Picking up an OT tomorrow :))

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Sooo I’ve been waiting for this day for a while now and have found a MK1 for 650. Lowest I’ve seen it :slight_smile:

Butttt

How do you guys handle track outs. I honestly don’t get why they’ll never release an over bridge update for it since it’s included in all their other products.

But is it a hassle?

I’m honestly into a more “lofi” sound anyway and have been recording into a 4 track back out to my sp-555 and beef it up with the compressor and analog heat.

But I am pretty interested in starting to track my stuff out in a daw given the upcoming digitakt overbridge release.

But I guess I’m just asking is there any more convenient way of tracking stuff out other than just soloing every track individually and recording it in that way?

Thanks for ur advice in advance, love the forum and the DT and analog heat have been game changers for me.
Excited to expand my setup with the Octatrack :)))

#2

Welcome to the club :grin: If you’re okay with 4 tracking there’s 4 mono outs, or you can record to your buffers then save those. It’ll make sense when you sit down with it for a bit. Imagine each track has its own tape recorder. You could theoretically record 8 different tracks at once until your memory is full and save them as samples to arrange in DAW. I think you’ll probably find yourself doing too much other stuff to bother with that though. Enjoy man! If you’ve got DT covering drums you’ll even get a very long way using just 2 sets of stereo outs on OT

2 Likes
#3

Used to multitrack mine in order to mix ITB and yes it’s kind of a pain in the arse, but it doesn’t take that long in the grand scheme of things.

3 Likes
#4

Very true. The DT will just be for drums now and with overbridge I can easily track that out leaving the OT just for my synth/sampled stuff.

The only fault that see with the DT really is just the 45 sec recording limit and that’s what made me interested in the OT.

I played with one in store before and it seems a bit clunky and not so intuitive but I’m hoping i can pick it up pretty fast. I’m not really into the idea of studying the manual for hours and hours.

#5

I’ve heard someone post that they resampled their sequences within the machine and then transferred them out over usb.

Another option is that the midi slider has a CC value- you could record the midi of your performance and then just re-record each part with 1/2 tracks playing solo.

It seemed like too much trouble for me, though- I went Digitakt

#6

It’s strongly recommended to read it once, to understand the huge potential of the beast.
After you can go back to it for specific points.
It takes time, if you want to know everything.
But you can start with simple goals.

I bought an SP555 for my 5 years old son, it looks like a toy compared to OT. :smile:

6 Likes
#8

5 posts were split to a new topic: « Humour »

#10

Read Merlins guide to the octatrack. Its more of a must-read IMHO than the ref manual, as it will teach out the octatrack paradigms with ”real life” examples.

After you have read the Merlins’ guide, you might actually want to read the ref. manu lol

5 Likes
#12

to be fair maya was (when i used it) buggy , trying to work in a basic way like i would in 3dsmax would crash it…

learnt the hard way , collapse the stack…
i went back to max, i didnt want to learn how to script everything , although maya is powerful in many other ways …
this was over 10 years ago…before zbrush , surface paint , marvellous designer , etc etc.

sometimes ease of use beats complexity …

#13

I have a good friend, female in fact, that happens to be a very talented musician and a video game developer. Try to imagine the forum wankfest that ensues if she advertises these facts. I believe she keeps these details to herself to avoid those situations. I know she isn’t alone in doing this, either.

I also believe she would absolutely agree with what 123alistairj stated. A statement can be truthful without having to be admirable or encouraged.

But anyway, to the OP regarding the OT, how are you enjoying it so far?

#14

off topic posts moved.
Please keep this thread on topic.
Thank you.

2 Likes
#15

+1 to reading the manual.
+1 to learning and exploring functions one by one.
+1 to watching video tutorials/jams - sometimes you understand/learn something by seeing that it can be done, somehow

#16

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person in the world who actually likes reading manuals.

6 Likes
#19

^^ Manual reader. Cover to cover, always before purchase. Since 1999. :wink:

(Before PDFs were published online, I used to pay users on Analog Heaven and 313 listservs to send me their manuals, and made copies at work, sent back the originals. It’s how I learned to use the MWXT and SQ-80, before I could even find them used)

5 Likes
#20

for the love of god save save save. I just made the fatal error of turning on and switching some samples round on an absolute banger I was really happy with. Only after I’d done it did I realise which project I’d done it in and now i’ll never be able to find which samples I used originally and there’s no way to revert unless you save first when turning on the machine. SAVE YOUR PROJECT, SAVE YOUR PART. Always. Haven’t had this happen in quite a while but it’s happened to me several times. I cant drill it in enough. if you care whatsoever about something you make SAVE. Autosave/autoload is a blessing and a curse in disguise. One day you will lose something to it. It will make you lazy and laziness is not something that goes well with OT. Teach yourself the habit early and save yourself the headache

2 Likes
#21

Comparing learning Maya to the OT is freaking extreme.
You can learn Maya for decades, I cant imagine starting at a manual, GEEZ.

I’m not sure reading manuals is always the right place to start.
Although I do skim manuals in the beginning (sometimes before purchase), I usually muck around until I find something I want to do, then read about it when I get stuck, or look for a tutorial.
This is the only way reading manuals sticks for me.
Reading and entire manual upfront is just a waste of time for me because I’ll forget almost everything.
Even after reading manual stuff, learning it and understanding it, I still may not feel confident about it until I see someone else do it and explain it in a more efficient way.

#23

Well so I’ve read Merlin’s manual watched countless tutorials and I’m finally about to reorganize my desk space. Didn’t even have enough room for the OT initially.

Soooooo

I’m tryna figure out the best way to get my delay pedal rigged up any advice would be greatly appreciafed.

So right now I’m thinking run my synths, Volga kick and micro granny into a mixer then running that into the OT A+B inputs. And having a effect send setup on the mixer so I can get some inputs with the delay and some without it.

But if I want to be able to send the OT out to the delay pedal as well what do you guys think would be the most convenient way to do this.

I know I can setup a cue or headphone out to the pedal but given that my delay inputs are used up from the mixer what can I do?

I’m guessing I can send the OT into the mixer too but I’d imagine I get some type of weird feedback loop? But maybe that’s only the case if I send it with the synths playing while monitored?

I mean I know it can be a matter of trial and error and i could probably spend some time messing with the ins and outs til it works but I always struggle with this part lol

So all in all plan is to run synths/Volga kick/microgranny -> mixer with delay send -> OT

While having my OT and DT go into a portastudio for recording my whole sessions

Portastudio -> sp555 for compression -> analog heat -> Scarlett interface and I’d also like to run the Scarlett back into the OT with the Scarlett’s extra outputs so I can get a “mixed” version of a full track to play around with and remix in the OT.

Ok, seems like I’m making this way more complicated than need be and would greatly appreciate any suggestions

The main reason I wanna get the OT back into the delay pedal is because sometimes maybe I’ll sample some records/field recordings whatever into it and would like to be able to process it with my delay pedal.

Thanks in advance you guys have been really helpful :):crazy_face:

#24

EDIT

I have a bass synth (se-02), deepmind, and the microgranny I can run into the se-02. how about running those all into the OT mono (A+B) and then using the last inputs for the delay and then I could just run the cue out straight into the delay pedal.

I figure I can just duplicate tracks in the OT if I want them to be played in stereo and with all the gear separated that should be easy.

I’m curious if it matters having the delay or the synths coming in mono or stereo.

Sorry if I just kinda answered my own questions regarding the setup. Still interested in any suggestions or feedback

#25

I run an external delay for the OT and other gear using a mixer and aux send.
What I do is plug both the OT’s mains and cues into separate channel strips on the mixer. The cue outputs go to their own channel which has an aux send that goes to the delay.
I just leave that aux send turned up and then can cue individual tracks on the OT to get sent to the delay.
Meanwhile any other channel on the mixer can still be sent to the delay…

Edit: This will only work if you have a separate bus on the mixer to send to the OT’s inputs, otherwise you’ll get a feedback loop…

2 Likes
#26

Are you able to hear the delay before having it recorded into the OT?

Do you have your other gear running into the mixer or the OT?