I tried the arranger for the first time earlier this week and yeah, it was very straight forward. What I haven’t checked into is can you bypass the arranger stuff while working on patterns and such? Dumb question, but I honestly don’t know 
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I don’t use arranger myself. Using arranger makes me feel like I have no control over where I want the set to go. Way too similar to a laid out abelton set. Totally kills the ‘live’ feel for me.
I do like the freedom to jam out on a pattern if the crowd are feeling it for as long as I want to, or bump along to the next one if they are not (or I am not). I name the Parts with the associated BPM where change of BPM is an issue. Or yeah- not much beats a piece of paper with a set list and BPMs next to each track title.
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I’m kinda with you on this point! Strip of tape with BPM settings on the machine and making notes does appeal to me
Easy to switch between arranger and pattern modes. Staying in arranger mode, it is quite easy to loop patterns with Repeat option (ex repeat 64), or create a loop Row for infinite loop of a section (several patterns). You can switch live to another pattern with arrows + yes.
Some pratice needed. Try a bit, if you don’t have enough time, make it simple and change BPM manually. Maybe arranger is simpler once you know it well.
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I’ll dive back in when I wake up tomorrow. Just got home from a gig and feeling a little beat up
I sincerely appreciate all your help and encouragement! It means a lot. Thank you!
Good to know it’s easy enough to switch out of arranger mode…I just gotta figure out how
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Man, this is doing my head in trying to structure 8 songs in one project! Just trying to put everything in the right place and keep it there…I’ve wasted so many hours just to wind up fucking everything up and trying to fix my fuck ups 
Might need to face the possibility that I’m not ready to perform live with this thing, or maybe trash this project and start over. The positives of the machine outweigh the stupid shit I do on a regular basis, but my biggest frustration is how little time I have left to MAKE MUSIC after all the hours of troubleshooting my ignorance of how to get a proper workflow going
What issues are you running into?
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Maybe if I try to layout my ‘plan’
I have 8 full mixed songs loaded into the slot list of Track 1 on this project. Worst case, I could just ‘press play’ and play bass, synths and effects along to the recorded part. Easy enough, but what I’ve been trying to do is;
Make each song a Pattern with its own Part.
First 4 songs are Patterns 1-5-9-13 to leave blank space for pattern variation.
Do the same on Bank B and that’s 8 tunes.
First problem, besides how clumsy I’ve been assigning and naming/saving Parts is, shouldn’t I have 4 new Parts available in Bank B? I’m doing something wrong there 
Yeah, you should have 4 parts per bank… hmm what is happening with parts when you switch to bank 2?
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When I switch to Bank B, I still have the Parts from Bank A and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong
I would try saving all parts in bank A, switching to bank B, and clearing all parts. See what that does. Did you create Bank B by duplicating Bank A?
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I didn’t…this is breaking new ground for me and I (clearly) don’t know what I’m doing
It strikes me as a sensible way to structure a live set for now, so I’m excited to learn some new techniques along the way
What happened when you tried what I suggested?
I like the name of your band.
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I just managed to fuck everything up again…starting over. This is fun
I’m sure I’m missing a critical step in here, but in my mind, I did as you suggested. Got Bank A sorted and parts named, assigned and saved. Went to Bank B and cleared the Parts. Now my parts in Bank A are gone
Are you sure you aren’t switching patterns rather than banks?
I’m pretty sure! Gonna start over for the millionth time and see if I can get this sorted. Why didn’t they just name this fucking machine the Self Esteem Wrecker?! SEW isn’t a very catchy acronym though. Never mind
UPDATE-
I think I got everything sorted. 8 tunes loaded with their own parts and patterns. Man, I made that way harder than it needed to be!
Thanks for your patience and advice everyone!
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Nice. Before you load any sounds I would save that as a template so you can start from a blank setup every time you have a show. Also, if you end up sticking with the OT for the long haul I would get OctaEdit when it’s available again. It makes this sort of setup work a lot less of a headache.
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