OT OTW (on the way)

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#41

Ok - This is driving me nuts. Why would a thru machine stop working?

I made a project called “Live Guitar” and set up a thru machine on AB, and saved it.
Things were going fine, then it stopped working and now I can’t get audio.

The AB lights are green so I can see signal, and if i go to the mixer and turn DIR up for AB I hear signal.

I’ve started the thru machine by pressing track 1 + play, and it has a play symbol next to it.
I’ve cleared the amp, lfo, and fx pages. Still no sound.

EDIT - NM, I got it working! I added a trig on the track, and also changed the “start silent” setting for track 1.

EDiT #2 - I found that power cycling my OT was giving me different results. Sometimes I could get no audio on my thru tracks no matter what I did, then just power cycling would fix it. I formatted the CF card on the OT, and so far so good.

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#42

You are literally me six months ago.

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#43

I had a Digitakt first before the Octatrack so I’ll comment on a few of your points: I was also surprised by it’s size, I think the crossfader and wealth of controls gave me the illusion that it was a bigger unit. For some reason I though it’d be as big as the Analog Rytm lol. Muscle memory was weird as well between the two units, particularly in the browsing and loading samples area. The DT does this better than the OT.

As far as machines the best way to compare the two is that the DT has 8 Flex Machines and a single RECORD buffer. Same experience with mixing up the level encoder with knob A. Overall it’s an amazing machine and I’ll likely never sell it or the Digitakt. They compliment eachother VERY well as a dual sampler setup.

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#44

Haha I had the same expectations as well. Before I bought it I had all sorts of fantasies of bringing it over and jamming out. After the first couple days of having it I realized my expectations for myself were overhyped. The machine on the other hand can do amazing things…, just gotta reach parity with it!

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#45

Some good news and bad news (for me anyway).

Bad news first. My OT has a problem. About 1 in 5 times when I power it up, I get no audio.
I’ve confirmed this by power cycling with 30 seconds between each cycle (unlike Stimming :slight_smile: ) . This was driving me crazy, as the machine is complicated enough to learn :slight_smile: I’m thinking this could also be the CF card, and this is the one I’m using:

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The good news is that 11 years late to the party, I’ve discovered Parts! For me these are revolutionizing my workflow, and suddenly the Octatrack feels expansive.
It’s like having 32 machines to play with (in 4 sets of 8). For me I’m using left (part 4) as a recording setup, and the right (part 2) for playback and neighbor tracks to add more effect lanes. The amazing part (<<< pun intended) is that the record buffers carry across, so you can keep the sequencer rolling. It’s strange as I read the manual multiple times, but skimmed over Parts as I heard they just added complexity, and had a bad rep. For me, it’s the opposite and now banks can have 4 drastically different configurations for sets of machines, and you can swap them on the fly.

Parts are ATM my favorite feature in the Octatrack, and I regret not exploring them earlier. I’m sure there are a few “gotcha” limitations to them somewhere, but from what I just did with jumping between them, it opened my eyes (and ears) to the beauty of this machine.

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#46

I hope you get it figured out. There’s nothing more frustrating than when a piece of equipment starts messing up erratically. I don’t think enough has been written about Parts, especially in the manual. I use them for actual parts of songs, like verse/chorus/bridge, etc. I like the way you’re using them. Never even considered doing that. I like the cut of your jib.

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#47

Sorry to hear about that issue. Really sucks when the equipment is, you know, brand f*king new. Hopefully it isn’t a hardware issue (in part, because it would really make you wonder about QC at the source-Elektron).

Since we got our OTs on the same day and, as it happens, I am using the exact same CF card as you, which also arrived on the same day (as soon as I find it), I will test it out to see if I have a similar issue. In the meantime, have you tried to go back to your original “Octocard” that came with your OT to see if the problem persists?

I had a similar issue when I got my A4 a month ago. Every few times I’d power up, it froze. Like you, I even waited a few minutes between power ups, problem persisted. I did a fresh reinstall of the latest firmware/OS and it has worked without a hitch since. I bought my A4 used on Reverb, but it had the latest upgrade, but must have been corrupted or something.

#48

BTW, thanks for the tip on the use of Parts. I had glossed (okay, glazed) over that part of the manual and will now plan to come back to it.

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#49

No problem, Just hold the Part button and tap Up/Down/Left/Right while the sequencer is running. Also a key shortcut was FUNC+COPY and FUNC+PASTE when in grid recording mode to copy tracks between the parts to get them setup.

#50

I found my CF card, exactly where I placed it (in the holder on my desk for all my various cards when not in use)!

I’ve been playing around with the presets on the card, just to start building some muscle memory around navigating the buttons, while also getting a handle on the real-world hierarchical structure of things. I’ve been using it now for about three hours, turning it on and off here and there, and so far, no issues on my end with the card or the OT freezing or having any issues at all.

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#51

That’s good to hear. I formatted my card on the OT, and so far I have not had problems. Fingers crossed :slight_smile:

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#52
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#53

Quick update… I feel as though I’m going through the usual tumultuous relationship with the OT that many of you have.

Last night I was pissed at “her”. I spent a ton of time configuring and integrating the OT into my current setup, but I started asking myself is this really better? Or just more complicated?
Doubts were creeping in.

I was buying cables like crazy from Amazon, and following my directive of 1) Determine and write down how I want something to work, and then 2) Do my best to make it work that way (and never do it the other way around).

This lead me to a good setup, and one where I can sample anything I hear into my OT.
However, when I did some composing I learned quickly that I use the DT sequencer as the hub, and the OT was just sitting there. As I worked further, I was saying to myself “OK, let me use the OT to do something just to use it”. Which isn’t a good sign.

The original reason I wanted an OT was to record guitar, and to have a setup I could travel with.
And that part makes sense, but most of my time is NOT traveling, so how do I leverage the OT in my home studio setup?

Then this morning, I thought let me get the OT itself set up more. I needed to set up some drum samples on it, and I had this grand plan of using Parts to jump between modes of working (recording, composing, drums and performing).

When I got a drum loop going, I was really happy with the sound, This came down to having effects on each drum, and I could really dial it in with the filter on FX1. I got the OT sounding like the DT (which I’m very happy with).

I recoded the drum loop, saved the sample and got a static machine running it.
I grabbed my guitar, switched Parts and played over it. Recoding was easy as I had it set up in my template project. I saved the guitar part, and jumped to my compose Part and hmmmmm… the machines are changing, but not the sequencer settings, so back to manual for a moment and I realized that I needed to make a few patterns. I made 4 patterns, and assigned the 4 parts to them (recording, composing, drums and performing). Now I had it how I wanted, and switching patterns handled everything.

I recorded a 2nd guitar track and soloed over the drums and rhythm guitar, saved the samples. Then jumped to compose and put all 3 tracks together, added some effects. Then I went to “performance” mode and assigned some p-locks to scenes and played Dj for a moment. I thought it was going to feel silly, some old dude pulling a slider around, but I really enjoyed making scenes and found a lot of cool transitions.

It was at the moment, that I realized I was ONLY using the OT, and all my other gear was sitting there with their screen savers rolling. I turned everything else off for a bit, and keep working with the OT for a good while longer.

When I finally turned the OT off, it was weird as everything I was doing was in there. It was like taking the VR headset off, if you know that experience.

Now I see the OT as a new way to work on music, and it’s own thing.

I’ll never underestimate you again Octa (which is what I named her :slight_smile: ).

11 Likes
#54

I was going to answer this question before reading the rest. My answer would have been to make the OT a different Station in your Studio. For sure it’s cool when everything is setup together but sometimes you have to make decisions and separate things to be their own.

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#55

Exactly. This is good advice, and the right thing to do for my setup. I don’t need another “center” and what I needed was another station.

I currently have 3 stations:

1 - Facing forward is DT, Argon8, Bitwig, Omnisphere for semi-dawless sketches.
2 - To my left is 61 key controller for playing with both hands.
3 - To my right is PRO3 + Iridium for sound exploration.

And…

4 - The OT is now a 4th for dawless composing with my guitar.

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#56

This is the “trouble” I find myself in sometimes.

I got the OT to connect my other synths into; but it seems like the OT does not play well in my setup - it’s definitely it’s own thing - and that’s something I did not expect.

I originally got it to manipulate samples, and as a dedicated mixer; but I quickly learned that anything sample related causes me to become extremely unorganized, and when using the OT as a mixer… well, I don’t want to mention why I don’t use it as a mixer anymore. (I have an analog mixer now, but that’s besides the point)

It seems like when I use it, I am happy using just one instrument. But when I break out the real analogs, I know that those things produce the sounds I truly enjoy.

Sometimes I think, OT OTW (out the way); but who gives up that fast on an instrument like this? It’s definitely cool, but I’m not using it as I had originally intended.

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#57

Oh crap, things between Octa and I are escalating quickly…

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#58

Just kidding, and no I’m not sleeping with my OT :slight_smile:

I’m using a JBL Charge to power the OT with a Ripcord, which is cool as it will also be the audio out as well (mono, but that’s fine). Now I need to test how long it will last.

Edit: Note that the JBL did not work out as using the speaker drops the voltage. So I ended up getting an external battery.

Also, this video blew my mind - there are some spots which have amazing textures and he quite literally created it from nothing. So much to learn about this thing:

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#59

Just having a little fiddle.

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#60

OK - is the Octatrack buggy as hell? I know you are all thinking it’s user error, but I realized it could be that the OT is a bit janky and you just weather the storm and deal with it.

I keep running into cases where recording or playback stops working, and in many cases I save the project and power cycle to fix it. I find that I need to do this about every 20 minutes or so.

Another example on playback stopping - I have a pattern setup for drums where it’s 8 flex tracks, each of them has a drum sample. While I’m working on it, I’ll start the sequencer and the snare is missing, so I double tap track 2, and press YES as it already has the snare sample loaded, and then the snare comes back. This has happened about 10 times in the last few days, and it can happen to any of the tracks. I have not figured out a pattern to it.

The next thing is that while working on drums, when I want to sample it, I arm track 8 to record a 4 bar loop. It’s awesome when it works, but it only works about 60% of the time. The other 40% of the time I see the “+” indicator showing recording has started, and then get silence in record buffer 8. Which sends me checking recorder trigs, recorder setup, etc. To prove to myself I’m not crazy (as I’ve checked the settings umpteen times) I save the project, power cycle the OT, and then it works. Every time this fixes it, and every time I do that I think I may have a lemon. If the settings were wrong, I don’t think power cycling would make it start working. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even check the settings and just go straight to the power cycle.

One thing I saw today was that when playing a sample buffer and looking at it in the AED, at the end of the loop I see “No Sample” and the screen goes blank for a second, then it comes back at the start of the loop. Is that normal?

I’m pretty sure this will end up with me filing a support ticket, and I’m just venting a bit :slight_smile:

I’m really scratching my head, as I love working with the OT (when it works). I have to say that I’d be terrified depending on my OT in a live situation if this is “normal”.