Heyo,
I’ve been fairly successful with a “minimal” setup of Analog Keys going stereo out to a Boss DD-500, then stereo into the Octatrack AB, while CD is MIDI’d into Bitwig for fun with VST synths and AK’s new MIDI capabilities.
Now I randomly stumbled upon a trade for an Empress Compressor, not really thinking about it being mono before too late. I was really pumped to use the sidechain with the bass drum track on OT to get a better pump than the OT provides.
How would you integrate it?
I don’t understand what you mean by “outputs CD MIDI’d into” as they are audio outputs. Do you not mean using the OT midi out?
Re side chaining using an external compressor: As the Empress is mono, you could feed the BD from the OT into it to sidehain a mono bassline. If you want to sidechain the whole output (minus BD obviously), you’ll need a stereo compressor with sidechain input, and a mixer.
Pan kick hard left or right for a mono signal out of output C or D, into a mixer channel, feed the direct out from the mixer into the compressor sidechain input, Feed outputs AB into the compressor, output from the compressor into mixer.
If the mixer doesn’t have aux outs per channel, feed kick to both C and D, feed C into the mixer, D into the sidechain input, or use a signal splitter cable to replicate the mono output.
If you don’t have a mixer and want to try the Empress, I’d try sidechaining bass lines from the AK: Kick to outputs C and D, C into sidechain input, D back into OT input C (to thru track), and bassline into input D int thru track.