Octatrack to individual track outs workflow

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Yo fam, I honestly wish Octatrack just had 8 friggin’ outs. I love the OT and the techno jams that come out of it sound really good. Trouble is there’s no control individual tracks and mixing after the fact. I could use 2 mains and the 2 cues to get 4-tracks, but it’s not enough. What are you guys doin’ to get around it so can edit in post?

Only thing I can think of is recording MIDI notes from the OT and/or external control of the OT fx parameters and going back and overdubbing the parts in. This is just off the top of my head as IDK if it can output all that or if have to use external MIDI control which is fine.

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#2

I either just live with 4 outs and do my best when it’s a more performance oriented piece or I mute and record one track at a time and rely on the Arranger. I feel ya on the desire for 8 audio outs. The downside with the Arranger method is you’re going to end up with a different sound if you’re running T8 as master FX. Buss compression for example should sound noticeably different. It’s a compromise.

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#3

Had the same thought recently as well… 8 audio outs would be helpful

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#4

8x Audio outs on the Octatrack would have been amazing.

I wrote a little recorder utility ages ago to allow me to bounce out stems from the Octatrack.

Essentially automate the process, either via midi, arranger or wizardry and away you go.

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#5

This has been a wish/complaint since the OT’s inception from what I gather. There really isn’t a reasonable workaround imo. I treat my OT tracks as whole stereo pieces rather than worrying about mixing individual tracks. I spend hours getting it to sound right in the OT and treat it as if I’m recording the instrument.

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#6

Until very recently I only recorded the stereo outs in one take. In the past couple of weeks however I’ve tried a combination of things already mentioned in this thread. First get the sounds and structure of the song as good as I can (I don’t use the arranger though). Then perform the track live and record the stereo outs into Logic. And then:

Being able to listen to the “prop track” (which I have panned hard right while having the single track takes hard left) enables me to get into the groove of a full song.

It’s definitely not a perfect solution and we can all fantasise of the OT that could be but even as it is, I consider myself a very happy OT user. :smiley:

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#7

I just record every midi. I use Ableton and a Max for Live device but you can do the same in any DAW.
I like the aspect of playing live with the OT so I got 8 channel set up, each with the same midi channel of the OT tracks. I record automation, the slider get recorded on midi channel 1.
You can record 2 stereo or 4 mono or 1 stereo and 2 mono.
If you sum some tracks or sometimes use a Neighbour track you don’t need a lot of takes.
Lately I’m using the OT mainly for drums and some vocal/main sample.
Drums on Main and vocal on Cue, done :smiley:
I eq my drums on the OT->analogue compressor and I sidechain the low end in Ableton.
The audio of my bass and my extra synth go straight into Ableton or come from some VST.
Make it simple you know :slight_smile:

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#8

Hi there!
I used to think that’s an issue, but my workflow has changed to recording single loops of instruments or groups. Drums are an example here If they are rather static.
Evolving stuff from LFOs or polyrhythmic patterns are recorded over 1 to 8 minutes.
Either dry or with fx. Sometimes I add a pedal for extra fun.
A lot of my background atmo are basically one or more track on the OT which feeds into a Ventris pedal, almost completely wet. Scenes, LFOs and knob twist do the rest while recording.
If the sound is very prominent I have a raster of 1 minute sections on the screen. With an arrangement in mind I build up tension and release.
I sometimes do this before I even have and arrangement or just with an almost done track.

On the OT stuff is almost ready for mixing, so I record just the stems one by one. Set the OT to receive transport so with a tap on the record button in your DAW you get all most latency free loops.

Another this is I never use the first bar, because it’s end will bleed into the second bar. So the second bar is actually the first bar if you are recording loops.
In practice you would record 5 bars and delete the first, do some timing correction and a little fade on each side if you get clicks.

Hope that helps!

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#9

OT has 8 stereo recorders.
You can record up to 8 x 1m04s tracks internally.

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#10

I’m pleased with results recording scenes and crossfades into daw (erase all midi notes sent from audio tracks), then recording each track one at a time (tracking), sometimes using outputs 3,4 for send into external effects to avoid a round of DA/AD conversion from the DAW amd back. In my experience, OT slaves well enough for this.

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#11

Thanks all for your insight! I’ll give these workflows a shot!

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#12

Use all four outs and separate your tracks to 1 mono drum output, 1 mono bass output, and 2 outputs for stereo synths/samples. Then record the outs from your jam session and you’ll at least have 3 audio stems to work with.

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#13

1 minute limit then? Thats slightly disappointing. Still, a solution to the eternal “how to have individual stems on my DAW” dilema could very well be to:

-Set up the tracks that happen at the very beginning of the track to self récord
-set up the other elements to the other outs recording into ableton.

Unless im missing something, this should be enough for most track structures, as while yes you are

only recording 3 clean channels into ableton or other daw for most tracks you should be able to get the “clean loop” that is mainly what the t1, t2 etc is playing right? Maybe just set up an audio recording of the whole performance in case there is any later point use of fx or pauses or whatever to artificially recreate one or two cool things that happened within the live take…

Does anyone just récord the midi info of each channel so that when finished it only Takes a replay with a different routing to get everything individually? The live take obviously requieres you to hear all channels, but if you get 3 channels, and then 4 channels’s audio because you dont even need to hear anything when the daw replays the midi information anyway, i think I wouldnt even need a third take as I csn live with say one grouped audio file if its just two hi hats for example.