Question about midi track mode

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi. I’m trying to use my Octatrack to sequence external samplers. I do this with a Machinedrum a lot, with no isssues. But, on the Octatrack, I have 1 thing that I can’t figure out. I would like to be able to sort of finger drum the the different midi tracks, but it seems like I can only trigger from the Octatracks pads while in Chromatic mode. I can enter trigs onto the various tracks, and they work fine. But, if I try to trigger those same tracks from the pads, it doesn’t work.

An example is, I have a sample I want to trigger on an external sampler. I am using midi track 1 on the octatrack to trigger it. The midi channel is set up correctly, and the the note is correct on the source page to trigger the samples on the external sampler. If I add trigs into the setp sequencer, it works fine. I can also play it on the pads, in chromatic mode. But, if I put the Trig mode into Tracks, I can’t trigger the sound from the pads. So, I can only play notes live into 1 track at a time. I would like to be able to trigger with tracks mode, in the same way as I normally do, with a machinedrum. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

#2

Make sure that you have disconnected the relevant MIDI tracks from the sequencer, by activating ‘PLAYS FREE’ for the relevant MIDI track(s) in the PATTERN SETTINGS menu.

1 Like
#3

Hi. Thanks for the advice. I tried that, but, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. It still only plays notes in chromatic mode, or from the step sequencer. I can’t seem to get tracks mode to do anything. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions. Thanks again.

#4

I was digging into this earlier and it looks like you simply cant. The closest it gets is using plays free. Plays free mode disconnects a track from the sequencer letting you launch that tracks sequence using trigs 9-16. say you have every midi track set up to a different note and/or channel. You put trig on step 1 of every track, and turn on plays free for every track. Now you can use trig’s 9-16 like pads to your drum machine. Which is semi useless because you can’t record the midi, as the midi is what you’re triggering to make it happen. its a pretty gaping design flaw that’s obviously a result of some early poor choices and I’m sure they would have fixed it by now if it didn’t fundamentally go against the way the machine is built.

its not completely useless because you could set up a 1shot rec trig and sample your drum machine on the audio side while you live play in your loop via the trigs. Just metronome through cue. If you mess up just rearm the track and repeat. It’s not perfectly ideal but it’s a fast way to commit. Also you could get some weird rhythms by adding more trigs and locks to the disconnected patterns you’re triggering. You can turn them on to quantize with each other too in the pattern menu where you turn on plays free.

Alternatively you can just set each track up and trigger them in one at a time via chromatic. sometimes when you hit a wall with OT you just have to do it the OT way. it’s a gift and a curse

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#5

Thanks for looking into it. I was worried, it might not be possible. I saw that I could trigger the sequence in “plays free mode”, but that won’t really work for the way I want to use it. It’s kind of weird that it isn’t possible, because the Machinedrum easily allows you to work like that. I like to sequence old akai samplers, with Machinedrum and Octatrack, because it allows me to set up very customizable keygroups, and kind of expands on the overall setup with the Elektron boxes. I usually sequence drums from the MD, and other parts from the Octa. I just would like to use nudging and midi retrigs on the drums. But, I find it annoying not being able to record finger drumming on the octa, like I can on the MD. I’m gonna look into it a bit more, and see if there is any workaround. Thanks again for looking into it.