Hi there, thought I’d trow in my contribution… after a lot of thinking , experimenting, planning ahead and reading, I decided to go my own way, and apparently it’s not mainstream.
My Music
I’ve no clue how I should call it. I’ll let others put a name on it if they want to. Composing a piece is a long process. I intellectualize a lot, content is essential.
My Octatrack Setup
I use sets as sets, what everybody calls a song I like to call a piece, which translates to project in the OT, and I use banks to elaborate the project. So, 1 “song” per project. Bank A contains the actual patterns/parts I decided to keep for the live performance. Bank P is a 1:1 copy of Bank A should something go wrong with bank A. All the other banks are mostly sketch-banks, that’s where I elaborate and experiment without risking to overwrite bits and pieces of other “songs”.
So I really consider the Elektron “SET-PROJECT” paradigm for what I believe it was meant to be. This really avoids me to mess up slots, slices, and all other stuff belonging to other “songs”. Using 1 bank for a song or for several songs is really too risky for my taste and needs additional brain gymnastics I really can do without, my stuff is already complicated enough. EDIT: another huge advantage of this workflow is that I’ll always load the saved state of a project (=“song”). I am absolutely sure I will always have the exact same starting point. That is not the case if we use a bank per song. There’s lot that can go wrong when using a bank/song. Like you switch from one song to another, start tweaking, switch to another, mangle everything, at one point you do “save project” because whatever, and then everything is permanently messed up!
I have no particular one-size-fits-all OT set-up, but I always have at least 3 pick-up machines ready for bass guitar, electric guitar and live vocals. Depending on the piece I’m working on there can be statics for looooong files (field recordings often) or flex’s that read the PUM recording buffers. Sometimes I use a mastertrack but I’m not very fond of it: if I do, it’s punctually, per part.
I own some sample banks (the Samples from Mars collection, plus a lot of stuff I gathered over the years) but rarely use them for other things than drum parts. Most of what I do is done live, or sampled from my own synths or audio sources specifically for the project. I use a lot of field recordings. (Always have a pocket recorder with me). The OT hardly ever does basic drum duties. The Digitone however does. I like it.
I always have 3 sequencers running. I find that more flexible than centralizing everything on the OT. It rises the serendipity factor (aka: “happy accidents”)
My Gear
I use the Octatrack (master clock), Digitone, SP-16, AS-1, Blofeld, Animoog on an iPad, Equator softsynth with a Roli keyboard (If there were a hardware equivalent to the Equator I’d go for it but as of now Equator is quite unique and really useful for what I do) . I have a Touché midi controller to modulate midi CC’s in a very spectacular way. External FX from Eventide and Strymon. I play electric and acoustic guitar, and bass (using their specific compressor/preamps/cab sim plus an Analog Drive, but they share time-based effects with the rest of the rig) Every piece of gear is individually patched (inputs and outputs) to a Soundcraft Impact mixer so I can route anything anywhere, including chaining gear on the fly. When playing live, often a sax player or a percussionist joins in, I just plug them into the mixer and he’s part of the set-up. OT’s master and cue ouputs are of course individually patched in the mixer like anything else.
Sampling is done either on the OT or the SP-16, both are fed with one of the 14 submixes (not all are used for routing or sends, they also feed the monitors) so I juste dial in the combination of external sources I need to be sampled. There is of course a vinyl turntable within reach.
I play synths live using either the SP-16 pads, the Roli keyboard or the DN trig keys. I don’t have a dedicated master keyboard: I can’t play piano anyway. The Roli is fun to play for a guitar player because it’s very tactile and reacts very much like guitar strings.
All the midi is routed through a iConnectMidi4+.
I use a Yamaha MFC10 footpedal to control OT’s PUM’s, mutes on DN tracks, control the Eventide stompboxes that are NOT on the floor but side by side with the synths because KNOBS 
and whatever else needs to be controlled while I’m playing guitar or bass.
My Transitions
I have no obligation to keep the music flowing seamlessly to keep the people on the floor, so transitions are not a big deal rhytm-wise, I can take some time to switch projects but often I start a sequence on one of the sequencers while I load the other ones, or I play bit of a vinyl, or whatever is suitable for the particular transition. Because of the flexible set-up the mixer provides, I can also easily fill the gap with, for instance a field recording running through an filter plus a modulated delay commanded by a midi track on the Digitone while I reload the Octatrack. Or a DN chord progession heaviliy modulated use the Touché (one hand required).
So my set-up is not 100% computerless because I need/want Equator (which runs standalone), and also I use it for librarian duties/file management and configuration software, but it’s DAW-less. On stage, the laptop’s lid is closed. I use a Midi Control app on a Android smartphone to change presets on Equator and whatever else needs to be reconfigured/reset on the fly that would be cumbersome using the MFC10. (Very convenient and tiny footprint)
Disclaimer
I am a bit embarassed because my report might come over a bit as a show-off of gear. It isn’t meant to be: I just wanted to share because maybe some ideas could be helpful to others, I myself have been inpired many times by other people’s ways of doing things (including on this forum, one of the best I know) and I’m grateful they shared it. To put things in perspective, I’m a 61 years old professional, I started in the music business in 1978 so I gathered (and lost, too) some stuff over the years… I’m not a spoiled gear-laden 16 year old.
) I move to the outro pattern which launches ending loops. I immediately move to the intro pattern of the next song and start working my transition buy fading out loops, sending parts to delays, and bringing in loops from the new track. Once everything is in, I can start the cycle again.
