In practice if I set the Ensemble to the +4 reference I can clip the schmack out of the OT’s inputs, setting it to -10 indeed works excellent…
I’m not saying otherwise… that’s a “better safe than sorry” strategy, if that works for you it’s OK too. With 24bit audio and the low noise of modern devices it’s not much of an issue, you don’t need to cover the whole possible dynamic range to get decent S/N ratios
I believe I still get the full dynamic range as I can slightly clip OT’s inputs with my apogee set at -10. I’m pretty sure the digital summing/internals of the ensemble2 are working the same (which happens to pass 32bit packages from DAW to DAC without cpu converting to 24bit) and I’m not using digital attenuation but rather a hardware output calibration…
Sorry, way off topic now, geek talk… 
1 Like
Ok for the OT MK2 users… for the input LED lights… is it best to run them green, sometimes orange, are always orange - for sound quality. I am making dubby downtempo if that matters.
Thanks in advance.
I prefer using a 4-channel DJ mixer. Ecler Nuo 4.0, no frills, high quality. Robust, safe, transparent.
It‘s also very convenient to plug the FX send into the OT‘s input, sampling on the fly, good old Erase style.
Anybody else can join, you can always kill EQ bands, no surprises when changing scenes/parts etc. or shutting down a machine. The DJ mixer is so important, we even had it hidden under the table during a gig, and it brought some crazy bass content easily under control.
As close as possible to, but might include, “occasionnally red”. Always green = to low
1 Like
Thank you
You can monitor the recording visually in the audio editor in real time. It’s not like a VU meter but it helps. If the recording is to low, it’s totally obvious
3 Likes
Meanwhile, back at the OP. I just tried a session yesterday using the mixer and each if my three bits of gear. While it sounded nice through the mixer with proper eq etc, I did miss all the little bits of sound shaping I do with everything running through the OT.
I didnt realise how I am constantly tweaking and shaping the sounds in response to the band, and making up new scenes on the fly. My Lyra in particular seems to really benefit from having a filter on it before the reverb.
So for me, in this situation, I think I actually prefer to just run a stereo mix into the recording software.
2 Likes
So worth the audio fun to run through OT… I got my mixer just to get more stuff into it, you can push a button on a mixer channel and its pulled from the mixer mains and sent to anther output pair to the OT… 
been wondering about this, right now my whole set up is Digitakt slaved to Octatrack, running into A/B, i cant decide if it sits in the mix better with DT vol around the middle with the gain boosted, or zero gain with max volume. I use the DT’s onboard comp to even out the volume as well.
The way I see it the OT gain parameter would be used if the incoming signal isn’t hot enough at max so it needs to be boosted, I’ve never really tested if or how it changes the sound. My OT gains live at 0.
I run my ARMK1 in with its volume to where it’s indicator dot is basically pointing straight to the right and structure my kits around that, AR has a million parameters that affect gain… There’s lots of ways to go…
Mixer will have more headroom. But it depends what you are after, i do boath, feeding a4 with synth staff, and also using mixer for mix down. I would never feed a4 with things that need to be solid like bass and main drum parts.