So is this basically, after 1 year, plug in your OT (with no other devices attached other than audio out) and press play to hear a rendition of the best thing you can make, having set it up in advance, using as many features as you might need? - and you can touch the OT (buttons, fader, knobs) if you want, as said rendition commences?
It’s a self-contained, OT-only, standalone challenge?
It’s covered pretty well earlier in the thread and I don’t think any specific assignment have been set. We can do whatever we want with all our gear…just not for the particular OT tasks in the science lab thing. That was my take on it anyway 
Between your wife and your cat? 
Cool, matches well with the sort of OT workout I’d relish getting better at!
Same here!
Ok, just finished giving myself an OT class based on suggested things in this thread
•everything done inside OT
•no external fx
•no multi track stems
•no midi
•no instruments (vocal sounds only)
• all performed live straight to a two mix
It’s embarrassing to admit how long it took considering I’m not at all pleased with the results. If I could’ve just separated the vocals and mixed em in the DAW I would’ve been happier, but I stuck to ‘the plan.’
Only posting this to prove I’ll get better at it down the line
Yes! Really interesting crazy vocal stuff!
Good start for the 2019 Lab !
Thanks! Gonna get better at this, I swear!
That was pretty damn good! I need to get a new jam going with Octatrack (maybe even tonight). I still have a lot to learn even when it comes to output gain staging. Like you implied though, just get stuff down to track the progress, right?
That was my thinking! We’re all ‘friends’ here and a big part of this for me is to chart my progress
EDIT- I tend to get ideas started in the OT and at some point bail out and throw stems into the DAW. So I’m grateful for this science lab that I got to try things I never have. Never used so many Parts and patterns before, just for subtle changes. A huge disadvantage to putting everything into a DAW separately is you can’t take advantage of Scenes as well, so I found that helpful.
Great stuff!
Thanks! It’s got a long way to go, but working under some of your suggested guidelines already has me trying new stuff, for that very grateful!
i hear cats meowing in this.
cool track, yo
I’m struggling a bit here… A couple of weeks ago I spent three afternoons cleaning, reorganizing, and rewiring my studio to make Octatrack MKII the brain of the setup.
Progress learning the device itself continues, but my predicament is more philosophical: I have no idea what kind of music I want to make!
I was a guitar player in bands for almost ten years (I like vintage psychedelia, Bowie, new wave/post-punk/goth/80s psych, more ambient/experimental stuff like Talk Talk or Sonic Youth) but I’ve always also liked techno and “electronic ambient” strains, again usually rooted in the same late 80s/early 90s time period. From Warp to more modern acid and minimal sounds. Naturally Elektron… felt natural…
The Octatrack MKII feels very caught in the middle… At odds with longer phrases, played in from my guitar or bass, slowly forming “a song” the way you would in a DAW…
… Yet for the rest of the hardware (other Elektrons, modular rig, assorted synths) it’s clearly ideal…
Some in things in common with you, adding reggae / funk / dub. With OT, I’m always surprised where it goes. I don’t plan and let OT choose the weird kind of music it wants to make! Nothing I listen to, for sure!
I hear you… the challenge I have, though, is that making music in a style I know well helps me know how far off I am. (“Is this done? Is this good enough? Too cheesy?”) Without that guide, I’m a bit adrift…
Your birthday is 303 day! Not much longer now, just need to get a spare hour to put it all together and upload, probably Monday, in the meantime here is a nice picture 
OT can play a lot of styles, mine loops guitar and other instruments up to 1026 steps, 16x64 step pattern cycles. My music is a blend of everything I like from meditation music, folk, reggae, funk, rock, spacegrass, all electrified and mashed up, OT hasn’t given me a problem regarding style or genre. I have these loops running over shorter 64 step tracks and using track scale some tracks can be up to 512 steps using 1/8. So I have all manner of loops running from 64 to 1024 steps so it doesn’t feel locked into a repetitive loop.
My advice is just go for it whatever you do until you just own that that’s what you do. If you can’t own it just keep going for it until you can… Groove is in the heart…
Meditationspacefunk is my jam
