Octatrack Arranger Tutorial?

seaborg · 2015-04-09T06:24:12.000Z

""Rabbitfrog"":

[quote=“colaba”]So many words for RTFM, but just as helpful.

My momma didn’t raise no rude asshole.

Besides I was speaking from personal experience. It took me 2 weeks to get it together and go to a print shop. What exactly are you looking for?[/quote]
The arranger was the last great unexplored area, until recent times. Yes all info is in the manual. YOU then need to experiment, and see what all the commands do, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Just have pen and pad handy!

colaba · 2015-04-09T18:45:42.000Z

""Rabbitfrog"":

[quote=“colaba”]So many words for RTFM, but just as helpful.

My momma didn’t raise no rude asshole.

Besides I was speaking from personal experience. It took me 2 weeks to get it together and go to a print shop. What exactly are you looking for?[/quote]
Ahem…
A helpful video tutorial on the arranger similar to the ones they have done on many of the other features the octatrack has. I have the actual printed manual. I have read it. But seeing the process makes learning easier. Call me lazy.
So with youtube having 50 different videos on the most efficient way to cut an orange, I am surprised that there is not 1 that shows some of the great capabilities of the arranger.
That way I can lie in bed watching a vid before sleep about how to better use the octatrack, like I did for the other features. Crazy idea no?

colaba · 2015-04-09T18:49:33.000Z

""rozzbud"":

that would be so cool to be able to chain the 6 arrangers per project

According to the manual you can have 8 arrangements per project - and you can chain them, but you can only chain 1 at a time… says the manual. But I haven’t tried it myself.

zfigz · 2015-04-09T18:51:56.000Z

""miketheman"":

But there are quite some cool stuff in it. Pattern selection with start position, lenght and repeats. That can be used to chop up an pattern (ie a drumbeat) and build another one out of it. Remember that the fader position overrides whatever you´ll program in the Arranger, any mutes set in the Arranger are event mutes rather than audio mutes. There are workarounds for both however…

Ouf, I’ve been using Song Mode on the MnM for a long time to make my tracks, and I just recently got an AR. I oh so wish there were offsets/lengths available via the AR’s Song Mode.

As for learning OT’s arranger mode, just play around and experiment with it. It’s not really that much different from a tracker.

Rabbitfrog · 2015-04-09T23:51:58.000Z

""colaba"":

Ahem…

No I meant like what functions exactly you want to learn? There are:
-enable arranger mode
-edit arranger by placing patterns
-edit the parameters of the arranger (enable loop, silence, etc…)
And that’s really all I know or need because I am kind of a believer into the whole “music should be played live thing”. Call me crazy.

I detect a bit of sarcasm, I don’t know what caused it, I am genuienely trying to help. I never tell people none of that RTFM nonsense. Let me know what’s not clear and I’ll try to explain. That’s what the forum is for.

djadonis206 · 2015-04-10T00:24:16.000Z

Can someone help explain offsets in the OT arranger. Does it start t zero?

Because say I want my pattern to start at step 2. I offset it by two and get weird timing issues.

Curious

Rabbitfrog · 2015-04-10T00:49:29.000Z

""djadonis206"":

Can someone help explain offsets in the OT arranger. Does it start t zero?

Because say I want my pattern to start at step 2. I offset it by two and get weird timing issues.

Curious

I never used it and am wondering why it’s there. You are going to get timing issues because you are skipping steps. Maybe put trig mutes instead so you get all 16 steps in?

brucewayne · 2015-04-10T06:35:10.000Z

The arranger is my next step in ot science too. Is it possible to use the ot arranger in combination with ar/a4 song Modes? As I would like to use the ot as the central arrangement device in my setup with elektron trinity.

Abhoth · 2015-04-10T06:51:33.000Z

""Rabbitfrog"":

[quote=“djadonis206”]Can someone help explain offsets in the OT arranger. Does it start t zero?

Because say I want my pattern to start at step 2. I offset it by two and get weird timing issues.

Curious

I never used it and am wondering why it’s there. You are going to get timing issues because you are skipping steps. Maybe put trig mutes instead so you get all 16 steps in?[/quote]
Pattern offsets is one of my favourite features of the OT. I fact, I find it so useful I got angry when I received my a4 and realized it didn’t have it. Which means I have to sequence the a4 from the OT if I want to use offsets. Very annoying.

Back on topic, offset means the pattern will start playing from the step you select. So “8” will mean the pattern start playing on step 8. Length is for how many steps the pattern will play before jumping to the next row in the sequence.

Simple example:
Pattern A01: OF 0, LN 48 (a pattern with a straight beat)
Pattern A02: OF 48, LN 16 ( a pattern with a busy, crazy beat)
= a “full” 64 step pattern in total, but with a rhythmic variation or fill in the last sixteen steps.

You could do much more interesting things than this, though. I sometimes have a pattern running at 2/3 tempo and “insert” it here and there for a few steps to introduce rhytmic variations. For the fun of it I once made a pattern play backwards by setting a lot of rows with length 1 and decreasing offsets.

Tenchi · 2015-04-10T11:43:44.000Z

It’s looking like this should be the next Mission

brucewayne · 2015-04-10T20:51:23.000Z

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but i just noodled around with the ot arranger, and i like it! But i realized that the muted tracks set by the arranger interface are not visually indicated on the device via track LEDs. Is this possible? So that if i mute a track on arranger row, the track LEDs on the device are unlit?

nfim · 2015-04-11T21:20:21.000Z

""brucewayne"":

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but i just noodled around with the ot arranger, and i like it! But i realized that the muted tracks set by the arranger interface are not visually indicated on the device via track LEDs. Is this possible? So that if i mute a track on arranger row, the track LEDs on the device are unlit?

Not possible! It’s one of the shortcomings of the arranger, and makes things pretty confusing…

Jellynecks · 2015-04-12T03:31:38.000Z

Been getting into the arranger more the past few days and have overall found it really solid and useful in providing a more rigid structure for recording Purposes. As has been mentioned, everything you need to know is in the manual and as par for the course requires a little time spent figuring out how it works for you. That mute thing is confusing tho! Doesn’t make sense to separate what you’ve scripted fom the track indicators

colaba · 2015-04-14T19:38:10.000Z

Yo - I too, have been spending some more time with the arranger.

I hope if it doesn’t come off as blasphemy for me to say that everything you need to do is not in the manual.

For instance this muting business mentioned above.

Even the bits that are included are a bit dense.

Example - how easy to understand was that bit about enabling looping? Did you notice it made no mention of how to set the loop START point? (Yes, I figured it out but pardon me for believing it could be better)

How about ANY info on how the arranger performs outside of the EDIT screen.

For example (and I’d really like help on this if anyone knows): If I am not within the arranger EDIT window and the arrangement is playing and I switch the scene for the row, it for some reason only updates the scene for row 0. I have tried selecting the row with the white arrow, and with the black arrow. I have tried changing the scene with the arranger playing and not playing. It changes only Row 0’s scene… maybe this would make more sense if I posted a video…

miketheman · 2015-04-14T21:37:35.000Z

""colaba"":

Yo - I too, have been spending some more time with the arranger.

I hope if it doesn’t come off as blasphemy for me to say that everything you need to do is not in the manual.

For instance this muting business mentioned above.

Even the bits that are included are a bit dense.

Example - how easy to understand was that bit about enabling looping? Did you notice it made no mention of how to set the loop START point? (Yes, I figured it out but pardon me for believing it could be better)

How about ANY info on how the arranger performs outside of the EDIT screen.

For example (and I’d really like help on this if anyone knows): If I am not within the arranger EDIT window and the arrangement is playing and I switch the scene for the row, it for some reason only updates the scene for row 0. I have tried selecting the row with the white arrow, and with the black arrow. I have tried changing the scene with the arranger playing and not playing. It changes only Row 0’s scene… maybe this would make more sense if I posted a video…

Agree. There are parts that could be better in the manual. Although I think that´s true for every manual ever in existence… not talking about Elektron manuals only, but in general:

I have had an rack effect processor (my first one) since the early/mid 90´s, where I was disappointed to find in the manual back then, when learning the unit, that the modifier curve were only possible to set as min-max but not inversed as max-min. I´ve since looked many times in that manual, but normally to just read about parameters in the different effects. The page with the modifier curve function/explanation were most probably never read again but just memorized.

Then some months ago I happened to have one manual in front of me, and looked thru it just for a nostalgic trip. Realizing instantly when getting to the modifier page, seeing that graphic representation of the modifier curve AND reading the text, that it in fact could be inversed! And have always been possible. But the text were vague in just that description and the image showed only the normal operation (min-max) but not the other. Being a young guy with his first rack effect processor. And not many, if any, others around dealing with same kind of gear. So there were basically no one else to ask about anything. Well, it surely didn´t help me in understanding the manual correctly = close to 20 years of ignorance.

Scene changes only updating row 0 sounds odd. Do I understand you correctly in that if ie having 5 rows in the arranger, and say that you are playing row 4 and in there are switching the scenes. It won´t affect row 4 or any else, but just row 0?

colaba · 2015-04-15T03:37:46.000Z

So… you can only assign a scene outside of Arranger Edit to a row that does not have a scene defined within arranger edit.

When I was trying to change the scene assigned to B for row 4 it was changing row 0 because row 0 was the only row that in my case didn’t have an assignment set in the editor.

This was not immediately obvious to me. Might be helpful to include in the manual or a video.

colaba · 2015-04-15T05:49:16.000Z

""Rabbitfrog"":

[quote=“djadonis206”]Can someone help explain offsets in the OT arranger. Does it start t zero?

Because say I want my pattern to start at step 2. I offset it by two and get weird timing issues.

Curious

I never used it and am wondering why it’s there. You are going to get timing issues because you are skipping steps. Maybe put trig mutes instead so you get all 16 steps in?[/quote]
"I never use it and am wondering why it’s there’…
This. Exactly this.
What is great about a video is that it actually can show someone the benefit of a technique, immediately, without having to dig through some dense verbiage that might not make the musical implications clear.

brucewayne · 2015-04-25T09:13:21.000Z

""Anfim"":

[quote=“brucewayne”]Sorry for hijacking this thread, but i just noodled around with the ot arranger, and i like it! But i realized that the muted tracks set by the arranger interface are not visually indicated on the device via track LEDs. Is this possible? So that if i mute a track on arranger row, the track LEDs on the device are unlit?

Not possible! It’s one of the shortcomings of the arranger, and makes things pretty confusing…[/quote]
I guess it has something to do with midi mutes vs track mutes, where midi mutes dont crop the signal immidiately as track mutes do. But anyways, i find the current implementation pretty confusing.

OHEXOH · 2015-04-25T10:16:05.000Z

This thread inspired me to dig into the Arranger mode on the OT. The manual is definitely your friend here, along with a few quick test arrangements / experiments. A couple of hours will make sense of it all. Well worth it, helps you think more about structure and not just pattern to pattern playing.

The most complex part is certainly the Offset & Length parameters but that’s more on a conceptual level. The explanation above is clear though… offset is where in a pattern song mode plays from and length is how many steps will then play. You then use Rep to repeat that a number of times if desired.

So if Offset was 8, Len 8 and Rep 4 then steps 8 - 16 would play 4 times before moving on. The only bit I don’t understand is why Length can only be a minimum of 2 (so no single step repeats) but this seems to be a limitation of the OT sequencer overall (ie: you can’t set a Track length to be 1 beat either… It always has to be 2).

The mutes LEDs not updating is kinda odd but at the same time since you can override the Arranger and mute tracks manually above what the Arranger mutes. So the LEDs reflect your manual muting decisions. A half lit LED would have been nice though.

After playing with the Arranger for the afternoon this video now makes a lot more sense and it shows what you can do creatively with the Arranger (it’s MD but it’s essentially the same as the OT)

EX/

miketheman · 2015-04-26T08:47:46.000Z

[quote="“OH/EX/OH” date=“2015-04-25 10:16:05"”]

The mutes LEDs not updating is kinda odd but at the same time since you can override the Arranger and mute tracks manually above what the Arranger mutes. So the LEDs reflect your manual muting decisions. A half lit LED would have been nice though.

EX/
[/quote]

The mutes in Arranger are event mutes. Track mutes are as mutes in the mixer section (audio).

No time to watch the video right now, but thanks for putting it up!