Quick but super important question: When I change the keyboard to slots mode and play the slots, they play, fine, but when I hit another key the first slot I play stops playing.
How do I keep them running? thanks
You do realise that the tracks are monophonic voices, thereās no polyphony !
ok that didnāt really help me.
So what I want to do is play samples, i.e. have more than 8 samples and be able to play them.
How do i do this? please be helpful rather than factual as Iām new to the oktatrack
You canāt play more than 8 samples simultaneously on octatrack. Only one voice(sample) per Track.
You can have loads of samples āloadedā in to flex/static slots so they are playable. But no more than 8 simultaneously across the whole machine. And if you want to play more than one sample simultaneously (8 max) you need to allocate to different tracks. Then play/record trigs in Tracks mode (if I remember rightā¦ Been a while since I used my OT). Tracks mode gives you 8 buttons with each button triggering the sound on a different trackā¦
OT can be confusing to begin with. Did you read Merlins Guide? Covers a lot of this stuff better than the Elektron manualā¦
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Yeah itās not a toy thatās fro sure 
Ok, so if I tell you what I want to do then perhaps I will konw where in the manual to look.
first off I donāt make EDM, nothing similar.
Record records in studios and then I want to strap them over the oktatrack.
So when Iām in track mode thatās great, I can play more than one sample at a time, but I only have 8 to choose from, how would I go about playing more than 8 at a time, or atleast, quickly (on the fly) load more samples?
p.s when I say more than 8 at a time I mean load another set of 8, and another, and another.
Iām fine if I can only play 8 at a time, but at least load a different set of 8 is essential. Verse, Chorus, etc. You get the picture 
I want to play all of the samples without a sequencer running.
Change Part.
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Each of the 8 tracks can playback one stereo voice, the slots are a bit like a selection of coloured pencils, you hold one at a time, then select another one. This is also possible with one sample where the sample is a chain of sliced smaller samples, so instead of changing the slot when you want to you can change the slice.
Both slots and slices can be parameter locked on the trig which plays them, that would be fine if the sequencer was playing
If you want to play them manually, then cueing up the variations involves having a look through how Parts/Scenes can be utilised, the Track āmachinesā playing back those slots / slices can be assigned differently for each part (there are 4) You could e.g. also utilise a scene to change a preloaded slice, so e.g. do this by changing scenes or morphing between scenes where the sample slice is changed
It is deep, but this figure i rendered from the manual shows how the relationships are embedded - itās best to experiment a bit with each aspect until the limitations and possibilities become clear
<img
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I havenāt used my OT in a while and kinda slipped out of fully āgetting itā without it in front of me to check. Hurts my brain to try to figure out how to do what you wantā¦ Not even sure itās possible in the way you want Or it might be super easy and Iām just forgetting something obviousā¦
You need to read Merlin Guide from start to finish and itāll explain whatās possible/not possible. From your questions it seems like you havenāt got a grip on the central architecture etc. There are a lot of layers to the onionā¦ I rarely read manuals but read the OT one. Kind of unavoidable. if you havenāt already Iād go through it start to finish. You might find you need to adapt to āthe octatrack wayā for certain things. Takes a while for people to find a workflow that suits their needs, everyone seems to use it slightly differentlyā¦
EDIT - yep, āChange Partā will do it, like the guys above said while I was typing 
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Thatās what slices are for. Make slice chains and youāll be able to switch between 128 x 8 = 1024 samples total in slice mode or using the start knob. 1024 seems like more than enough for me. Combine that with for 4 parts for each bank is 131072 samples available to you with in a few button presses. You could even quick load samples in the sample menu using function + right/left keys to change sample chains loaded into each track but why bother.
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Damn. SO many options/information.
Thanks to all who answered, much appreciated!
Thatās interesting, Iāll have to investigate into thisā¦
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If you are comfortable with the āslicesā concept check out
Sample chains are basicly slices in a specified order.
This could be one shots, breaks, loops or whole songs.
Sky is the limit. When you whant to go deeper in the rabbit hole check out
The 
is a hell of a machine 
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You may want to use reverb or delay to limit the effect of voice stealing.
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So before get stuck into the slices and the above editor: Can this editor basically arrange my slices (perfectly) so I donāt have to use the markers (start, end) in the audio editor?
Correct me if Iām wrong but using slices to do what I want to do will mean I will need to go in and line everything up, an absolute prick of a job.
So in a nutshell this editor will prevent me from having to do this?
thanks
Oktatracks Marketing tagline should of been:
Forget about getting laid, youāll be stuck learning this box insteadā¢
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Be sure to post your stuff up (not ex-girlfriends photos) when youāre done!!! 
Yes, it does the p.i.t.a job to string together your samples. It āchainsā your samples, perfectly fit for the OT.
OctaChainer is a drag,drop and have fun tool. Like mentioned in the discription āIt allows you to arrange samples in the order you want, and then creates a chained .wav file and corresponding .ot fileā. For an example you pick 16 loops, drag and drop them to OctaChainer and choose a slice mode (there are three) that suits the material. Now you have 16 loops.wav files chained into a loopchain.wav file. When you load this file into a sample slot on the OT you choose the slice play mode on the OT and could now for an example p-lock every slice to a different step.
Like step one -> Slices 5, step two-> slice 3 etc,etc. The idea behind this concept is to save sample slots (128).
You wonĀ“t overcome the polyphony limitations nor the fact that you can only assign one sample per machine (Track). But you can put anything inside this sample (per Track).
For the start i would try to make one sample chain consisting of one shots (Bass Drum,Snare drum, HiHats, Toms, Percs) to get a drum kit sample chain. Keep it simple and try to get the count of one shots to 8/16/32/64. Depending how many samples you want to have for one drum kit you can have many different drum kits inside one sample chain
So instead of, loading one bass drum to track one, snare drum to track 2, hihat to track 3 etc.etc, you will only have to load your sample chain to track 1 (play mode set to slices) and have a whole drum kit.
On top of it you can play your slices in real time if you put the sequencer āTrig Modeā to āSlicesā (no recording, [Function]+ [UP/DOWN Arrows]).
Just do the above for every material you want inside a sample chain but instead of loading the single .wav files to a track load you prepared sample chain.
This sounds overwhelming at first but gets pretty much second nature by the time.
Just try it.
hey futureoutfitā¦
yesā¦ i do the same with samplesā¦ slices are what you should go forā¦
two options for that (its rather complex procedure at the beginningā¦ once you got it, its super easy and quick):
a) just import a looped sample. than just go to sample menu and on tab āsliceāā¦ just slice it to 16 slicesā¦ after that, if you enable āslice modeā on the trackparameters (double-tab it), you can start to use themā¦ switch the 16 buttons to āslice modeā with function + arrow keysā¦ no you can play and record them in MPC-style (you see a green light over the buttons, if the slices are activeā¦
b) you can import an uncut vinyl recording and edit your slices manually ā¦ there a lots of tutorials online on how to do itā¦ watch ācuckooā on thatā¦ its the oldschool sampler style editing, if you are familiar with that
c) what i use a lot for drums and short sounds (vocal hits, funk guitar phrases) is called sample chainā¦ use a DAWā¦ drop in 16 short 1-2 second long samplesā¦ place them with equal distance to each other on the time grid (for example one sample exactly on hit one of the first 4/4-bar, next on the next bar and so onā¦) export it as a wavefile (16 bit, 44,1 KHZ) and load it to octatrackā¦ than again slice it into 16 partsā¦ the good thing here is, with this way the sounds are directly perfectly sliced for playingā¦ also you find tutorials for sample chaining for octatrackā¦
for pure loops, just drop them in perfectly looped and playā¦ than you can add drums sounds and hits with these technics.
at the end: you can do up to 64 slices on each of the 8 tracksā¦ in total this is a huge amount of samples you could useā¦ mostly a 16 Grid on 4-6 tracks + 1 loop is pretty much enough for a dope track :-))
so farā¦ have fun and make some fresh āShadow-Tunesā :-))
You could also use sample locks to simulate polyphony. For example sometimes Iāll have sample locks to a snare on other drum tracks (hi-hat, kick, tom, etc.) to get overlapping snare tails. It can also add a lot of variation to even the same sample just by way different levels, envelopes, effects, etc.
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