OT LFO vs DN LFO

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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I’ve been moving some of a project over to the Octatrack from the Digitone and I’m looking to recreate some of the “sidechain” FX I was able to get with the DN LFOs on the OT. The problem is that they don’t seem to really work the same. I tend to use the SAW LFO to do this and on the DN it works fine. On the OT, it always seems to be slightly out of sync or it sounds different, even with the same settings. I’ve also tried using the LFO designer to match the DN better, but it’s hit or miss.

Is this all in my head, or do the LFOs work differently, somehow?

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Depends on how lfos are triggered (free, trig, one, etc), and if trigs can trigger lfos (AMP SETUP).

Please describe OT and DN settings to compare…
(Can’t test myself before next week, I only have a minimal setup).

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DN Settings:

  • BPM 16
  • Trig Mode TRG
  • Wave SAW
  • DEP -128
  • DEST Filter Freq
  • Filter Frequency set to 91

OT Settings

  • MULT 16
  • TRIG Trig
  • Wave SAW (this has the upward slope, which is what I want)
  • SPD 32
  • DEP 127 (can’t go to 128)

Sometimes it seems to work fine, other times it does not. Of course, as I post this, it seems to be one of the times where I’ve dialed it in correctly. There are definitely times where it seems to kind of drift out of time, as if it’s 1 or 2 BPM slower. It’s very odd. $20 says it’s user error and I should just shut up, but maybe not. Haha.

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If you set depth negative on Analogs and Digis, the OT equivalent would be the inverted version. OT only has positive lfo depth, for negative modulation you’d need the inverted wave afaik.

Here’s a chart for lfo and delay times, some lfo speeds are marked at drifting.
https://www.elektronauts.com/files/422

Mult 16 and speed 32 should be accurate, though.

Do you have any scenes or other stuff that could potentially influence lfo speed?

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Ya. I got the inverted part. I think it was a mix of where the knob being modulated is at the original position, plus the subtle differences in modulated the filter on the DN synth pad track vs. modulating the filter on the WAV version of it on the OT.

I actually have that charted printed out in my little folder of notes that I keep by the studio desk.

I’m going to keep experimenting with it and see if I can figure out a reliable way to know when it may or may not be on point.

Thanks!

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At least the feature set isn’t the same. OT’s LFOs misses out on parameter start phase and the fade parameter is also missing. While fading can be accomplished with a second LFO, there is no quick workaround for the missing start phase (unless you utilize the LFO designer, which is not really that quick to set up).

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Not sure if its relevant but I have found the LFO on the Digi boxes to work differently from OT. For example, on DT/DN I have found depth for bipolar LFOs to be twice as ‘deep’, eg. for a depth of 8, I only need to set the actual depth to 4. I think maybe this is because you can set negative depth too, there are twice as many values.

Of course I may be completely wrong about this, its just what I have experienced while using DT/DN recently :slight_smile:

edit: probably irrelevant, I just realised the saw wave isn’t bipolar.

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