Octatrack Ambient Transitions

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi Guys,

I’m enjoying my time with my octatrack a lot. I’ve got it for almost 7 months now and I think I know most of the ins and outs. However I still can’t find the right way to set up a well-ordered ambient live act within the octatrack

I mostly work with soundscapes, noise and drone loops trying to create evolving moody stuff which is working really good with the octatrack. However I can’t get my head around the transitions betweens songs.

What’s a good way to navigate my music trough the octatrack and dealing with tracks, banks, parts, patterns and scenes? I’m looking for a good way to make smooth transitions between parts/patterns. I tried the transition trick and the play free mode like Biologik explained on youtube.
But I didn’t manage to make these methods work well with ambient music.
I’m really curious how you guys do this smoothly without any clicks or plops.

Gr L

4 Likes
#2

A lot of it for me is just prepping seamless loops in Live first, typically 32 bars for my ambient stuff. Use those as the backing track if you will, and you cna do what you want over it.

The transition trick set to constantly resample works great too, the track recorder constantly evolve as you do the transition. You can see it in use here:

While the core of the set isn’t quite ambient, the transitions are all pretty much along those lines.

2 Likes
#3

Thanks a lot Tarekith,

I watched your tutorials a lot but I’ve never seen this one. Thanks!
I will edit my sample bank with ableton tonight and give it another try.
This might be the problem with the clicks and plops indeed.

I thought I could fix this within the octatrack with sample editing -> trim -> function + start / end point to move to an zero-amplitude point, but it doesn’t fix the problem.

#4

If you’re audio loops at different sample levels, trimming it will rarely help. That’s better suited for crossfading, and one reason I use Live for this.

#5

i use my OT for ambient / beat-free type of music exclusively and i think it works great for that sound. one thing i do is i use different track lengths on every track and then place very few scattered trigs on very slow speeds so that i get a generative/randomised type of feel to it. i have the master length run infinitely and i turn off the silence on pattern start so that triggers sound into the next pattern until the next trigger comes. it makes the transitions smooth. also i use external reverbs. the usual suspects from eventide and strymon. i think the OT is the most powerful hardware for ambient music that i ever came across.

#6

I was very interested to read your comment. I am also into ambient type stuff (using eventide) and am eager to learn more about transitions . . . I tried your setup but ran into problems when setting the Master length to INF I couldnt get the patterns to change.

#7

maybe i should have mentioned this: when not in grid record mode hit function plus bank to get to the pattern settings. you can change pattern settings for each track but there’s also a global settings page under the PAT tab on top. under CHAIN BEHAVIOUR uncheck USE PRJ SET and in USE PAT SET set how many steps after you hit a new pattern the actual change is going to happen. otherwise it will be as you described and the pattern just never changes after dialing in a new pattern.
this setting you have to make for EACH PATTERN you use.
alternatively if you want this type of behaviour project wide you can go to the project settings under CONTROL -> SEQUENCER and change the CHAIN AFTER setting to your preferred length and leave the USE PRJ SET box checked in the above mentioned pattern settings menus.

1 Like
#8

one more thing to take into account when making ambient music on the OT is that reverb and delay tails will be cut off when parts change which might sound ugly and disrupting. that is just due to the nature of the per track fx. that is why for long tail ambient type of reverbs i tend to rely on external gear.

#9

Really cooool! I got it working now - thx for your detailed info - really helped! One more question - you said that you are “scattering” trigs at very slow speeds - how do you keep track of all the trigs (on the 8 tracks) to be able to a a fade in one each one - or do you prepare fades for all of your samples beforehand?

#10

@Alfred: Thanks a lot! this really make sense. I’ll think I’ll get my Roland Space Echo back into the game!

Can you tell us how you use your external effects with the octatrack. Do you run you master channel through the effects or use send/returns?

#11

i just use the OTs envelopes on the amp page if necessary. the sounds i use have their own envelopes though. they are kind of like the length of mallet hits or piano notes. then i space them apart so they don’t cut each other off.
the downside of this method is you need at least two tracks to get a quasi randomised, never repeating pattern going with one sound. it eats up tracks fast. but the OT offers so many performance controls and modulations that i find 8 tracks perfectly sufficient if you are a bit creative.
with the turn off silence on pattern start method you can also get constant evolving pads going and shift chord voicings smoothly if you fade two tracks up and down on a rotating basis. but again, one smooth pad costs you two tracks.

#12

i run a send track from an external mixer into them. but same could be achieved with using the OTs cue out as send. i can’t do it though because my cue outs are already occupied splitting out bass and treble.

#13

@Alfred - Interesting stuff! Again many thx - for all the good tips . . . I
agree using external Fx effects is the only way to go :slight_smile:

#14

Great thread!

I do mainly ambient type stuff as well. I’ve been on the OT for about a year now (but have two kids that get most of my time) and am still figuring out my workflow.

Lately, I’ve been making long sample chains (15mins or so) of pads, washes, granular textures, etc. Each sound in the chain is ~10-90 seconds and are prepared in audacity. I set the tempo really low (30 or 60 bpm) and throw some random trigs down and change the plocked slices that play as I go. Add in some ipad and external effects and off I go :slight_smile:

This has been a lot of fun .

1 Like
#15

Sound really nice Alfred. Still wondering how exactly you move to a different bank/part. Do you strip down your sound to one or two tracks right before your making a transition? And once you’re switching between songs, have you set your amps low or work with a long attack in the new song? Still having problems with moving between scapes and drones in different banks.

#16

For me the challenge is mixing drones and rhythmic parts, still struggling with mixing loooong samples and smaller patterns

#17

Great performance! I’m thinking about trying the crossfader trick on long ambient samples. I was wondering if, since the record trigger keeps on recording at the beginning of the first step of the sequencer, will I get a smooth streaming of the live recording as I move back to the first step of the sequencer? I’m asking this because I am not working with perfect loops and I would love to be able to crossfade smoothly at any time of the current pattern

#18

You can choose to work with one shot recorder trigs. Arm the recorder trig when it’s time for transition, OT samples in the background (64 steps max if you want automated sampling in the background, tho!) and transition to the recorded loop. The recorded loop will not get overridden.

1 Like
#19

I actually want the recorded loop to be overridden, as I’m afraid I will get pops and cracks if I record a loop of my Ambient material (as it is not made of perfect loops). So I was wondering if there is a way to keep on recording smoothly (streaming, in a way, real time audio) and use the fader when I see fit

#20

I see. Yes, you could just use a flex machine that constantly plays back while OT records and fade over to the playback of that track when you need it. As long as your input source keeps playing, OT will record and play back.

You could also use a thru machine to process incoming audio and fade to the thru track.

Both require your input source to keep playing, though. I reckon that’s not what you had in mind?

Alternatively, you could play with amp attack to avoid clicks on a captured loop.