Octatrack purchase advice please

its nothing complicated, but read this

in a set you have projects, in a project you have 4 parts per bank, 16 patterns per bank so 64 parts per project in your set. each pattern has a part, then theres 8 tracks with a machine each and machines are saved under parts so remember to save your parts and save your project.

its a bit of a brain melter if you don’t already understand OT. a lot of people put it off at first to get their head round the box then theres that many other functions its not necessary to revisit it, even if theyve been using it for years

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True

That makes it sound confusing…
How about:

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That’s better. But from my experience trying to read the octatrack manual at first it felt more like

if 64 parts per project÷4 parts equally shared amongst 16 patterns = 8 parts², find X apply it to the lowest common denominator. how many apples does Jim have?
Show your working

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Stop it your gonna scare people off… :joy:

Perhaps they have been less meaningful to me because I lean towards performing? I’m sure there is nothing unique about me in this regard. Can someone show me a video where parts are integral to the resultant audio? I ask because I don’t care so much, but your passionate comments continue to make me question if I’m missing out. Oh, and thank you! :grinning:

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I wasn’t picking you out in particular, it’s a super common theme…
I do use parts to drastically change audio several times during a jam…

I don’t mean to be so secretive with my music, but my labs been down for months now and I’ve been working with a minimal setup, and lately I really need to focus on other things…
Eventually in some months I’ll be fully set up again, and I’ll try to start posting examples of things I talk about…

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That’s cool, and I didn’t feel like I was being bashed. Plus, you’re a cool dude so I’d let it slide even if I felt I was being beat up a bit for being a silly dolt. :see_no_evil:

The drastic changes you refer to involve effects, ja? Assuming that is the case, I have loads of outboard processing so that is not meaningful to me and may explain my indifference.

PS, OP, get an OT ASAP. Shit will melt your brain. This is the most important sampler to come out in decades. Participate in history in the making.

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I think the way parts can be used is quite open ended, the name “parts” is probably what causes some of the confusion with them, in most other gear a part is called a kit although parts on the OT are a bit more than just a kit, since they can contain different machine types, slot assignments, fx and track parameters for each track across each part, and 16 different scenes for each part. Phew!

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Here’s an example, there’s more to it than this but in general:

I’ll start on my main pattern where I can make a bunch of loops with pickups and flex and also have some flex remixes of the individual loops.

After awhile I switch to a breakdown pattern/part. This part only uses one of the loops from the last part, a Rytm loop. On this pattern part I have three alternate flex remix versions of the drum loop, I use the fader to bring them in and out…

After that maybe I’ll go back to the separate loops main part for a bit.

Next I go to a third pattern/part. This one has drums and some of the loops, but introduces a spoken word talk from a static track. This track is resampled and warped to another flex. That flex is resampled once again and warped further. And one more time again to create a chain of re sampling from the spoken track… This pattern/part also has an extreme flex manipulation of the rytm track attached to a scene…

On all other parts/patterns I leave the the same track number as the spoken word track empty without start silent enabled. This way once my spoken word has started, it continues to play on that track when I go back to the previous parts, just without the resample chain…

On a forth pattern/part I have realtime pitch shift for the incoming rytm, and some other tricks lined up… I may or may not use this part in the jam but it’s there…

Generally for me each pattern/part in one bank is a section of the jam or “track”, which keeps some of the elements but introduces others. Other banks have completely different setups, but again each banks 4 parts work together and interchangeably to build that banks jam…

For my OT workflow I actually usually only use the first four patterns of every bank, each assigned to a different part, and don’t even sweat the 12 blank patterns…

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I don’t know, there is more going on with the OT so parts have more going on, but for me they’re not that different than a rytm kit which also has machine assignments, scenes, and also performance macros…

They just have more drastic machine assignments, the midi section, recorder setups, and fx assignments…
To me it feels like the same concept just expanded to cover all the OT parameters, they can definitely be way more drastic than kits, but the concept feels the same to me…

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…or you get a used Boss RC-505 loopstation.
It has 5 independent tracks, midi, some effects and is super easy to use, which is great for composing. You can also import and export samples as wave files via usb.
Only bummer being: the tracks’ sound get artifacts, when you time-stretch them.
Other than that the loopstation sounds like a perfect fit.

What has always confused me about pickup machines is that only subsequent PM tracks can have longer lengths than 64. Why not allow us to do that with the first loop as the capability obviously exists?

Just reading a bit of this thread and Merlin’s guide made me understand Parts a little bit more!! Thanks guys!! Will mess around with it more tonight!! Can’t wait! I’m starting to understand the concept of the Octatrack as a whole now.

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The OT is only limited by ram for loop size, that goes for all methods…

The first or only pickup can be more than 64 steps.
Set qrec and qpl to 64, rlen max, one2mode…

-Rlen max means the recording won’t stop until memories out…
-One2mode allows you to define a pickups length by pressing a/b or c/d after recording. A/b to enter overdub, c/d to go straight to playback.
-Qrec and qpl are the quantize settings

With these settings after recording begins if you press a/b or c/d anytime during the first pattern cycle, your loop will be 64, during the second cycle 128, during the forth cycle 256, etc…

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