Octatrack as a mixer, question about thru and I/O

[Hooger]

I tried to set up my OT MKII as a hub for my Digitone, iPad and Neutron. But when I connect the DN to AB or CD and grab a Thru-machine, it actually sounds a lot more muffled as when I listen to the DN directly. Also the gain staging is very weird I think, having to crank up the levels on a couple of pages on the OT.

OT is still my hub, but for sound I chose to feed the OT to the DN, and that chain sounds way better in my opinion. Any thoughts on this (or maybe tips on what to do?) I would prefer to feed the sound of the DN to the OT, because of glue compression etc.

[Lymtronics]

The staging is a little weird, I agree.

Three things to check are the input gain in the mixer section, the playback volume of the inputs in the thru track, and the overall level of the thru track.

Also check the main output level in the mixer section, or while holding function and using the level knob.

Hopefully you get it sorted out. I always have the OT at the end of my chain.

[Open_Mike]

Try putting the thru track level all the way up and raise it’s amp vol parameter to somewhere in the high 40’s. Also if you have a master track put that track volume all the way up and set the main volume of OT to around +20.

[Hooger]

Thanks all. Checked all the settings, I think it was the mixer gain that fixed it (I thought that was only useful for the direct monitoring method)

Still I am not sure if running the DN through the OT creates some loss of sound quality. Maybe it’s all in my head. Gonna give it a fresh spin tomorrow.

[Open_Mike]

I always leave mixer gain at O and use the above settings, of course there’s many ways to go…
Here’s where I break it down a bit more, I should investigate thrus some more though as they’ve given me different results, I don’t use them much…

Internal gain stage recommendations

This was originally made in general thread and probably belongs here so we can discuss… This is a config tailored towards external gear and sampling, and maintaining volume while monitoring… (Begin) First the external source needs to be set at a healthy level, which makes the LEDs go orange and possibly flash red here and there, definitely above green. A trick I found is to use the noise gate which gives you a db reading, and crank it up until your signal disappears, this will tell you what…

[Open_Mike]

These settings make it so you get the same level coming out of the OT as what’s coming in, tested with decibel meters in Logic X…

[Hooger]

Cool, that’s what I am looking for piecing a live set together.