! :wink:

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Questions for no-input folks

  1. Do you worry about overloading the inputs on the OT? If so, is the risk of damage to the equipment part of the artistic statement?

  2. Any preferences regarding the mixer used to make the noise?

  3. At what point do you consider noise tracks/recordings “done”? I know noise artists release albums but is this a contrivance? How much mastering goes into noise production?

Red means distortion! :loopy:
You can set mixer input gain to max.
Just be carefull with mixer output level.

Any with enough gain, eq, preferably semi parametric. Old Mackies…I have a 1604, a bit big for a distortion, but sounds huge…:content:
@dialectric :

I personally don’t care. It’s noisy after all, already compressed by distortion.
A multiband compressor, normalize, done.

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I do 0-input mixing with headphones on, which is a little bit like playing russian roulette. :grimacing:

Every brand sounds a bit different. Behringers are more clicky while my Boss BX sound more like sine waves. I sold my Lyra-8 because I thought I can replicate it’s sound with my mixers.

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Thanks for the excellent responses! I mostly do leftfield ambient type stuff which I occasionally toss a drum beat under, but I’ve been wanting to give 0-input a try. I have an old Alto board with virtually no resale value… wonder how its character will be!

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It’s funny cause after watching @sezare56 's “Octatrack vs mixer 3 - no samples!” video I was thinking that a decade from now the synth community (or at least the noise music community) could very well be stroking their chins reminiscing on how foolish they feel for selling their Behringer Eurorack mixers :laughing:

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I have a cheap alto mixer that I use to sum FX sends that could make some serious noise samples…

…in fact I AM free this afternoon…

happy to see this thread! lots of great stuff to learn from here - thanks to all for sharing

just been exploring noise a bit at the moment using pick up machines and internal resampling via ‘cue’ so it’s a timely thread for me

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I’ve been using the OT for exclusively non-beat oriented music for years. Industrial/power electronics/noise to be exact. Here are some performances with the OT

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I don’t have the Octatrack involved with that part of the setup, but for mixer feedback I really like the EQ section in the Soundcraft EPM series. In general, they’re really well layed out and PLAYABLE for a budget mixer. The potential downside to it is how the preamps. There’s no soft, subtle fuzz as they start to saturate like some older mixers (the original Tascam 424 pres are my favorite for that). They’re prety much clean until the LED comes on, and then it’s hard op-amp clipping, nothing in between. Depending on what you want that could be an issue. I like both.

This is the sort of stuff that was big where I was, up through at least the mid 2000s when there was enough of a psych revival underway that we got lumped in with that stuff instead of noise and I lost track of the noise scene.

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That’s some good stuff. What is your routing like on that more recent setup? Is it all coming out of the Octatrack?

Thanks! Here’s a pic of my current setup but it’s constantly evolving/devolving. Currently have the Octatrack as the heart of the setup running through the WMD mixer and able to control any of the modular CV via the Zoia Euroboros. Still rocking the Virus which runs off MIDI from the Octatrack.

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Are you running a pre-amp somewhere for the mic? I was thinking of a Blood Noise MAW to add vocals with fx to one of my OT inputs.
Great sounds BTW! Especially like the Boston one.

Yes it’s the RX 2 Dual Line Inputs module. I run a mic into that and then it goes into Zoia Euroboros for fx and compression, then goes back out to the WMD.

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That’s a great setup. More sound per pound.

I make noise with the OT usually on my setup. no-input pedal chains, contact mics & synths in the setup. also record junk metal and run samples. OT is great for the job, probably the best if you want to have a multi-layered live sound and have as much control over it as possible.

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two examples of my projects, OT in a big role on both:

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