OT B2B with a DJ?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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Basically, has anyone used the OT to go B2B with a DJ?

I don’t have an OT but assume you could set up a looper track to take a few bars of what the DJ is playing and then mix that into what you want to do on the OT? Then you would end your track maybe with just some drums/percussion for the DJ to use?

I’m assuming the decks (e.g. Pioneer XDJs) or mixer could send out MIDI clock to keep everything in sync. I don’t know how to DJ either. Would be curious to hear if anyone has done this or something similar?

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Far fewer do this than you’d assume - at least in the Pioneer and Serato ecosystems.

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I used to jam with fellow DJ’s when playing live sets. The trick was for them to keep their tracks tempo set according to mine, as I had no pitch control.

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Traktor has a midi out but when I used it it slipped out of sync with my hardware

I’d use octa tap Tempo and start with some pads and no beats so it can be roughly mixed in.

The DJ can manually set tempo and beatmix over the octa easily enough with no sync

If they can dj

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The Xdj 700 only has dj link, you would need a converter to synch it to an octatrack, there is a opensource project which converts xdj link to abelton link, you would need to convert abelton link to midi, denon or larger controllers might have a direct midi port, i would investigate this first.

With tracktor and audio interface its for sure working what you want to do.

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also remember that its not just tempo to deal with , its key of whatever the dj is playing…
it depends what your doing with the octatrack - is this also music (beats , melodies, basslines and loops) or are you a send fx/master fx to do mangling/stutter / reverbs etc.

is the octatrack just another input on an mixer OR is the dj gear going into the octatrack which is the mixer.
it sounds like the OT might just become an fx send , capturing audio from the mixer, looping etc via return fx. (which helps avoid being out of key if the dj changes track)

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It’s not impossible but it won’t be easy.

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The only DJ gear that outputs midi clock via hardware is some older mixers, the clock is pulled from the beat detection function of the effects. Having never really had great results getting the FX to be in time with these old mixers I’m not sure that I’d trust the clock.

The only other option is software (Traktor, Serato, Rekordbox) or by using the beat carabiner utility linked above. There’s a few variations of this kind of software, including a more official one (I think?) called ProDJLink and a newer fork (newer as in 2020) of beat carabiner called Open Beat Control that I believe someone got working on a raspberry pi so that it cut out the computer altogether.

Tl:dr you can’t get midi clock from anything DJ related without a computer, have the DJ beat match with the OT instead

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i did try sending midi from traktor / S8 controller which has a midi out… i lost interest very quickly… my initial idea was to sync a drum machine but its easier to generate drum loops in ableton and use them as loops within traktor.

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Thanks for all the replies, solid knowledge from the community as usual :100:

So it sounds like, tap tempo is probably less hassle than figuring out MIDI sync (I wouldn’t have a laptop).

I’m guessing that those XDJs detect key? If not, I guess you’d just be using drums/percussion for the transitions. I’m also assuming the OT has pitch control (as it had time stretch).

I’m thinking of getting an OT to play live with anyway, and if I could figure out a way of going B2B with a DJ I figure it would open up a lot more opportunities to play live.

@re5et this would be music, DJ plays a track, then I play one of mine, back to the DJ, etc. The OT would be an input to the DJ’s mixer

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You can use the left/right keys to temporarily nudge overall or per-track BPM up and down to help sync things, and you can do .1 changes for finer tuning.

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I do this using a TX-6. That little mixer has the best non-DAW beat detection I’ve seen, it generates MIDI clock and transport I use with my OT (and then onto other gear). Lots of fun with EZBot’s performance templates for OT also. Works even with wobbly old disco records.

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You can do that but it will take some time before you can really hit the stage with that setup. First you have to learn how to use the OT and be comfortable to go live. And then you have to practice with a dj to see how the tap tempo method really works out. You’ll have to nudge the tempo a few bits every now and then while operating the OT tracks.

A lot of times i thought about a certain device for a live setup and when i got it i’d notice all these little things that made it difficult to operate live. It looks great on paper but if you have it in front of you it’s a different game.

So if you really want to go that way you should be prepared for some weeks/months of training. It can probably work out as you planned it and it might be the setup you wanted but it’s not the easiest thing to do.
But hey, life isn’t easy. :slightly_smiling_face:

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If you haven’t seen this already this might give you some ideas of what could be done with the OT in combination with a live DJ mix input -

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Yeah, truth, all of this assumes I can get proficient with the OT first and practice, etc. plus more time spent not actually making music😃. I’m reasonably comfortable using the DT live but I’m not doing anything particularly tricky with it, so this would be a big step up

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Thanks, will check it out!
Seems to be tons of videos about capturing live loops and some on transitions, but I wasn’t finding anything on this specifically

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That is impressive.
(Would be out of my budget just to do this though🙁)

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For that alone it’s hard to justify, but it’s a decent 6 channel stereo mixer with built-in effects, compressor, 3 separate sends (main, aux & cue), usb interface, entirely midi controllable and lasts 6 hours or so on its built-in battery. I only wish it was twice as big, it’s absurdly tiny.

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