OT Science Lab - 1 year study - who’s up for it? [LAUNCHED]

I don’t know… I kinda liked the vagueness of one long thing, but I’m weird… :smile:

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Same here, and bonus points for any unifying story involving spaceships.

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Speaking from my own experience of participating in Science Labs in the past, they are - because of the limitations - a great way to learn, and just because the duration is 12 months does not mean that you are unable to work on your own projects concurrently, and it should not hinder any other progress.

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very true. they were eye opening to me regarding the power of a sampler

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Oh yeah, I absolutely get that it doesn’t hinder other things. I’m just time limited and I’ve got 3 musical projects that I was wanting to pursue this year the third being this specific album which I was planning to ditch but the constraints of the science lab might make writing it achievable. But maybe I’m being presumptuous about the mission briefs and they’ll also be supportive for what I’m trying to achieve and I can kill multiple avians with singular stones.

I’ll wait to see the final version and if I possibly can I’ll get involved. Thanks for organising and kicking this off btw, it must be tricky trying to strike a balance between everyone’s views.

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Scratch that, as I was rambling in the Autechre sysex thread there it struck me that actually I should be up for the mission briefs as well as the overall limitations outlined. If I want to learn the most and achieve as much as I can I should be accepting the challenge and working with it.

So… I’m in whole heartedly!!

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I don’t think that you have to redo the class in the next year when you fail to deliver the 12 missions :wink: … just take it easy.

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I want in on this! I can use the motivation to post my stuff on here :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I’m not planning on doing a monthly thing, I just like the idea of focusing on seeing what I can get it of just the octatrack really, and I’ll post here if I come up with anything interesting.

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Well, that’s easy for you to say but if I come home with a bad report card then my Mum and Dad are going to stop my pocket money and I’ll probably have to tidy my room as well and I tidied that just last month…

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I’ve put in a couple of solid hours of basic practice (loading samples and FX, mainly) over the past two days, plus several more hours of reading and video watching.

One of the first things I wanted to check is if Dark Reverb is up to the job., to be honest it had been worrying me about committing to this challenge… I’m happy to report it’s a perfectly capable reverb, especially given the filters. In fact, on one sample I loaded (a synth arp) it sounded exceptionally good and better than most newer reverbs… There’s a modulation happening in the upper registers that is really pleasing on arpeggios…

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I meant to reply here earlier, but count me in. I’m not good at these year-long projects (cf. WeeklyBeats) but I’ll give it a try! I picked up the OT again the other night and started making some interesting stuff with it (see the single synth obsessions thread) so it makes sense to continue using it :smiley:

I’ve got a bunch of things I want to try with the OT this year, but I’m happy to be inspired by monthly challenges as well!

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I am so excited for this!

Dusted my MKII off (heh, I know) a few night ago, and got a couple OT only things working.

It was nice to start a fresh project and start to re-remember the little things. OT really is an instrument. It requires practice and rewards you for it.

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yeah. I’m pretty confident that if I only had the OT (and maybe a good quality mic), I could still make almost any sound I wanted with it alone… eventually.

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Last few days have certainly reminded me of what I can rely on within my own sample library of the CF (drum and stab chains), and what I need to work on (chords, pads).

My Digitone returns tomorrow and will be heavily sampled ahead of this Science Lab!

It can definitely be a desert island box
But it helps to be stranded with a few crates of food ahead of time!

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I have no doubt whatsoever.

The Octatrack in the hands of a determined user is a formidable beast.

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There is no try, there is only do :wink:

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I use it on the master track, after the compressor, heavily high passed, very short decay.
Combined with the master comp, I find it a must for any kind of finished OT-only sound, and it opens up other tracks for more clever delay uses.

But yes, the filters on the dark reverb are imperative.

Another thing a couple days of practice has given me is the desire to resample my choice drum sounds, as to streamline workflow moving forward. There are certain FX I will always use to get the drum sound I desire. May as well print those to a dedicated folder to speed things up in the future.
Mise en place

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So when are we cracking this egg open?

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I’m currently working (when I get the chance) behind the scenes getting stuff together, I hope to have a start date soon, probably a week or so?

On Wednesday I have a few hours to spare so I’ll most likely get everything done then, so long as work doesn’t get in the way :rofl:

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