Octatrack will be here today

[godlesshorror]

I bought an Octatrack to capture the 4-16 bar “loops” of audio sequenced by my non-Elektron gear.

My understanding is that I can capture these loops into the Octatrack recorders, essentially in sync as long as the external sequencer is MIDI clocked.

I should then be able to assign these recordings to a track, most likely a FLEX machine.

What I LOVE about this is workflow and the performance possibilities. Essentially, the Octatrack will be 8 of my hardware synths that I don’t have to drag live and worry about messing up. I just need to hook up my Elektrons and Go!

I can still manipulate the sound beyond all imaginable destruction.

Everything is clocked and locked in sync.

As I change bank and patterns on my MASTER Elektron everything locks in together, including all the sample loops in the Octrack’s corresponding bank and pattern.

Have I got the proper understanding?

All of my other Elektrons lock together this way. Like a gigantic organic electronic monster. Each synth and sampler doing what it does in the corresponding bank and pattern.

I have my Elektron synths setup in a way so that each one has a different personality. The Analog Keys toward the bass heavy stuff and mono synth. The two A4 more toward poly and stereo sounds.

I am officially hooked on Elektron. It’s so intelligent and organized.

[sezare56]

Is that can be considered as a coming out ?

[Open_Mike]

Sure, there’s multiple ways to grab 4-16 bar loops with the OT. Recorder trigs/quantized manual sampling/Pickup Machines. You don’t necessarily have to then save and load the sample to flex either, the 8 recorder buffers are always available just as any other sample in the flex list, so you can build them into your pattern and they automatically update when sampling… The same buffer can be placed on multiple tracks to be warped in different ways… With pickup machines they’ll loop without any sequence programing. You can still place the pickups recorder buffer in other flex tracks. Of course you can save your samples and have them be assigned to another flex slot.

Everything should sync just fine, OT does like to be master for being able to overdub with pickups, and maybe some other reasons, I forget… I think overdub with recorders works with OT as slave…
It might take a minute to set this all up and get acquainted with how it flows, but it should perform like you describe…
Enjoy!

[sezare56]

think overdub with recorders works with OT as slave…

Yeah tested, with Flex Recording Cue, a bit complicated.

Not totally sure, we talked about it, but you can’t record more that 4 rec quantized bars with Rec Trigs, isn’t it ? (with right tempo)

[Open_Mike]

Right…
You can start longer than 4 bar recordings with a trig but you must manually stop them, with quantize setting equaling the size of your loop, you can just enter the stop command anywhere during the recording, as soon after it starts even…

[sezare56]

So manual rec seems better for that purpose.
Anyway it’s not more complicated than arming one shot rec trigs…
I’m interested in 16 bar quantized recs too.

[Open_Mike]

I keep forgetting to submit a real feature request for that…
Higher rlen values, or a rlen=plen that obeys track scale…

I usually use one shots recorders for rytm patterns, as they aren’t longer than 64 steps, and I use pickups with quantize set to 128 for 8,16,32 bar loops of live stuff…
I don’t really use manual sampling too much as the pickups work for me, but I’ve used it before and it works just fine as well…

[godlesshorror]

Ok … so 4 bars of 64 is the easiest way to approach this at first.

All that I want to do initially is “sample” a 4 bar loop and place it on a track to be manipulated realtime when I play a show.

I’ll probably compose without sampling. And then have a sampling session when I’ll grab all the loops.

I have an OB6, P6, Rev2, AS1, Pulse 2, CS6X, M3 and R8 that I use.

I was hoping to “sample” the arrangement as sample loops rather than dragging stuff live and playing midi loops.

I am watching Thavius Beck’s tutorial and it seems like the Flex machine is the best one for live manipulation of pre-loaded samples.

My understanding is that there are 128 Flex pool slots and 128 static slots.

[Open_Mike]

4 bars or 64 steps is the easiest I guess but it’s really not difficult to grab longer loops once you learn the recorders, it’s super easy really… You’ll have to learn the recorders anyway to grab the 4 bars even…

With a one shot recorder you can grab 64 steps by pressing one button to arm the one shot…

With pickups or manual sampling you can grab longer loops by pressing two buttons, one to start the recording, one to stop it, both can be quantized to always capture perfect bar length multiples…

Yep 128 flex, 128 static…

The recorder buffers live at the bottom of the 128 flex slots and are indeed flex slots as well. They’re used for live looping and sampling tricks so your recordings can played back instantly. You can place them in flex tracks and set up warping tricks beforehand to feed live sampling into. With some settings you can listen to the recording of the inputs at the same time as its recording… (I know this is not what you want, but I must always mention it!)

What your saying you would like to do sounds perfectly reasonable, doable, and not to difficult…
Seems easy for an OT really and I’m sure you’ll end up doing a lot more with it…

[sezare56]

Yeah 4 bars is easier. My goal for live is to play samples in a 4 bars structure, but with longer recordings of instruments with random variations.
If you record 16 bars, you can slice them in 4 and play them randomly on a 4 bar structure.
That’s an example, it can be much longer played with Statics…

[godlesshorror]

I need to research “buffers” more. I’m not following you on this.

I’m coming at this from the Digitakt and RYTM.

So there are slots AND buffers?

I’m only part of the way into the tutorial and I’m slowly reading the manual, too.

I’m on Elektron overload, really. I got all of my machines in the last 4 months or so. There is so much to learn.

I have also been testing out other options (MPC Live, SP-16) which just adds to it.

UPS should be here soon. C’mon!!!

[sezare56]

Buffers are recordings. 8 recorders, independant from tracks.
Recording buffers can be played with Flex.
You can find them in the Flex slots list.

[Open_Mike]

To add to what sezare said, the recorder buffers are the term for a recording or sample you make with the OT, they exist in ram and can be used without saving as a files. The OT has 8 recorders, and they record into recorder buffers…
These “buffers” show up in the sample list (flex) so you can use them like any other sample…

A simple example is you set up recorder 1 to capture a loop from the inputs.
On a flex track on step 1 you have placed a sample trig for set to “recording 1”, the recorder 1’s buffer…
Now anytime you sample with recorder 1, it’s already playing on the flex track, without you having to save it, assign it, and place it on the track…

For the situation you have in mind you won’t need to worry about them so much, you’ll just record your samples and save them, therefore turning them into their own saved sample.

–And I’m not describing all these things step by step as I would be writing a small booklet to do that , you can always ask specific questions later if you can’t figure stuff out…

[Open_Mike]

I’m on Elektron overload

I’m reading stuff funny today…
When I first read that I thought it said: “I’m an Elektron overlord” haha!

I thought that was your way of saying you had a lot of experience with Elektrons, I guess it’s the opposite, ha…
May the flex be with you…
Live long and sample.

[JuanSOLO]

May the flex be with you…

Live long and sample.

YES!

[godlesshorror]

I haven’t gotten to this detail in the manual or tutorial yet.

So a buffer is a “recording” as opposed to a sample? But it can be saved as a sample. Is this correct?

I’ll search the manual for buffers in a sec. But real world knowledge is helpful to understanding.

The Octatrack looks like the final piece to the puzzle.

What a great and crazy company. They break so many rules and it pisses people off, but in the end the gear is so brilliant.

The Digitakt is a brilliant piece, for example. It sounds SO good. Wow.

[JuanSOLO]

So a buffer is a “recording” as opposed to a sample? But it can be saved as a sample. Is this correct?

That’s fairly accurate.

[godlesshorror]

This thing is small! I like it.

[Open_Mike]

I edited my reply up there to include that the buffers exist in ram, this is a pretty important detail…
I used the terms recording and sample as the same thing just trying to describe what a buffer holds, a buffer holds an unsaved “recording” or “sample” or “chunk of audio” captured by the OT, and can be used just like any other sample in the flex list…

If you want you can save them to the card, and the OT will ask if you want to assign it to a flex or static slot for you, there’s also a “save all recordings” command…
Since they are in ram you do lose the contents of the buffers when you power cycle if you don’t save them…

[godlesshorror]

Yes I started reading that.

The buttons feel much better on the Octatrack. Made me realize how bad the sticky buttons on my Digitakt are.

Really sucks they messed that up