Hi there, I am new to this forum and am looking for infos on the octatrack.
I am normally a DAW / tracker kind of person and for a while I have looked at owning a sp404 for moving my process outside of the computer but not entirely. I really liked using the sp404 for recording one shots and adding fxs and replaying beats that I thought I would then rechop/mash up in a DAW but after a while, I have felt some parts of the mkII were a tad disappointing if I were to do something a bit more involved than « beats » (no digs here).
I recently thought about owning a different piece of gear and switching my workflow a bit and looked at the octatrack as a creative sampler.
I would love to get in touch with people who are somewhat « power user » of the machine and figure if I am totally delulu or if the machine could be the one I am looking for.
Thanks for any valuable inputs 
Welcome @Leenakaneelka
on-using-the-octatrack-as-a-creative-beat-making-and-sample-mangling-platform
Octatrack is definitely capable for that, but your request seems pretty vague, concerning your goals, expectations…
Octatrack can mangle its 8 tracks with the crossfader, morphing between 2 scenes with min / max values, up to 250 paraneters. 3 lfos per audio track and midi track, slides, plocks, possible to resample and playback on the fly with feedback, so the mangling possibilities are endless…
The realtime timestretch is not too bad, can be useful and use in a creative way, very slow granular playback possible.
Audio tracks can play back stereo samples, but they are monophonic : 1 sample will cut itself, no polyphony, no overlap.
Pitch is limited +/- 1 octave (+ Rate to go lower). But you can use sample chains and get 64 notes.
128 + 8 Flex samples (RAM) and 128 Static samples (card) per project. Slices with sample chains can extend sounds palette…
Ram is limited to 8m28s but you can stream VERY long samples from the card (around 3h30mn).
Some fx are not great but most of them can be very interesting once modulated, sequenced.
What I prefer the most is crossfader / scenes and the ability to sample / playback on the fly to mangle incoming audio.
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Expectations are kept vague because I am not sure if the workflow I have in mind makes sense, would use it as something to think outside the daw but also maybe live. I guess your answer gives me some interesting things to consider, esp since I could stream long samples from the card too.
Thanks a lot!
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Worth adding that there is a sample retrigger option: allowing to implement beat repeat, stutter and even some form of granular synthesis (note that all of these are not granular or stutter FX per se, as retrigger is being applied to playback only, not to the incoming audio)
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You are the creative sampler. The Octatrack is a tool. (thats all gear is.)Put the time in and it will repay you handsomly. If you could elaborate a bit more on what you exactly want to produce it may help decide if its really for you.
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It’s hmmm complicated, I want to change genres 