The Model Brand is a great place to brush you feet at the door.
hi- i think i more or less say this dont i? i acknowledge the depth of the machine while also saying that competence can be acheived in a few days.
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Competence, meaning what? Sufficient knowledge to use it in a rudimentary way, like slice samples and assign them to steps on the sequencer? Sure, but the OT is so much more than that. It does take a relatively long time, and youtube tutorials as well as the manual to actually learn how to use it.
yes, exactly this. enough for you to be up and running with something listenable, which is what most of us want when we get a new instrument. as i said, the complexity can come later, but some kind of results can be acheived pretty much straight away (i.e a few days)
yes i acknowledged this
i said this as well didnt i?
So how is the complexity overstated if it comes later but is still there? Sure you can only use it as a performance mixer, fairly straight forward (altho the gain staging takes a bit of learning) but the machine is so much deeper than that.
i acknowledge in my original post that the complexity is there if thats where you want to take it, but am also at pains to point out that getting started with it isnt this mythical steep uphill battle that many people claim it is. it really isnt. theres some important info to remember about setting up projects and generally some odd quirks to be aware of, but essentially its all logical stuff that can be grasped pretty easily. whenever i read the comments ‘oh be prepared for a steep steep learning curve’ and ‘it’ll be years before you tame this beast’ (etc etc) i always think thats really unhelpful to any potential adopters of the OT as its exactly this sort of guff that can put people off even wanting to give it a try in the first place.
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So true. Comparing OT initial project set up to Deluge, MPC One/Live, Roland MC-707 they all take about the same effort - set the track type, select a sound/midi channel/ set track parameters etc. It is just a case of learning how to do it on each device, to me none is that much different from the others in this regard. All of them have a certain amount of menu diving/button combos, and all of them have their own idiosyncrasies about project/file management which if not understood can lead to frustration/data loss etc.
I don’t know where this learning curve steepness myth comes from, but I suspect it is partly due to the OT being among the first of its kind wrt to allowing multiple track types in a project, the user manuals more in depth approach, lack of tons of how to videos in the early days, the “urban legend” being parroted around the internet, people not putting the effort in (including some video “reviewers”) and simply not spending enough time with it.
In summary I think it is true to say that the OT has a bit of a learning curve, but not really any more than the other aforementioned devices, or for that matter a DAW, all of which require learning and effort to use properly. Some people will gel better with one device over the other, some won’t like any of them.
I think sometimes we can all get caught up in the idea of “one box to rule them all” but personally I don’t think the idea is even possible, and it would probably be UX hell if it was. That isn’t to say an individual user can’t find his own nirvana in a single box or combination of gear, and it can take a lot of frog kissing before you find your prince, some people never do.
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Very well put.
To the original question, for me it definitely wasn’t.
OT serves it’s purpose extremely well
If I want to use a DAW, software instruments, I use Reaper.
I like the OT for the fact that it’s not exactly a DAW in a box.
Probably the diversity of OT’s use cases/features. As in, it is a steep learning curve to learn everything it can do. But if you use it as a mixer/effects box, or as a live resampler, then, yeah, I was up and running pretty quickly. And as a drone machine sample mangler, within minutes.
BUT also, maybe the manual. I find the manual…terrible. (Except for the actual walk through use cases section, they are where everyone should start, you know, at the BACK of the manual)
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I always had low confidence in products doing several things in one, as these products do them all and in a bad way
I don’t own yet an OT but this is the idea I have so far.
I prefer products specialized in one task and excel at it
Still fascinated to own an OT though
OT is specialized in audio mangling and excels at it. 
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You must hate computers
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I used to love computers for making music but you cannot compare OT with a computer.
Theres no such thing as mistakes. Only learning opportunities.(corny but true esp in creativity).
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I agree with you, but I think the core of the OT is creative audio mangling through fx, sequencing, modulation, using pre-recorded or live samples. So, in my experience it is less about the OT doing many different things “in parallel”, but more about how far or deep you want to go when using it.
And the girls love it.
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I was just point out the obvious fallacy in your statement about machines that can perfrom multiple tasks being poor at them.
Cubase? Meh.
Creator? Sure. 
In seriousness, MIDI timing isn’t as stable as people remember it to be. Slaving can be problematic. Master clock accuracy can vary a lot, depending on the BPM used, because of limitation of 8 bit hardware timers.
Still, fun stuff. I keep a Mega ST around, for when I get that nostalgia kick. Need to upgrade to USB floppy though.
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High hopes for this thing to be the ultimate MIDI companion for OT:
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When I had an octatrack I thought the learning curve was very much ok. What frustrated me though was the saving process where always had to be very careful to store all that you wanted. And losing work through a, in my eyes, convoluted saving process, was annoying. It never felt as a safe device for keeping what I had created.
Sound quality was good if i got creative with mangling. But for playing back a recording 1 to 1 with the original it always sounded flat compared to the original. Difference wasnt huge, but still a disappointment. Like using a cheap old audio interface: you can record perfectly fine, but youll lose a little magic in the process.
If thats a problem does depend on your user case. For mangling sounds lovely. For big n wide recording not so much to my ears.
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