Preparing For First Live Show w/ Octatrack

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#41

I am very curious about OctaEdit!

I think the more I do this, the easier it will be. It is a lot of stuff to memorize at first, that’s for sure!

Next up, I want to put everything into Arranger to switch tempos for each song. Once that’s calculated (how many bars are each of the songs, etc), I still need to get clear on how to exit Arranger mode to work on additional samples/sequences to spice things up. I realize I made things harder than they needed to be with better planning, but it is what it is. If I can feel solid about all that in a few days time, I may investigate some live, on the fly sampling opportunities to challenge myself

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#42

Another dumb noob question!

As I’ve said, I have 8 full songs all loaded into slots on track 1. It’s a static machine. Track 8 is a master track. I want to have track 2 be a Neighbor machine, for additional effects, but I don’t seem to be getting any effect from it. Did a search and looked in the manual, but as usual I’m missing something :slight_smile:

#43

Nothing particular to do with Neighbors.
Check track level…

Try again in a different bank / project to test.

2 Likes
#44

Ok, everything is working fine now, but I’m not entirely sure why :slight_smile:

Thanks again for great advice!

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#45

I’m also playing my first live show with the Octatrack tonight - in my case it will be Octatrack, Machinedrum, Lyra-8, plus vocals. I think I could have organized the set better by making better use of parts but I’ve been able to get through it a few times without any major disasters. The Machinedrum is running into the Octa (one track for kick one for percussion) and I’m using the Lyra to transition between sections with vastly different tempos. For future sets I’d like to integrate a small euro case or a DFAM but for the first time out with the Octatrack I wanted to keep it relatively simple.

2 Likes
#46

no idea if this will help or not but just thought I’d throw it out there… I have not tried this with the OT but always figured it would be how I’d approach a live set with one. basically, the same way I did Ableton sets (and later I would do this with the monome and other instruments), but the OT seems well-suited to doing this all in one box. I would set up four stems (drums, bass, two melodic stems), each being that sound for the entire track. and then I’d re-sample and mangle them live, over-top of what was being played. these new sample clips would turn the track into something else entirely and I would jam that out until I felt it was time to go into the next track. oh, and I’d improvise over top of this on the Monomachine SFX-6.

I’ve always liked this approach to live sets. basically you give the audience the “bones” of the track as recorded, but make it something new too.

3 Likes
#47

Break a leg!

#48

Great idea! I thought of loading stems as opposed to full tracks, but kinda chickened out…want my first gig with this box to go smoothly. I do plan on trying something similar very soon though. I really appreciate you sharing your workflow! This kinda stuff is inspiring :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#49

One thing I’ll mention is that if you end up doing manual bpm change instead of the arranger, you can hold function while your changing the tempo and it won’t change until you release it… For your new parts on bank change, it’s been months since I’ve seen my OT and I can’t recall for sure but I think if you change banks without the sequencer running the new part might not kick in unless you double stop after switching, and if you change with sequencer running the last parts track parameters are still active until trigs are reached on the tracks to kick them in per track…

8 Likes
#50

Your probably aware of this one but just in case, when you use a new part and want to change sample selection for machines, don’t replace the ones in slots 1-8 with the new ones, load them to 9-16 or whatever slots you have empty. The slots are global so you never replace samples in slots if you plan to keep using them in the project, you load them to unused slots and the new part just points to those different slots instead of 1-8…

6 Likes
#51

All good to know, thank you!

1 Like
#52

:banana:

1 Like
#53

as far as remembering bpms, I like to change the name of part 1 of each bank to the the bpm of that bank, helps when changing on the fly

4 Likes
#54

I’m going to put each song into the arranger to manage bpm. It’ll still leave room for improv, effects, playing other bits, etc

2 Likes
#55

Searching the manual and coming up short…mostly because I suck at reading manuals :slight_smile:

I just put my 8 song set into the arranger. Track 1 on every song is a mixed version of the entire song. I place a 1st trig condition so the entire song plays. The other tracks are used either as THRU machines or a couple Flex machines for adding things in.

Now, I’ve placed each pattern into the Arranger and set length to the amount of bars in Track 1 (or so I thought!). Also set tempos.
When I play this in Arranger mode, it jumps to the next song after the normal pattern length, as opposed to the length of the song. I’m sure it’s stupid and obvious, but I’m clearly missing a step in the process set up. Anybody know the answer to this?

#56

You can use Repeats instead of Length I didn’t try.

#57

Repeats only goes up to 64. I’m sure I’m missing your point, but for example, the way I have it set up now is that each song is just one pattern with a 1st condition set so it plays the entire song. From there, I bring other tracks in and out, as needed. So in that sense, Track 1 of each Part is basically just playing back the entire song. Works fine if I place in patterns manually, but I wanted to put everything into the Arranger so the tempo will change automatically. Wonder if I’m neglecting to set up something in the Patterns settings, perhaps?

Does that make sense?

#58

Don’t forget to give us a link to the recordings of these shows.

1 Like
#59

If it’s not a total disaster, I’ll share for sure!

2 Likes
#60

You can change Master pattern length in Per Track mode and length in Arranger. I think you can deal with these, but you may have problems with 1st conditions with Per Track mode. Tests needed.