That’s because you bought the right-handed version of the OT.
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I have a story of woe (temporary though). I will finally have a chance to fire up the new OT and start to work my way around it. I came to the cabin this weekend to get away from the heat in the city (going to be near 100 degrees Fahrenheit where I live), much cooler at cabin. I brought only one musical box–the new OT. All is good. Before I left, printed out the Manual, and Merlin’s Guide, put in three ring binder. All good. I’d read online how some recent OT purchasers had their CF cards (“Octocard”) fail in a few days. So, I copied the contents of the Octocard to a new, and newly formatted 64 GB high quality CF card, tested it, worked fine. Put Octocard back in box in case I ever sell OT. Great. Put all in Gig bag. Get to cabin (250 miles away in the woods). Even bought new Beyerdynamic Headphones (DT 770 Pro) for the trip. Got to the cabin last night. Unpack, set up OT, go to grab CF card, not there. Not anywhere. Not here. Not at cabin. No other CF card with me to transfer any samples. No audio cables or other devices to record samples. Nearest Best Buy 90 miles away. So sad. Not really sad. Just wonder where I misplaced the CF card now. Also, read on here that it is not a good idea to take the CF card out of OT due to risk of bent pins. Hadn’t used CF card since old DSLR used them. I had taken it out worried that leaving it in during transport might jiggle things around inside the OT at the card interface. Have learned my lesson!
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Ouch, that is a sad story!
Hope you find the card.
Thanks. No biggie if I don’t. Was only $42. Can buy another. But now I won’t have time to get into OT for a few weeks, since I will be going out of town next weekend on vacation and can’t bring OT with me (off-roading with a friend up in the Mountains).
ugh! bummer! I was reading that just waiting for “I left the power supply at home” or something. no CF card is just as bad though!
but hey, at least you’re away at a cabin for the weekend! and you have the OT manual and guides to read through.
True. And I am here with my lovely girlfriend and great dogs, and the temperature here is a cool 65, instead of 98!
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A missed opportunity? 
Maybe do some field recording to feed the OT.
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Damn. But you can run the demo projects on OT without the CF card. It could be something to look at so it’s not a total waste of time?
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Update on learning the OT.
I took it to our session last night, and I totally failed to show how cool the OT is. I fumbled around and pretty much made a fool of myself. Some humble pie was consumed (maybe I needed some).
Octatrack: 1
Me: 0
There was a lot of “why isn’t the track recording?” moments, with me finding things like p-locks on scenes, or forgetting to arm the track recorder, or forgetting to arm the track. It was pretty messy, and I fully realized how feeble I still am on the OT.
One thing I still can’t figure out is that when I record on a Thru track it shows the overdub symbol.
Is there a way to toggle that? (I’ll also look in the manual again, I thought only pickup machines have overdub).
This started happening when I was randomly trying button combinations on the tracks to change settings (yes, I went there). That’s when the C and D lights started blinking red back and forth. I had no idea how to turn that off, so ended up cycling power.
I’m still utterly fascinated by the OT, but when someone is watching you drive it, and you are trying to explain it, it’s certainly harder than I expected
I’m a looooooooooong ways from having the confidence and agility to use the OT in a live performance.
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Well, the good news on my end is that I do not ever plan on using the OT for live performance. I plan to use it to “mangle sounds” and if I find something I like, record it. And if not, have fun along the way. So, I can see why you’d want to really know your stuff before trying to use it others who expect to be entertained.
I remember watching Beck completely lose his sht at a concert. The forum had terrible acoustics to begin with. His audio setup was WAY overkill for the size of the forum, with bass reverberations mixed too high, and then when he was trying to use some kind of complex vocoder audio mixing, it wasn’t working correctly. Finally, he completely stopped the show, threw his mike onto the stage looked over (at his sound guy I assume) and said (barely audibly from the mike on the stage floor), "fix this sht!" and walked off the stage for about 10-15 minutes. Totally lame and embarrassing for us all. When he came back, the vocoder stuff was working as far as I could tell, but the acoustics and overall sound were so bad, I left the concert early. Yikes!!!
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I had pretty much the same experience the first time I took my OT to jam with a friend!
After all the hyping up I’d done, telling him how it was the ultimate sampler and it can do everything in real time blah blah blah, I showed up and likewise fell flat on my face. I was attempting to get too complicated too quickly, which is a common mistake; better to start simple and build from there.
All I can say is, the next jam we had went much better, and all of the jams since have improved. The OT is just one of those things that isn’t very forgiving for beginners — it’s not necessarily more difficult to master than other electronic instruments, but I think there’s a higher initial bar to get over to be able to play fluidly and enjoyably.
Hope you stick with it, a lot of that frustrating/tricky stuff will become second nature and you’ll be flying on it in no time. Good luck, have fun!
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Thank you Gino for the initial feedback.
You mentioned one/ two concerns I had.
I am so quick on the Rytm, Digitone and Digitakt as the interface and layout is quite similar specially the Digi’s that I was thinking that I would need to adapt to a new layout and probably the OT would slow down a bit my process and creativity.
One thing I really love on the Digitakt is the mixer page where you can mix the level of your tracks, It is a feature which is only on the Digitakt
I think the OT is a genius product, it is a magic product no matter the way you use it, the interface and the layout are probably the biggest downside but it is also a product designed 10 years ago so there shouldn’t be a lot of complains here.
I have been tempted so many times to get an Octatrack but in the end I have always changed my mind.
Does the OT Mk2 grey still come in the white box or it is the same as the Black edition?
Mine came in a white/light grey box. It is a newer version though. It came with OS version 1.40A, so it was made after December 2020.
I think we should all get this tattooed on ourselves.
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I see that should be the old box with picture of the OT on the front
I think at some point they will stop the production of the grey
I was wondering the same thing. If so I am glad to get the grey while still available. I find black machines to be a bit harder to read in low light which is how I prefer to have my studio set up. I think the shade of grey on my A4Mk2 is about ideal. I wish the OT was the same grey. But no biggie. I would have been fine with black too.
I am surprised by the weight of this, especially for its size. I get that it is designed for gigs and is probably the highest quality musical gear I’ve ever purchased from what I can tell so far, but is a heavy laptop device!!
Yeah I agree- I have the rytm grey and i love it
I am looking to buy an A4 grey now
Had much better sessions last night and this morning.
I recorded a few guitar tracks, and added some percussion. Basic stuff I know, but it’s starting to sink in. I’m getting better at setting up machines, recording buffers, and controlling them.
This morning I messed with pickup machines, and they are very handy for loop recording. At first I was trying to trigger them with a recorder trig, but found that using quantize record is better for me. You just start the sequencer and press the record 1 button, and when the pattern restarts it kicks off recording. If you have a length set in the recording setup, it makes perfectly timed loops. Again, basic I know, but this is where I’m at
I also learned that flex machines can overdub, so when I was getting the overdub symbol it was correct. I was playing back recording buffer 1 on track 1, and arming it to record. The recording settings on that track included “main”, so it was just doing what it was told.
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