That’s a panda.
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Bought and sold many an OT until settling on a Mk2. Still hurts a little that I had to sell to pay some bills.
It’s probably the only piece of hardware I’ve owned where I’ve genuinely felt ITB can come close. I’ve owned all sorts of synths and “normal” samples but every one of them just left me thinking “so what, vat/daw x,y,z sounds better and no cable mess”. Sure, the component parts can be bettered elsewhere but the synergies in this thing - wow.
I’m pretty certain I’ll return to the OT one day but I do dream of a successor “big box” that’ll replace it. I fully acknowledge it’s wishful thinking mind you. Wouldn’t even want that much changed either but can you imagine improved FX, OB and a streamlined battery powered/portable offering? Heavenly.
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I think what I’m saying is orthogonal to what you’re saying. I like the depth and complexity of octatrack, but I appreciate the accessibility and design of the newer boxes. I can imagine an updated octatrack
And @sezare56 - those features are awesome, and I love and use them. What they don’t lend themselves to is happy accidents, because you have to make a lot of decisions before you can perform with the cross fader scenes. Ctrl-all is just pure experimentation. Trig conditions are more accessible on the newer machines - you can set trig conditions on multiple trigs at once, the models have a chance knob etc etc.
Basically - I love the OT for what it is, and I can now imagine an updated machine (a hardware Drambo! An updated interface! Etc), whereas a year or two ago I didn’t think it was needed.
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People often focus too much on limitations. Instead, perhaps looking at what something can do, will answer more questions, than worrying about what it can’t.
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TBH I kind of wish there was a low quality mode that sounded MORE like granular synthesis, since the artifacts are all I ever really use timestretch for, even in software.
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It was Anders Bergdahls OT demos and attempts to explain what he was doing ( some language barriers but he tried his best to communicate ) that sold me on the OT. I figured I’d uncover whatever it can’t do later- all i cared was “Holy smokes you can do THAT and THAT with just one OT and a guitar???”
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There’s one thing that OT can do that not even a computer or any other device can do as far as I know, and that’s setting up complex live recording chains with DSP and effects. I.E. have a loop running, record the recording of the loop with a percentage chance to record the recording of the recording while recording. Lay down a bunch of conditional trigs to make some kind of weird generative sampling and resampling chain with stuff controllable via steps and crossfader.
OT isn’t a laptop. It isn’t there to be your conventional daw. It’s an idiosyncratic hardware sampler and live mixer. If you don’t have any other gear and sitting down and making conventional regular music is your goal, OT isn’t for you. If you wanna do dawless tracks, sample and manuipulate instruments, and have something to mix and sequence your synths without computer. OT could be your ticket.
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Sorry, for some reason I was under the impression Anders deleted his tracks from Soundcloud, otherwise I would have posted the links earlier. He has more than these on SC but he later moved on to Eurorack modular stuff. Disclaimer: I’m partial to psychedelic guitar textures and experimental stuff.
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You can even plug a guitar straight in OT.
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100% one of the first things I did when learning the MIDI stuff of the OT was to connect my Nordlead 2 and finally have well synced LFOs.
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Saying…I have a DT and then saying the OT seems outdated means…you ain’t neva dun touched an OT.
The OT is dateless.
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I fully agree with this! That’s, for me, the whole essence of this box.
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I got OT driving eurorack. OT + FH2 is awesome.
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I can see why but for me not so much.
When I use it with other boxes, the other boxes are often more specialised in what they do, and I outsource tasks the OT could do to these machines, meaning synth or drum machine. I could still use it as midi sequencer, but my A4 or DN have a nicer way to putting in notes imo. I also often don‘t have the need to sample a synth line, cause I already put enough effort into the synth sound itself and the melody to have exactly what I wanted. No need to further mangle it.
For standard fx, like reverb or delay I also prefer other boxes. So it ends up doing very simple tasks or nothing at all when I use it with other gear.
But for me its magic comes into play when I use it on its own. Just starting with a simple sample loop, some drum sounds and nothing else, and creating completely new sounds from very simple and few material is my main use of it. Creating a full song out of only few sample snippets, just focusing on getting something very different out of them. The the arranger makes creating a song very easily, but messing with cc values to have other gear following the arranger gets me out of the moment and is tedious for me…
Anyway… just my way of using it. I prefer it as single box, otherwise I only use it as simple drummachine
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I’ve only just started working with midi on the OT. I’ve been experimenting with having four different midi sequences sending to the same device and switching between the sequence variations by muting/unmuting the channels. For example one channel might be long bass notes and another might be more of a ratcheting style sequence. I haven’t even gotten into using CC’s or using parts to switch presets yet and I’m already amazed by the possibilities.
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This is veering heavily into speculation, but I think the root of the issue here is this;
Having never used an ot I cant answer this, so advice from long time users might provide inside:
Are the current idiosyncrasies/bugs/annoyances of OT enough to warrant a mk3? Or are they entirely workable to the point that no updates are needed to “modernize” it and its likely we won’t ever see another OT, (eg MD and MnM never got mk2… were they as timeless as everyone says OT is? Do they have issues people still wish solved?)
IE “theres no point waiting around for what elektron might do next, instead just get one now”?
Get one now if it does what you need it to right now. I don’t think we’ll see another OT. But I do think they will create a new flagship sampler at some point in the next few years.
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