I have a question about sequencing other gear with my Octatrack, specifically my new TR-8S, a Bass Station II and a Volca FM. I’m relatively new to this, and wondering if this is at all possible? I want to avoid using software as much as possible.
I’ve read that in order to sequence multiple machines with the OT, you’ll need something like a Thru-box. Is a thru-box the same as a midi-interface, like this one?
Would it work in the way that I put a midi cable from the MIDI Thru channel of the OT to the interface, and on the other side 3 midi cables that go to the external synths? And how would this appear on the OT’s interface? Can I set 3 thru tracks up and assign them to the external synths?
I understand that there have been topics about this question, but I’m relatively new to this and the OT is a particular machine (although I haven’t found it as difficult to figure out as some people claim. it’s just not always straightforward) plus I couldn’t find topics about the same setup. If someone could help me out that would be great!
MIDI works on 16 channels and when devices are connected to the OT’s midi out port you configure them to each respond to a certain channel, and set a corresponding channel on an OT’s midi track to control it.
The out port of the OT is used for this. If two of your devices have midi thru, you can make a midi chain from:
OT out–>device1 in, device1 thru–>device2 in, device2 thru–>device3 in…
This would allow you to control the devices without an extra box. I didn’t look at the details of that box in particular but it seems more than just a through and also has usb midi, not sure if that’s something you need. There are more simple thrus available with say one midi din in and 4 din outs… You would only need this if you noticed any lag or out of syncness with a midi chain setup…
The OT’s midi tracks send sequences to midi gear, you just set the output channel to the same channel as the device is set for input. The midi gears audio outputs can be plugged into whatever you want. It’s definitely possible to plug those outputs into the OT’s inputs and feed them through a thru track to add fx. You can also loop or capture samples using the pickup machines or recorder buffers…
To respond to your suggestions; I don’t think I’m able to midi-chain my devices since none of them have midi thru. The TR-8S and Bass Station have midi in and out and the Volca FM only has midi in. That’s why I was looking at the midi thru box. I didn’t know there were more simple thru boxes available though, so I will check that out, thanks.
if you want to avoid software i would go with a simple DIN MIDI device like this:
MIDI Solutions Quadra Thru
it´s kind of standard for a setup like this.
you can then send 8 tracks to 4 hardware devices directly, if any of these devices has MIDI thru you can connect other ones using max 16 MIDI channels of the OT MIDI sequencer.
So I’ve been happily jamming everyday since I got the midi thru box. all my gear is synched to the Octatrack and all I need to do is press play. Ah technology!
I was under the assumption though that you could add the OT’s effects to the midi track, but I can’t find them under the effects pages. Is this possible?
MIDI tracks just send signals to MIDI equipped gear, by definition there are no “MIDI audio effects”. There exists some types of MIDI effects that process and change the MIDI signals, but they don’t process audio, and the OT doesn’t have these…
To get audio effects on your gear that your sending a MIDI track to, you need to plug the devices output into one of the OT’s audio inputs, and set up a thru track to monitor the signal and add OT audio effects…
I have my Bass Station’s line out going into the input of the OT. How do I set up a thru track to monitor the signal like you say? Going out of MIDI mode I’ve assigned a Thru machine to track 7 (corresponding to MIDI track 15, which generates the MIDI sequence from my Bass Station II), but the sound is not affected when I put effects on it.
edit: does it matter that the Bass Station II does not have midi thru?
In the playback page of the thru track select the appropriate input that your bass station is plugged into, enter grid recording mode by pressing the record button so it is red, and slap a trig on step one, this is needed to “trigger” or activate the thru track…
Open the OT’s mixer and make sure both “dir” levels are down, to make sure your only hearing the thru track…
No need to worry about midi thru, midi and audio are not directly connected…
Devices can pass audio from their inputs and outputs, and pass midi signals with their midi ports, but there is no direct link between them…
Thanks for your reply. The steps you explain are known to me, I can sequence my Bass Station II through the OT. When I turn the dir levels down though, I don’t hear any sound. Do you have an idea what I’m missing?
I also have another unrelated question. I have my TR-8S hooked up to my OT, and when I press play on the OT it starts to play, which is great. It also adjusts its tempo to that of the OT. But when I press stop on the TR-8S and then start it again, it’s not in sync with the OT sequencer anymore. Is this a matter of master/slave settings and can this be arranged in the OT? My guess is that the TR-8S wouldn’t be able to ‘understand’ when the sequence repeats and when to start again to stay in sync. Or am I wrong here? I can also not mute the track on which the TR-8S’s sound is transmitted.
Thanks again Open_Mike, appreciate the time you are taking for answering my questions.
The thru track needs to be triggered for the sound to come through. You need to make sure there’s a trig on step one of its sequence, make sure the track is not muted, press play on the OT…
There’s a little play/stop icon by the thru track. Make sure it’s a play sign… If you double stop it will stop.
You can also press the track button of the thru and the play button at the same time, this will trigger the thru to start sounding without starting the sequencer. Just keep an eye on the play/stop icon and make sure it’s in play mode…
For your experience with the TR-8S that’s normal… If you stop something slaved to the OT it won’t sync up again when you start it, a midi master wants you to start and stop from it… The usuall workaround would be instead of stopping the drum machine, switch it to a pattern that is silent, so it’s sequencer stays in sync but you don’t here anything… There’s other options too like just muting it’s through track if you don’t want to hear it…
In general you don’t want to stop a midi slave…
Yes the thru track is triggered, there is a trig on step one (in recording mode) of the track’s sequence and it’s not muted. Pressing play I hear the sound fine but I was just wondering if I can add the OT’s effects to it. Is this possible? The trick with pressing the track button and play button (when sequence is not playing) at the same time doesn’t produce any sound though.
Thanks for clearing that up about the TR-8S’s slave situation. What’s weird is that I can’t mute the TR-8S’s track.
I’m not sure what exactly is going on, so if I repeat things forgive me, I’ll give you some info here that might help…
When you plug something into the OT’s inputs there exists multiple ways to have the sound come through. For now I’ll just talk about the Mixer Direct, and a Thru track, but there is a couple more for later…
The “dir” parameter in the mixer for each set of inputs is basically a volume knob for the inputs that will send the signal straight to the outputs, but you can’t specifically add effects to that…
In order to use fx, you must use a thru track. When using the thru track that becomes your way of “monitoring” or letting the sound come through. In order not to have your signal doubled up, you turn the dir parameters in the mixer all the way down, other wise the sound comes through both the mixer and the thru track…
Once you get a thru track properly working you can assign fx to it on the fx pages… It shouldn’t be that hard to set up a thru, there’s probably just one step you missed somewhere.
The following I clipped from a manual tutorial but omitted certain steps you don’t need…
Check it out and try again. Sometimes it’s good to try something for the first time on a new fresh project, that way you know there’s no weird settings that got changed that could make something not work, once you verify you can get it working then go back to your project and set it up there…
I cut from the manual just to be clear, feel free to ask again if something doesn’t make sense…
We’ll get to your non-mutable drum track later, first we gotta make sure your up and running with the thru track…
Thanks Open_Mike. It’s probably a good idea for me to start fresh to avoid any hick ups. Fortunate for me but unfortunate for my OT project, I’m going on holiday for 3,5 tomorrow, so I’m not sure I’ll have time to try this out beforehand. Will try to start fresh when I come back and hopefully that also solves the muting issue. Thanks for your help!
I had more time tonight than I thought, so I created a whole new project and set things up from scratch. It works now, I can assign effects to the track that I want. Great stuff! Now to configure the effects the best way. The filters didn’t really do much to the sound. Compressor and chorus effect did have noticable effect. Guess it also depends on what kind of sounds you are manipulating.
The muting problem still occurs though. I can mute my Bass Station’s track fine, but not the TR-8S’s. Must have to either with midi settings on the OT or on the TR-8S. Haven’t figured it out yet though.
In the first few months with the OT its easy to make some setting somewhere that gets in the way of something your trying, always easier to test stuff in a new project especially in the first few OT months… We’re you messing with scenes on your first project? Sometimes a scene is enabled that changes something making what your trying not work…
Anyway, you should be able to notice the filter… Turn the “q” parameter up to like 40 or so, and then turn the “width” knob down as your playing something, you should hear all the high frequencies get cut off as you lower the knob…
As far as the mute/unmute TR-8S, are you saying that you are sending it midi notes and when you mute the track on the TR-8S you still hear the midi notes?
Not familiar with the TR-8S, but if it behaves like my Analog Rytm it might allow midi coming in to play notes even if the track on the machine is muted. This is OK behavior because it allows you to have a sequence on the drum machine that you can either play, or mute it and play that track with midi. If the track mutes muted midi then you could only hear the midi notes if the track was unmuted, and therefore you couldn’t have a sequence on that drum machine track, it would have to be blank so you could play midi…
If that’s not it, maybe explain more what’s happening…
So I’m back at it again. I guess your explanation about the midi behavior makes sense. I’ve also realized that it’s not a problem to not be able to mute the track on OT, since I can just mute the TR-8S directly on the device itself.
My next objective is to record a sound from my Bass Station II that’s coming in from one of the inputs on OT. Let’s see how it goes
