Octatrack output question

[aarb420]

You guys, I’ve been hounding through and trying to apply this forum’s lovely users’ numerous tactics to achieve awesome sound output when using the internal recorders on OT (I still have a ton of tabs open). But, something is just not clicking in my head and I’m hoping someone can help me out here.

Let me start off by saying that I don’t have a master track… I find myself usually needing that extra track to add/separate elements from another sample in my beat. Here’s what I’m not understanding…

Does one have to set all tracks to +12db, all the mains to 127, and all the volume in AMP to 0 to achieve the juicy straightforward loudness out of OT? When I do that I get excessive levels out of my tracks where I need to turn the AMP volume setting lower to correct everything, and I don’t know if that’s what’s causing the imbalance in my exported audio? Things spank hard on the OT, and I’ve read that there’s a +3dB added additionally to the headphone out, which is what my past/current experiences are being compared to.

Can anyone please speak some truth on this matter so that I can make my beats spank in an honest fashion for the world to hear.

[aarb420]

Would adjusting trig volumes instead of AMP volume resolve this?

[Microtribe]

Read this thread

Gain aGain

This is a follow up post which perhaps questions a few of the assumptions made in a thread from a few years back … some of the statements have been taken to be a statement of fact (not least because of what is stated in the manual and in terms of how evaluations were thought through originally) I’ve revisited this afresh in a new thread in light of the general frustration with managing levels throughout the OT, particularly for capturing Live (and especially now we know the inputs are easily pu…

Its tricky because everyone has their own tastes in a mix, some like loads of dynamic range, others like it slammed into a wall.

There is no right or wrong, but there are many ways to adjust levels of each sound.
Input gain for live inputs .
Sample attributes page
Amp vol
Track level
Main output level

And if using T8 as master, T8 level (and if which using a compressor on master, comp gain)

There’s no real plain english straight forward ‘do this’ answer I’m afraid. I can tell you what I do, but that might not help you at all, since we wont have the same sound sources, nor are we making the same material.

[aarb420]

@Microtribe

Its tricky because everyone has their own tastes in a mix, some like loads of dynamic range, others like it slammed into a wall.

Hey, thanks for the tips. I’ve been so far as to going into the pcb audio routing threads, too.
It’s like something is squashing the output and I can’t figure out where I’m going wrong here when it sounds so much better out of the OT. Would boosting the gain on the AED section of the internal recorder be an option, or would this be incorrect thinking on my part?

I know I’m asking too much already by trying to squeeze so much out of one piece of equipment but it seems like it’s possible because of other OG’s submissions on this forum. Unless they’re juicing with other equipment.

btw to answer that quote I’m trying to slam as much as possible, but in a polite manner