Hi all,
What is a good pedal or external to have with octatrack? I see the analog heat, strymon pedals etc. I would like to try something. I mainly make techno music.
OTO Boum.
Or AH.
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Sounds like GAS 
So, let’s dig into your needs…
Do you want processing for the final output, or effects you could use as a send+return loop, for individual sounds.
Do you have other gear you feed into your Octatrack for sampling? What sounds do you make?
The Octatrack has a range of built-in FX. What’s missing? What would you like to change about them?
Do you make recordings? For yourself, or releases? Do you do live shows? How is the sound?
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Thanks for reply.
Is it possible to have send effects on octatrack? I also have a Digitakt. I use novation peak, 303,sh101… I mainly make techno music and like to use chords. For the Digitakt I mainly lack distortion, or overdrive. I like to distort mid and highs.
You can play a realtime recording on a flex machine with source=cue, put fx on this track and you can turn up cue level on each track to send that track to the effects on that track. The flex machine is your return track, cue level is your send knob. Could also use a neighbour machine for the flex track for more than 2 fx slots.
Works just as good like a regular return track. You can even feedback the flex track back into itself by turning up cue level on it.
Ofc you can also connect hardware fx to the cue outputs (set the effect to 100% wet) and return it into the OT inputs either on a thru machine for further processing with eq or fx or by turning up DIR in the mixer.
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…u can’t go too wild, if u want it all still translate properly…
all that long tails and stuff is sonically tempting while not really working out for anything beyond 110 bpm and somewhat still controllable tightness in various rooms…
but an analog heat is hardwired to my cue outs…
that’s always a game changer…old trick i learned from dataline…
Interesting…
And interested 
Would you mind explaining your usage of it?
Please 
How important is line level pedals over standard guitar (instrument level) pedals
Just a reminder that for this to work reliably you should use microtiming to nudge the play trig on the flex machine jsut slightly later than the record trig. You might get lucky and have it work otherwse, but for me 99% of the time if I forget to do that there’s no sound at all, and even if there is sooner or later it cuts out.
If you try making a send track and it isn’t working, this is probably why. That held me up for a while when I first learned it, since I came up with the iea of doing it on my own and didn’t know people had already tried it and figured out that it needed mirotiming until I asked on here.
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Eventide H9 for the largest, most versatile toolbox. Strymon Bigsky or Strymon Timeline if you prefer having more tweakable hands on knobs. More affordable you can get an older Eventide Timefactor for half the price of a Strymon. I suggest all of these because they all have MIDI onboard and so pair well for electronic music.
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…not much to tell about it…
the heat can do pretty much…it’s a truu analog device and spent it’s grittyness to all kind of input signals…from total destroying, over drowning into all kinds of warm distortion and glueing nd varible powerboosting, always with lfo’s and envelope followers adressing various parmeters incluting the truu bypassable analog multifilter and a pretty versatile two band eq…
and having the option always just a click away to feed it with various cue output signals, paralell or exclusive send from the ot is nothing but a sonic weapon…
but be aware of the fact, that u should run master and cue outs then separatly to some mixer unit…feeding the heat signal back into the ot leads to too many ways of possible failures and does not really help ur results in final translation of ur stuff…
and since proper gainstaging is always the grassroot of all kind of overall good sound, such slapbackloop constructions will drive u nuts…the ot has so many gainstage options and inbuilt safety headrooms to be aware of, while the heat can only heat, once it’s inputs get feed properly that u will always end up with a sonic dog that bites it’s tail…
so better don’t start bothering here… ;-).
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Thank you for taking the time @reeloy 
I was (kind of) expecting this explanation.
I ha e been playing myself with the Cue of my OT. Ha e not had the OT a long time but the learning cur e was not so hard so I am experimenting with sending various ued tracks to a Doctor A and a Specular v3.
Regarding the Heat, I was tempted but I managed to get some pretty good results smashing the OT main out through my MOTU and it’s compressor, sending then the whole signal through a FMR RNC. It does wonders in terms of glueing my mix.
I just discovered the ease of using a pedal + the cue send on the OT. Got my first ever pedal in a trade, a Strymon Nightsky. Makes the Digitone an Instant ambient device.
Gonna try the same via Ableton, lots of good FX plugins there as well.
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Oh cool! Can you explain a bit more how you solved connectivity?
I use my Octatrack for sound design, physical modeling, field recordings, idm, musique concrète and atmospheric/ambient music.
I enjoy most of the OT’s effects (filter, comb, delay, flanger and ring mod), but I miss the subtle but effective overdrive of the Digitakt. From time to time, I’d like to dial in a digital gated-fuzz. I also like 70s-style krautrock phasing effects, and wasn’t convinced by the OT phaser (perhaps I should try again). I don’t use much reverb.
I have a few dollars to invest in an external stereo pedal/FX box to use as an insert on the OT. I wonder if the Ottobit Jr. would be a significant improvement over the OT’s internal bit reduction, which doesn’t sound as “gated” (and good) as I’d like. The other functions (filter/stutter/seq) seem to be quite useful and musical too. I’ve also considered the Oto Boum, the Chroma Console and the Heat. The Heat+FX might be the best choice, but it’s not in my current budget. I might even consider a Behringer Dual-Phase. A Zoia ??
Anyway, I’m open to suggestions
PS. Also own : DT1, Minikorg 700FS, DoubleKnot, Wingie2, Shallow Water (mono, unfortunately), Particle, Digitakt, OP-1F, MicroFreak
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Have considered the Zoia and Ottobit too. Using a couple of Chase Bliss pedals here (Mood mk2 and Habit). Maybe the Bastl FX Wizard or Korg NTS-3 as affordable, performable and flexible options?
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Meris pedals have very nice sound quality, modern and smooth. I did not have Ottobit, but can extrapolate… It’s not one-trick pony, but could be a bit limited, while Zoia could be an endless source of effects.
My favourite one is Poly Effects Beebo, not only it has graphic screen and can work as multi-effect, it also allows 2 independent stereo ins & outs, theoretically it can work both as insert and master effect
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I have two FX chains.
One is for punch, compressed but clean, or with a bit of dirt, and even largely distorted, sometimes. This is where I send OT Main to.
Using Boum most of the time, sometimes AH+.
The other FX chain is what I send Cue to. It’s for messing up with the output signal. There I got Polymoon > CBA Lossy > Microcosm > CBA GenLoss2 > Empress Reverb.
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