One Box for Live Performace: OT Vs. RYTM

If you were to just bring a single box with you for a live performance and you had a choice between the OT or the RYTM, which would you bring and why?

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Octatrack. Why because I have played previously with just OT and it has been solid good fun. Reliable.
I know it very well so I can navigate my way round the pages quickly. The ability to stream long samples is very useful.
I still play live with just the OT.

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depends on which kind of liveset and style you want to play I reckon

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either of those can do it decent enough. Just a matter of choosing one and sticking with it. The OT is more easily expandable, plays long samples and can do resampling tricks, but the rytm sounds big and bold if pounding drums and big synth leads are your main concern.

For playing jungle-derived styles, OT is king. Rytm is great for techno/house. But both can do pretty much any style of music.

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Octatrack since you could have all your drums on one or two tracks and use the rest for synth parts. I’d love to perform with just the OT. I think it would be pretty tedious to arrange synth/instrument pieces in the AR and they would be mono only except for fx. Much more can be done with the OT with it’s 8 stereo tracks, effects and scene assignments.

That being said the AR is really unique and I love to perform with it but I use it for drums only. It could be a great challenge to use just that for a live performance but you would have to know it well and have a lot of things arranged beforehand. Still it would be a more simple music piece compared to what the OT can accomplish.

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I love the Rytm and would choose it over the OT anytime in terms of usability. The OT is very nice, but I find the workflow on the Rytm to be much better. Sure it’s limited in the way it handles samples, but with a few workarounds you can easily set drum loops to play in time.

Here’s a track a did entirely on the Rytm MKII

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Most people will say OT.
I own both and was using nothing but the Rytm for making music and performing live for about a 1.5 years and was pretty happy.
Creative use of samples & performance features means you can get a hell of a lot more than just drum sounds out of it… In fact I actually like making drones and melodies _more_than I like making drums on the rytm.
Im not that much of a fan of analogue drums but the the filters + overdrive + samples are really to my taste and I was trying to make my music simpler but still not boring.

Performing on a single device also lets you get really really deep with what it can do.

In saying that after a while (as mentioned 1 - 2 years) I did start to feel limited in a bad way & wanted something more to add - chords, more layers etc etc.

I’ve also performed sets on the OT and to be honest it is either awesome or completely frustrating.
The interesting sets I made on the OT became so complicated it wasn’t actually practical for live use, and some of the anomalies cripple its use (for me personally - everyones different).
Simpler methods of performance like stem playback seem to work for a lot of other people but Im still not totally sold with my OT and I’ve had it for YEARS.
It was on permanent loan for a long time and now I have it back I actually don’t use it at all & think it should probably be sold

In saying that I see people performing with OTs quite often, so again, everyone is different…

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Either one I think. Note though. The OT hacks off the sound when you mute a track.

This bothers some people. But clearly the OT is used live, and quite well, by a lot of people.

Could you explain this “hacks off the sound” ?

The sound stops abruptly instead of it decaying before it goes silent.

You can probably google “OCtatrack mutes”

Isn’t this what a “mute” button should do ?

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Thread derail. Trig mutes vs Track Mutes, Which would you choose and why? :yum:

One perspective, is that the Rytm is great as an out of the box ready to go device for building a live set on. All sound can be generated from the box, and once you learn it, it’s much more of an instrument in the traditional sense (imo).

The Octatrack does require more planning, preparation and is far more limitless in where you might take source sounds from. After having an Octatrack and Rytm for 5 years now, it’s taken me much longer to work out how to fully make use of the Octatrack in a live setting. Where from the start I could whip up a 30-60 minute set in the Rytm that was performable and passable in a live context.

If you already have a live set or music that you’ve made in a DAW/other hardware the Octatrack would be better option for adapting it.

If you’re starting a set from scratch, the Rytm may be a better option.

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he means that on the OT, the sound is muted, whereas on the rytm, muting mutes the midi notes instead. So on the OT, muting cuts all sound immediately, on the rytm, muting still lets the tails of all trigged sounds to play out.

however, even on the OT there is a workaround as mentioned already, and that is muting by using the MUTE TRIGS function. Using mute trigs instead of track mutes on the OT gives same results as muting tracks on the rytm, although using mute trigs to mute the entire track can be way clunkier…

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