Octatrack Live Performance Workflow and Transition Approach

[previewlounge]

my new approach to live performance with the OT is no longer like a hardware version of Traktor, staying in the same Pattern and loading clips as required to slots.

although it is somewhere near that.
now i plan on loading relevant audio clips to a series of delineated flex slot and static slot numbers.
on a number of different Patterns.
it’s just a great feeling to have that level of preparation and relevance already available at a live gig with lots of activity and distraction of fashion, society and loud speakers.

but then the question arises of how to change Pattern enjoyably, musically, in a progressive mixing style.

for each Pattern there are 8 slots.
so 7 original audio loops get put on slots 11-17 for Pattern 1, slots 21-27 for Pattern 2, slots 31-37 for Pattern 3 … etc.
with one exception: Track 8 would be assigned to Flex Record Slot 8, to allow for my customised Transition Trick.

that would be 7 musically relevant looping prepared original grooves with entire instrumentation, or just the bass and drums, or melody chords and percussion, just whatever feels cool for the progression of a partial “song”.

the tracks would be sequential in the content that goes on each one.
Track 1 would be a sparse melody intro vibe, and so forth.

rather than use Track 8 for Master Effects, i would have that essentially at a default Level, Volume, start parameter, etc. No effects, and a single Trig at the start of each 4 Bar measure/pattern.

this would be a “rule” of sorts for all Patterns. Track 8 is always at default Level and Volume, no effects, everything standard.

then to transition smoothly to the next Pattern, after getting creative with the current loops on Tracks 1-7 in the current Pattern, realtime sample the Master Output to Track 8 when it feels like time to change to a new Pattern, after about ten minutes playing time. Track 8 is muted while sampling the Master Output.

and then, Track 8 is Soloed (Cue and Track Trig button double keypress).
There is no volume change when this happens. The Master Output was sampled and the Track 8 settings are standard.

Not only but also the essential feature is actually the not-using of a feature: the Master Effects track option is not being used.

So when Track 8 is soloed, the Master Effect track not being on means that there will not be a doubling up of effects.

Also, any potential for different settings on the Master Effects track of the next Pattern is obviated. Potential obstacle to achieving a seamless Pattern change is now not relevant.

Although the Master Effects track is cool, i’m finding that it’s much preferable to use individual Filter and dj eq effect on tracks to sound design them for the room and the vibe. it’s just … more individually tailored to each loop and so therefore feels more “musical” to do things this way, somehow.

I would still use the Master Effect track occasionally in production sessions in the studio.

As each Pattern is then guaranteed to have Track 8 set to standard settings and volumes, there will be no glitch when changing Pattern either.

Hey presto, transition trick achieved.
Then start mixing in the first of the next set of musically relevant loops in Pattern 2.

One song would be represented by one or two Patterns of loop collections.

to facilitate easy prog mixing between Tracks in a Pattern, i would assign xlevel Scene B to silence Tracks 1-4, and conversely assign xlevel Scene A to silence Tracks 5-8. Standard dj mixer left-right xfader mixing, essentially. The less thinking required the better, when it comes to live performance scenarios.

[Augenadler]

Interesting aproach. Did you gig with it yet? How did it work out?

[previewlounge]

designed this approach this afternoon when frenziedly putting together a performance for a 10 minute talent night slot played tonight. first gig yay. it’s been a very long time between drinks, so to speak.

leaving the recording flex slots free and the first ten slots free kind of makes for a flexible file preparation area.

all of the loops or partial section loops are pretty much partly engineered and mixed (about 70 percent of the way to being completely satisfying), but they often require some corrective eq.

using this modular approach with a structured yet flexible workflow allows for finessing things along the way. sometimes resampling clips and so forth, putting them in one of the first ten free slots for temporary storage whilst figuring out how the overall sound and vibe is progressing … before eventually selecting the “group” of winning clips that all work and flow in a natural, musical and structurally logical fashion. looking for that elusive implying of tension and release, contrast and complement, light and dark.

edit:

suddenly thought a cool way of having an “alt” clip version could be having the same slot number on the Flex list and the Static list contain a pair of clips that naturally relate to each other, like a “drum fill” version with entire instrumentation, or a version of the clip that is everything except the bass drum.

say for Bank 1 Pattern 1, Track 1 would be Flex Slot 11 … whilst at the same time having a cool alt version placed in Static Slot 11 … and so on for Track 2 - Flex Slot 12, alt slot Static Slot 12.

/epiphany

tonight performed only with Pattern 1, Tracks 1-8 being sorted out with musically relevant sections. that along with some bass and lead playing freestyle on the se02 seemed to be the perfect amount.

after ten minutes did feel the need to change the tempo although thankfully that was my time limit so did a fairly amateurish fadeout then hurried home to think about how to make it better.

only fully thought out the Transition Trick and how it would work after coming home and being yet-again utterly discombobulated when trying to learn other peeps’ Transition Trick approaches.

i knew that i would need to somehow transition smoothly at the next talent night slot.

next week i only play for twenty minutes, but that will require at least two or three Patterns, so shall try it out then.

[Augenadler]

Thanl you for the detailed insight of your workflow and thoughts.
I never played live with my gear yet, my last liveact (live&reason) was in 2006 so a little rust has settled. Always find it refreshing to peak into someone elses workflow to maybe find a hint to find my own.

[previewlounge]

hardware is another level towards instrumentalism and improvisation, or at least, an invitation in that direction.

something else i just realised, although the performance setup of a Pattern is working with clips that are entire or just half of a mix of instruments, and those creative studio session Patterns are mostly long gone, slots being exchanged for new recordings and resamplings of other tracks in progress … well, there are still 8 midi tracks right there ready to be used for something or nothing.

if nothing, then no worries.

but maybe there could be extra supplemental techno funk tight phrasings, an alt bassine, or a couple of cool melody parts that lend themselves to being A/B muted realtime.

i’m thinking of mainly playing the se02 freestyle live, but then to have the possibility of those realtime sequenced 8 midi tracks is just another level of rich-yet-minimal layering, contributing to the soundstage experience for the people in the room.

could even have certain program changes set for each of the midi tracks, telling the se02 what patch to go to, and then leave the OT midi setting “Send Prog Change” to ‘off’, until it seems okay to change the current se02 sound.

Also the option “Silence Tracks” after Pattern change is selected, even though i set my audio clips’ Audio Editor setting for “Loop” to not loop …

also checked “LFO Auto Change” on the same screen. Not quite sure what that does exactly, although it seems somehow appropriate.

[previewlounge]

revised edition…

there are 4 Parts per Bank of 16 Patterns on the Octatrack.

each Pattern is to be a performable ‘song’.

so my approach for performance is to pre-select the best audio clip sections that i’ve made for each song, and pre-load them to Slots and Tracks in one Pattern.

was going to use Flex Slots but soon realised the flash memory would run out of room after about 5 ‘songs’ if each audio clip was an average of say 3.5mb

it might be more achievable if working in 16bit mode, although i much prefer 24bit mode and so choose to maintain that format.

i have about 4500 audio clips on the compact flash card.
it comes from extensive exploration of track ideas and exporting 4 bar loops regularly for later use in performance or further composition.

so many song section parts in various instrumentations and resampled volume level differences … eq, compression tests and resequenced remix ideas, all in the 4 bar format.

it isn’t too much to deal with in the studio, as the clips are in Project folders and those Project folders are labelled by month. Each clip starts with the working title of the song so its easy to quick-scroll through them with Function and Level Encoder.

but it is too much like “work” to deal with at a live gig.
the studio frame of mind to comprehend the body of work is a different feel to what is required when playing/improvising a set at a venue with people.

so i need to have a workable sub-set of the library for say a dozen songs. if i want to prepare more than a dozen songs then i will start a new Project. for now, 12 songs is enough to think about.

i want the decimal number of the Slot holding each Audio clip for each Track in a Pattern to have some intuitive logical connection, almost a “reason for being there”.

So here is my new nominal nomenclature of Static Slot audio clip choice. It relates both to the Pattern number and the Track number.

Pattern 1 relates to Static Slots 11-17
Pattern 2 relates to Static Slots 21-27
Pattern 3 relates to Static Slots 31-37
Pattern 4 relates to Static Slots 41-47

Pattern number relates to the decimal number of the Static Slot.
with each Track numerically conveniently relating to its own single digit number of the Static Slot location.

Pattern 1 Track 7 is using the audio clip on Static Slot 17
Pattern 2 Track 5 is using the audio clip on Static Slot 25
Pattern 3 Track 1 is using the audio clip on Static Slot 31

this way there is a reason and a numerical ‘guidance’ or immediate indication of where an audio clip should be placed, or where it should be looked for.

Track 8 of every Pattern is always set to Recording Flex Slot 8, for the sample-and-solo transition trick for seamless pattern changing.

and so on and so forth for 12 performable “songs” (12 Patterns with pre-selected audio loop song section preps on Tracks 1-7 for each).

the previously formidably modular open architecture of the Octatrack’s library and pattern system is now structured comfortably using the Static slots up to Static Slot 127 for Pattern 12 Track 7.

there is rhyme and reason to the organisation allowing for less note-making and obviating the need to remember anything about folder locations for various content.

[previewlounge]

it’s as easy as ABC.

and in fact the only slightly less-obvious element of this organisational approach is in the “workaround” to accoodate for the fact that each Bank of 16 Patterns has only Four Parts.

I need to use Banks ABC to get the 12 Parts required.

It’s the Part that is doing the job of allocating what Track references what audio clip on which particular Static Slot number.

I need 12 Parts for 12 ‘songs’ or Patterns holding different Slot assignments.

To get around this, I use Patterns 1-4 for the first four performable ‘songs’ in Bank A.
that makes use of Bank A’s four Parts.

Patterns 5-8 as the four performable ‘songs’ in Bank B.
Bank B’s four Parts are now being utilised.

and Patterns 9-12 as the next group of four performable ‘songs’ in Bank C. the four Parts of Bank C now being used.

so this was the only “non-obvious” and slightly less-intuitive aspect of the live performance preparation, i think.

but after committing to the idea, it seems pretty logical as the Pattern number is able to be maintained in a sequence that holds the decimal numerical relationship with the group of Static Slot numbers for the Tracks in the Pattern.

slightly wonky but it works…

Part 1 in Bank A selects and remembers the audio clip and slot number for Pattern 1.
Part 2 for Pattern 2
Part 3 for Pattern 3
Part 4 for Pattern 4.

Part 1 in Bank B selects and remembers the audio clip and slot number for Pattern 5.
Part 2 for Pattern 6
Part 3 for Pattern 7
Part 4 for Pattern 8.

Part 1 in Bank C selects and remembers the audio clip and slot number for Pattern 9.
Part 2 for Pattern 10
Part 3 for Pattern 11
Part 4 for Pattern 12.

to keep things clear and simple, i won’t use the rest of the Patterns in those Banks for anything.

as regards Trigs on each Track, it’s really simple: one Trig at the start of each Track. Each Pattern goes for 4 Bars, and each Audio Clip is 4 Bars in length.

there is no pitch changing, no retrigs, no p-locks, Att is zero and the Hold is max.

effects on the tracks are usually a filter or comp, with a dj eq perhaps.
shaping the flavour and dynamics to hopefully ensure a relevant connection between each Track in the performable ‘song’ Pattern.

all the audio clips are 4 Bars.
when doing the previous actual creative sequencing and recording sessions … whether it is an “Intro” style of loop or a “Verse” vibe clip, I always export a 4 Bar loop in the preparations.

after doing a few gigs, the option is there to use the other free Patterns in Bank A, B, C for “remixing-via-resequencing” the 4 ‘song’ Patterns in each Bank.