Octatrack card read/write speed

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#43

…if u want to stream…the slow ones won’t do the trick…

…u can start streaming with the mid price ones…2 or 3 stems at once…u’ll be fine…

but if u wann do it ALL…and stay on save ground…
which includes even all 8 decks/engines/slots/machines can stream at ONCE…
AND ur folder structure in the audio pool can grow really complex…but remains solid…
well…
then…stop bothering…be a pro…buy a pro…

…u got an expensive and serious electronic music instrument in front of u…
don’t go cheap on it’s most fragile and essential detail now…

#44

my recent tests of 133x cards and above suggest this not to be the case.
all 8 tracks streamed from CF just fine. Even with some LFO on start points for all 8, and 24 bit files.

The 800x and 1066x performed no better, as there was no additional performance needed to be gained.

Additional tests were made where all 8 tracks referenced the same .wav (stem chain),
and again 133x = 1066x in these tests.

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#45

When you do the calculations streaming 8 stereo audio channels with 44.1kHz/24 bit requires just 2116,8kB/s of bandwidth (44,1k * 6 * 8).

So 133x (~20MB/s) cards provide already approx. 10x as much as required for the streaming.

The additional bandwidth is nice for file transfers. Especially when used in an external USB3 reader. The internal reader max out at ~30MB/s (200x) due to the USB2 connection to the host.

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#46

…hmmmm…different experience here…

ok, that is more than seven years now back then stuff…
but i had quite a collection of cv cards in all sizes and read/write speeds for mpc’s already when i got my first ot…

and also with the elektron card that was part of the mk1’s back then…many drop outs when streaming…no processing…just playing from card…

so, some things might be different by now…for me, i need the total confidence it worx…
so i’m totally fine, not thinking about 40 bux more or less paid to make sure my 1 grant investments run solid, no matter what…

#47

The only thing different is the newer OS.

I test on both my OT MK1 (older units with the textured paint) and original 133x Kingstons that shipped with the early-days units.

#48

That’s mostly due to shady marketing practices like specifying stuff with 133x, but technically providing only up to 133x (under best circumstances) with a very, very low minimum rate.

But of course: better save than sorry. Buying high quality cards is always a good idea, especially since the additional price is still very low compared to the device.

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#49

Also, MPCs could only take up to 2GB cards, unless they were partitioned, The fastest of those were 133x, many around 80x, so a pretty different CF paradigm between MPC and OT.

Suffice to say every card Elektron has ever shipped has been compatible with streaming 8 tracks without issue. And the slowest they’ve shipped (and slowest they mention as compatible in the manual) is 133x

#50

…i see.

…doing the math is always a good thing… :wink:

…don’t think the older os could have caused the drop outs, though…

but whatsoever…i got enough proper cv cards for this life…that’s for sure…
as sure as the fact that a truu next generation ot won’t need such a thing anymore…

#51

just be careful putting control voltages into your compact flash card slot

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#52

IIRC the minimum speed recommended was 20mb/s I never had a single problem with Sandisk Ultra cards, so I just stick to those, a little more expensive than some brands but worth it I think.