OT and Zoia

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hey guys,

I have an Empress Zoia on the way and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate it into my setup to get the most out of it. Is anyone using one of these things with an Octatrack? If so, are you sending the OT out into the Zoia, or sending the Zoia out into the OT?

My current setup has a bunch of synths and drum machines connected to a mixer that is plugged into the OT A&B inputs, my guitar rig goes into OT input C and a vocal processor into OT input D. OT output goes directly to audio interface and the cue output goes into an Analog Heat, then into the interface.

I’m thinking I have two options here:

  1. I could plug my guitar/vocal processor into the Zoia inputs, then run the output into the OT. This would let me sample the Zoia with the OT and also run the Zoia through the AH, but there would be no connection between the Zoia and the synths/drum machines.

  2. I can keep my setup as it is and put the Zoia between the OT and the AH, and this would let me run everything into the Zoia and allow me to process it with the Heat, but then I couldn’t sample the Zoia output with the OT.

On the midi side of things, the Zoia will be slaved to the OT in either situation.

Any thoughts on this? I’m swinging towards option 2 at the moment but would love to hear any insight current OT/Zoia users may have. Or maybe there is a better way to connect everything that I haven’t thought of?

Thanks Elektronauts!

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#2

Is running it as a send effect from the OT an option?

I have an OT Mk2 and have a Zoia on the way, so am watching this thread :slight_smile:

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#3

I have no idea, how would I go about that?

#4

Is an audio patchbay an option? It only costs a few bucks. I think I have a behringer px 3000.
In my setup everything goes into a patchbay bay and then to a mixer. Only put a few cables in and I can send every instrument / fx where ever I want.
Also very nice to send internal ot tracks only to cue out - > external fx - > back in ot. That can make your setup very flexible.

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#5

Maybe in the future, but it seems like overkill just to add more device, as it would mean tearing down and rebuilding my entire rig. I’m father to a three year old boy and I get very little studio time as it is; I don’t know when I’d find the time to do that.

I did have the cut outs connected back to the OT inputs a while back, and it worked great, but I really need those OT inputs for other stuff. If I want to resample something using the external fx, I prefer to record it in a DAW then just import the new wav into the OT. If I stick with option 2 I guess I can do that with the Zoia too if I want to sample it into the OT.

#6

What he means is you connect the ZOIA to the OT’s Cue Outs and then you can send each track into the ZOIA just by cueing them or when you use studio mode, you can even send a track into the ZOIA while still having it play over main outs, so basically parallel processing.
ZOIAs output can either be plugged into OTs inputs (use DIR setting in OT mixer) or into your audio interface, so you can the ZOIA on a seperate track in your DAW.

I recently bought a Behringer PX 3000 patchbay. I chose the Behringer over the Neutrik, because quite few people seemed to say the Neutrik jacks really needed force to plug/unplug and since I have the patchbay sitting on a little wooden riser I built on top of a Lexicon MX200 I didn’t want to pull the whole thing across my desk each time I wanted to patch smt^^
Also the Behringer patchbay lets you chose between normalled/half-normalled/thru with little switches.

With the patchbay I can patch drums from the OT into my AK and record thru the AKs filters and fx for a tracks intro or stuff like that.

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#7

Thanks for the explanation. I get what he means and I’ve used it that way in the past, but I’ve already maxed all available inputs and outputs on the OT. I think I’m just gonna put the Zoia between the OT cue out and the Heat. This way I can use the Zoia fx on anything I play through the OT. If I want to Sample the Zoia, I’ll just record it in my DAW then import the wav to the OT.

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#8

Can you run your guitar / vox through the mixer? Imo the zoia is little suited for the master out.

#9

Not without an adapter and I already have the mixer maxed out too. But the Zoia wouldn’t be on the master out, it’d be on the cue out.

#10

Ah i read too quickly. Yeah you have the right idea. Its nice to be able to bypass the Zoia so easily.

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#11

Yeah use the cue as an FX loop for Zoia, use a cheap mixer if you need more in’s for OT. Zoia seems like so much fun, congrats :slight_smile:

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#12

Thanks for the input gents. One more question; does anyone know if the Zoia has bypass? If I put it between the OT cue out and the Heat, will it pass the signal through unmolested if the Zoia isn’t being used? Maybe I can create a patch on the Zoia that just routes the in straight to the out, and just call the patch up if I want to bypass.

#13

It has a bypass footswitch so…^^

Edit
Just checked the manual, the four grid buttons below the screen show bypassed (red) or engaged (green).
Also you can use midi cc 60

#14

Lol that was exactly my point in my last point! :joy:

It’s super smooth with the footswitch.

#15

Awesome, thanks guys :slight_smile:

#16

I made a Zoia patch in order to make midi scenes from OT crossfader, or another controller.
Worked like a charm with 5 CCs control from OT.

Possible to set min/max (should be possible to set min/max CC values with midi learn mode, defining the CC number seems more difficult).

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