Had great results with a midi arp the other day by making its track one step shorter than the rest (63/64). Created great variation and still worked (at least in that case). Also had that midi track coming back into a flex with rearranged start points and harmonically working pitch adjustments, variations on the variations…
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A little trick I discovered and end up using all the time. This will only work right if you’re using individually triggered samples for your sounds. So if you have a long loop playing with one trig at the beginning, and this is what makes your beat or whatever, this trick doesn’t really work. Basically this will work with anything that’s not a loop that’s only triggered at the beginning of the pattern.
With that in mind, say you have a pattern. It’s groovy. You like it. You want to make a new pattern that will fit with your existing one and allow your little jam to move in a new direction. Copy your groovy pattern. Paste it onto a new pattern, and then go in and change the new pattern’s time signature. If your sounds are individual trigs and not loops, you will hear the same pattern, played back at half speed, or double speed, or more interesting divisions in-between, depending on what you set the time signature to. It doesn’t always sound perfect from the start, but sometimes it does and it’s magical. Sometimes it needs a tweak or two but it’s a great way to expand upon an existing idea.
Because they are basically loops, this doesn’t work with pickup machines. Also, this has been explained assuming that all tracks share the same time signature settings. If you have different lengths for each track, you have to go in and adjust each one independently, but this can be even more interesting as you can make certain tracks divided by individual divisions, and other tracks multiplied in the same way, etc.
Maybe this is obvious, but it’s been a big discovery for me and allows me to quickly build interesting variations on an existing pattern.
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Sorry, could you sum up ?
Just talking about a pattern variation ?
Yes, I use this for a variation on a pattern. You can have the same pattern play back with different time signature settings to get really interesting changes. Copy pattern, paste onto new pattern, change time signature and booom.
It can be helpful if you’re looking for inspiration about where to take the thing next, whether it works as a starting point for something new or it’s good to go after just pasting it. It’s an obvious thing but it took me about a year and a half with the OT to discover it.
Hope this helps!
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2 nice tips i never have seen online.
first if you got freeze delay on master track and you use a midi controller (for example faderfox) to trigger the delay you can record the beat repeat on the master track sequenzer. good way to create interesting variations.
second one: i never use mute function. i trigger the amp volume with a faderfox (there you can controlle min and max cc value) from -64 to 0 value. this way i can mute the volume of the track but still have the efx fading out (reverb or delay). only thing is you have to controlle the volume of the sample in the audio editor wave form volume and save it so you have steady volumes with all oneshots loops etc.
if there are any ideas pleaze feel free to post here
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Tips with faderfox? 
Second one is known, doesn’t cut fx, I do it too.
About first one, you mean change delay time with precise values ? What CC do you use ?
Studio mode + headphone jack as sub-bus
- Put octa into studio mode
- Set track 8 as master
- Headphone output will have both the the main and cue outs but only tracks assigned to the master will hit the master track effects on track 8. You can now use the master as a “group track” for additional filtering, volume, etc. on track 8. Anything assigned to master will be in the sub-bus/group. Everything assigned to cue will skip the master effects.
The same thing can of course be done with a mixer. This little tip may help those working without a mixer.
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you need a midi controller that can send precise ccs, therefore the faderfox. but behringer can do that to. for example for delay time i prepared 4 different buttons with the delay time efx 2 parameter 1. one with cc value 15,31,47,63. no i cant switch delay time with button push. then another button with the dry wet cc. thats it. about the volume thing. the point is to use midi controller and amp volume completely as mute with a button push. but year the not efx cut thing is pretty known.
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The arp can play more than major or minor scale, I posted this for A4 but figured it should live here too…
The common major scale actually has seven modes which translate into other scales in other keys.
The major scale in one key is actually 6 other scales if played with a different root note.
The notes used are the same notes, but give a different musical relation depending on what root key they are played over.
G major consists of the same notes as E minor for example, they sound happy when played over a G, but sad when played over an E. The other modes have different favors, G major notes played over a D note is D mixolydian and has sort of an “epic” flavor…
For example, the G major(Ionian) scale consists of the exact same notes as:
A Dorian
B Phrygian
C Lydian
D Mixolydian
E Aolian
F# Locrian
So by setting the arp to G major you get G major, assuming the root of the key your playing is actually G.
With the same G major setting, playing in a root note of A will give you the Dorian mode(scale), playing with a root note of D would give you the Mixolydian mode(scale), etc…
So any of the seven modes can be used not by selecting the scale, but rather changing the root key of the arp setting, while playing in a different root key…
Hope this makes sense, at some point maybe I’ll find or make a chart as it’s a lot to explain how to figure out which root to set…
Edit: link to chart : Octatrack Tips & Tricks (OT Tips)
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Boom! After your A4 post, it set me wondering if the OT did the same… thanks for the heads up!
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Thank you!!
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that’s great. Would have never thought of it, though it totally makes sense
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For other scales, I plock several notes with third intervals on 1 trig, other left notes on another trig, and alternate them each 2 steps, or as you like.
Random Arp with octaves to taste.
A Minor Harmonic
Trig 1 : A C E G#
Trig 2 : B D F
With 5 notes scales I use this sometimes
Track 1 for root note
Track 2 for others notes
Ethiopian
T1 = A, T2 = B C E F
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That’s a new one to me by definition, although I have often heard those note relationships. Almost like an Ethiopian version of the pentatonic scale, only with the closer B+C notes providing more harmonic interest.
I maid another test with same principle, I just thought that with Trc now we can put up to 2x4 notes on the same time.
DORIAN D
Trig 1 (D F A C), Trc 50%
Trig 2 (E G B D), Trc /PRE and - 23/384 micro timing.
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What’s the -23/284 do? I would’ve figured you’d want it right on top of where the previous note would have been, so I would’ve guessed -284/284 or whatever the furthest backwards value would be.
It’s 23 of 384 (384 midi seq clicks per bar from 96 ppqn [24ppqn for MIDI beat clock, int seq is 4 times higher res] ) - so it’s the finest step resolution that steps can be shifted towards, but not overlapping, the neighbouring seq step
may have been neater to write 23/24, but it is what it is I guess
edit: adding a figure for future ref - so you see that 2 and 3 can almost swap places
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A step is 24 clicks.
I don’t know if @avantronica mentioned it, but take 2 consecutive steps. 
If you set step 2 to +1 and step 2 to -23, which is theorical same position, surprisingly only step 2 is played. 
If you set step 1 to +2, it will be played after step 2. 
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not surprising as it’s a monophonic (if audio) track, but yeah, you can nudge it so two trigs ‘almost’ entirely swap positions (96%) and certainly swap order - but they’ll work as per no nudging for TRCs ordering etc
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I thought step 1 would be first, that was my surprise, not the monophonic behavior.