Octatrack n00b - What do I need to know?

Since you have mk2 you can optionally use a conditional trig with the “1rst” condition.
This will trig the sample once on the first pattern cycle.
That way you don’t have to ever rearm if you don’t want to.

One-shots or “1rst” condition can be used for this, but they do function differently. One-shots play only once when armed and you can rearm them whenever you want, “1rst” condition plays only on the first pattern cycle of the pattern its on.

In both cases it allows to trig a sample that is longer than the pattern length, so when the pattern repeats it doesn’t get trigged again which would cut the sample short and start it over from the beginning…

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If you plan to have it run continuously you don’t necessarily have to retrigger it, you can just set it to loop and it will keep going until you get to another trig on that track, even if you change patterns (unless you set it to cut off on pattern changes). So you could use the 1rst trig condition or a one shot to start playback and then just let it keep looping, and then use another 1rst condition or one shot to retrigger it or trigger a different drone in any pattern where you need to do that.

I don’t have time to really explain it in detail because of work but the manual and other people here can fill in the specifics for you.

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WC manual

This is literally the thing. Thank you, dude!

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I’ve had a good old play with trig types tonight; it took about an hour to work through the differences but I feel like I’ve definitely got a good grounding in what does what.

The lock trigs to fire P Locks are :fire:. It’s basically everything I’ve wanted from a sampler forever!

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Welcome aboard…
Fly safely…

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Sorry to be a pain, any chance you could explain what you mean by this? (seems im more of a noob)

This was me for the first many months, and I still keep the manual close by, or my laptop the PDF along with this forum.

After reading all these replies it made me think about a few things.
Personally when I read something new, it does not stick right away.
Even if I was just learning through video tutorials, all those little things don’t just stick in my memory 1st time around.
I read a little, work on the OT until I get lost, read my way out, get lost again, repeat.
The lack of knowledge, and lack of muscle memory make the OT seem slow at first.
I’ll read something look at the OT and go, “which buttons do I press again?”

First I would suggest ignoring Parts, Sampling, and Arrangement.

Just pick a simple specific task and learn that.
Load up a few drum loops and a few sounds.
Make a little didty, learn p-locks, sample locks, neighbor tracks, stacking effects, play with scenes.
Save the project, just dont get married to it.

Next, maybe hook up an external synth, explore the midi side, doing the same as above.

OK, so now jump into sampling.
Watch these 2 tutorials.

After doing such things, your muscle memory should be starting to learn, and you’ll start to develop ideas on how you want to approach something substantial.
When I get to this point, I start to make an “Initialize” project.
I will use this project as a starting point over and over for years. It changes a lot at first, but it starts to build into something cohesive. After a while I might have 2 or 3 projects like this that serve different purposes.

Approaching just the basics, one piece at a time, it will help things that are weird to understand at first, like Parts.

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About Parts.
The manual and merlin’s guide did not help me one bit. The wording is all weird to me.

Basically, Parts are Kits.
You have 4 parts per bank that you can assign to any pattern in that bank.

noob tip, don’t use Parts when you shoulda used sample locks.

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Which bit, @Saltaire? :slightly_smiling_face:

That is solid advice, Juan. Thankyou.

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Seatbelts on…and we’re away!

I don’t find the OT difficult, there’s just a lot of stuff. The basics are simple.
Oddly sampling was the most difficult thing for me to grasp.
I feel like all the other stuff comes on a need to know basis.

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I’ve found this. I’d made a pretty satisfying - totally mangled! - loop last night with little discourse. The sampling…once I sussed record triggers it felt ok, too.

I just had a shower epiphany about per-track pattern lengths and multiples/lengths on the master track. You could get some really nice ‘random’ patterns if you run the master track for long enough and use micro-timing & conditional trigs.

Feels good, man.

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“Need to know basis” :+1: … I think that’s one of the best advices here.

What a machine. Years of fun ahead.

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The more you use it, the better it gets!

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Thanks for all the advice, guys. Five days in and I’m really happy with some of the sampling-mangling that I have under my fingers!

Another question if I might: is there an ‘easy’ way to achieve cool, drawn-out timestretch effects without dropping the sample’s pitch? I’ve been doing it the ‘classic’ way (single sample, really short length, scanning through the sample with the ‘start’ knob) but didn’t know if there was a better way to go about it?

In flex setup set Rate to timestretch. Use the rate knob for time stretch without pitch shift… :smiley:

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Yes! Legend. Thanks, Mike!

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