Hello!! The Octatrack can function as a complete DJ setup without DJ decks and a mixer.It’s great but using this feature there is one problem as assigning to static machine long samples. There is no function that shows duration of a track/long sample and a remaining time till the end of track/long sample playback. Any suggestions/advices/tips?
My not-so-useful suggetion is: know your tracks…i mean: i put in OT only songs that i really know well. So when they come to end…i can be already pretty aware of it.
Also…knowing them good can help you in applying fx and tweaking to bring the song’s mood to another level, but under your control.
Since in this setup, the sequencer can become quite not useful…i started using it just for triggering sequenced fx in PlaysFree track.
Take a look here:
http://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=28&func=view&id=214989&catid=18
[url=“http://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=28&func=view&id=214989&catid=18”]
for more detailed info on this feature.
Also i began to implement Pickup machine for simple looping duties…it’s really fun!
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Thanks!!! It will help me a lot!!! I am also trying to monitor my tracks in sample editor… but there is not much “zoom out” to see the whole track. Thanks for your tips again!!!
it’s also a good idea to chop up your tracks into segments and loop them - this way you can extend/shorten tracks at will and if it’s looped, you’ll never wind up with running out of the track 
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you can get a quick visual by checking out the track in the audio editor (track button+edit)
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Can you discuss the DJ approach a little deeper.
just from a syncing track after track A/B style.
It was suggested to me not to think of the OT as traktor
I haven’t used the OT in any DJ fashion yet, maybe I should before I post this, but I just wanted to ask for your experience in prepping the tracks.
Are they mostly all at the same tempo? If not, how did you compensate for different tempos and anything else you would lke to share
I appreciate it.
I usually preparing my tracks in ableton. warp them. It Helps OT much more easier auto-detect tempo of the tracks. mixing both tracks in OT is actually very easy ( even without headphones sometimes) Still we don’t have much visual control when it should be mixed but there is some good ideas how to mix tracks properly.(please read a little upper). I never used traktor or real DJ decks. As for me it’s little boring to use them. In OT there is so much possibilities… (by the way sorry for my english )
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“…don’t think about OT as a Traktor…”
Absolutely true! =)
About preparation of tracks.
What i do in the computer is: finding the native BPM, putting its value in the name field. Finished
Then within OT:
• change the BPM field in the file attributes
• trimming the start point so it is beat-wise. If the song starts with pads/drones/scapes…i just trim out silence before the very first sounds from the track.
• if the song has some sweet spots, i usually create 3/4 slices so i can play that track from that point.
• same BPM?? I really dont care…because you I can have a song with timestretching set to ON/AUTO and the other one, being mixed in, not.
All depends on what im mixing together. Sometimes some nice intros from Tipper are ambient-wise enough to help me introduce it while a The Knife’s track is still going abducted from tempo synced Fx…
OT is fulfilled with fun, even when listening hundreds of time the same tracks------because------they can sound everytime different!
d^_^b
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So if the tempo of the OT is set on 120 and I load a sample with a BPM of 128 ( without having the bpm mentioned in the file name), then Octatrack is not capable of finding the BPM and timestretching the sample automatically to 120, similar as Ableton is doing this?
I’d say if you’re going to do any track warping, do it outside of the OT. Also - the OT’s time stretching algorithm is nowhere near as good as Ableton or Traktor so be aware that shifting tempo in larger increments is going to sound ropey. One other thing - samples can be triggered in a quantised way using trigs 9 - 16. Or if you play music where the tempo drifts and you don’t want to bother with warping each track in ableton, just turn off the trig quantisation (it’s actually off by default) and you can use trigs 9 - 16 to bring in your tracks by ear.
Thanks Skab, so I understand that it is still possible to beatmatch 2 samples with different tempo on different tracks, using the cue for 1 track?
Strange btw that OT is called Ableton in a box, if it is not able to do timestretching properly, bit misleading… Hope a future os update can improve this.
Just ordered a OT, mainly because of the realtime sampling possibilities in combination with analog four. In this way I like to build up a song and mix it with existing songs.
@Vandamme Yeah, “Ableton in a box” is a bit of a misnomer. Don’t get me wrong - the OT can do a load of stuff that would be hard / impossible to do in Ableton, but I don’t think Ableton-style djing is its strong suit. I do use my OT for djing, but atm I’m mainly playing early 80s electroboogie, so there really isn’t a need for long, super-smooth mixes.
It can beatmatch samples, and you can use the cue to monitor no problems, but you will probably need to tap tempo and save the bpm of each tune before your set - the OT doesn’t usually get the tempo right for long samples.
The OT is a great machine. Coupled with the A4 you’re going to have some fun!!
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Clear, thanks a lot! Looking forward to it
Hi everyone! Sorry for maybe noobish question but here is my problem. I have a songs loaded in statick machines. In audio editor I can slice the song so during the playback I can find very quickly where the playback marker is. Ok thats fine. Can I loop last slice? I mean to add some que points so my track will never stop. And I can easily mix it with a new track. Can anyone write instruction for doing that if its possible? Thanks!
Hey Madzagga, i would answer YES…but keep in mind that you have to do it manually while in live jamming…
So, basically you have the LOOP mode in PlaybackSetup page.
It applies on the whole songs or…if SLICE is set to ON…to the current triggered slice.
But this comes later…
So…lets say you have a track with 3 slices. And you want the last one to loop because it is good as a mixing tool while transitioning.
So your Static track would have been set this way:
• Loop On [setup page]
• Slice On [setup]
• Len to Slice [setup]
• Start = 1 [parameters page]
• Len = 3 [parameters]
If you trigger the track, it will play starting from the slice value set on the START parameter. If this value is 1 then the song will start form the first slice (hopefully the beatwise beginning of the song)
Through the song you will arrive to the third slice (because you set 3 for Len value).
What will happen here is, once the 3rd slice will finish, the loop starts back from the beginning of the first slice (the one you have triggered) and will loop through the 3 slices.
But you need only the last one…so here a bit of live action.
You should retrigger the 3rd slice (setting the proper value in the START parameter) and, especially, with Len = 1. You need timing, but this is an easy timing task 
Keep in mind that you can trigger using SLICE trig instead of TRACKS trig.
This instructs OT to loop continuosly only the third slice.
This workaround is a bit tricky, but will do the job
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Thanks! I’ll try!!
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Hi all,
thought I’d add my 2 cents, as I use the OT mostly as a DJ setup when I play out.
When prepping my own tracks, I bounce them without the kick, and I sidechain them a touch. When prepping other tracks, I often EQ them.
All tracks are warped in Ableton, the OT’s stretching engine is absolutely not suited for the job of stretching full tracks over a few BPM. My set is usually at 123, so I’ll warp all tracks at 123 before dumping them in the OT.
Also, I make sure that the length of the tracks is a multiple of 16 bars. This allows for slicing in the OT, and setting up “cue points”.
Once in the OT, I slice the tracks, set length to Slice, and set the length to max, as default.
I have track 1 as deck 1, and track 5 as deck 2. Both tracks have a one shot trig on the first trig. By changing the Start parameter and activating a one shot trig, I can navigate through the tracks. I can loop sections if I want, although I usually choose a different method. Track 2 is resampling track 1, and track 6 is resampling track 5. I can then grab a loop, with filter and FX, and go between the track and the sampled loop, effectively using the OT as a 4 deck Traktor setup with 2 loop decks.
It is quite a bit of prep, but once it’s done, and you save your samples settings, you don’t need to do it again, and it then becomes extremely fun to play tracks live.
I use track 8 as a master track, track 7 has a 16 kick chain, so I can select the best sounding kick for the venue, and the other tracks have a mix of percussion chains.
Hope this helps
Cheers !
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Ooh. I’ve never DJ’d, but I can see how this could be a ton of fun. Thanks for the tip videos, and for this tip!
I’ve only DJed a few times before but this sounds wicked fun. Just got my octotrack and using it for some noise industrial performances first. but once I get more into it I wanna try my hand out at DJing. You guys have inspired me!
Hi Secret music.
Any chance you can post a project template so I can get my head around this? Trying to transition from Traktor and not sure where to start. Thanks heaps