I’m going to be that guy: I don’t understand why the OT is difficult to learn? I’ve had one for 4 weeks. I’ve played 4 live sets in public with it. It’s simple and logical. Nothing is hidden it’s all right in front of you. This myth is maybe a result of all the shitty YouTube synth-mongers? Where does it come from?
So anyway if cost is an issue then find a MK1 and it will do everything you want for the price of a dt
In my opinion it gets a bad rap because its sampling flow is quite different to most other samplers and dare i say it, not particularly intuitive from looking at the UI. That added with the manual not quickly explaining how to sample (at least in my experience) i suspect that leads a lot of people to youtube to get up and running, where they are inevitably told not to be scared of the big confusing machine.
Once you know how the flow works, its super quick, but unlike a lot of devices its not something that is easily approached by looking at the UI and guessing.
…as u already thought, asking for the right sampling companion next to ur syntakt on the elektron forum is a silly question, since of course u know the anser already…
so all i can say…don’t scare back because of MONO…that’s what gives the dtakt it’s punch…
straight forward mono, autonormalized 48k samples all over the place…
stereosampling is “overrated”…the advantages of truu stereo impressions are pretty rare in daily use and abuse of audiotreatments and get their real potential if u really work on explicit sonic elements to shine in carefuly crafted differences between left and right…
most of the time it makes things only more difficult…stereo pan laws versus dedicated single placement in the stereofield…while most stereo beauty happens in the details of overall fx shadows…and those ARE actually stereo full on in dtakt…while letting two mono samples doing the “same” thing gives u way more stereo trickery options than a single “real” stereo sample…
especially if ur working with alls sorts of single drum and whatnot shots in first place…
only if ur more into long samples and heaps of ambience recordings and need the option of streaming stems in ultra flexible realtime, the ot is the obvious better choice…
in fact, the only thing that makes me grumpy on the ot, is it’s lack of truu mono…all is “stereo” samples only and if it’s mono content, it’s nothing but the exact same thing on both sides of that same snippet…and that’s not stereo, that’s just twice the amount of storage space…
so, if u like the syntakt workflow, do urself the favour and take all the advantage of having the exact same workflow also for dealing with sampling…not to mention that they feel and look fancy right next to each other and both takts together will provide all it needs for frontline audio production on top notch level…samples and synthesis at once, hand in hand…
I don’t understand the obsession with stereo sampling to be honest. Looped stereo samples can sound weird if they have much in the actual stereo field beyond two copies of the mid.
Original poster said he was using bass guitar and some other mono input - why the need for stereo in that circumstance?
Just pan it in the field and post process it.
Don’t know about difficult to learn … but … before I even bought a sequencer (eventually got an M:C) I tried to get a feel for the features of Digitakt and Octatrack from the manuals … and the Octatrack manual scared the s**t out of me … I think the triggers might have been ‘flex machine’, ‘buffer’, ‘pickup’ (can’t honestly remember the details)… I was like: f**k me I just want to make music.
That might account for the tech terms I found scary.
Just get Koala app + AUM (multi output + au3 Added FXs) for stereo sampling.
And BOOM just like that 404 MKII firmware V3.0 happens….hard to keep up.
Pioneer Toraiz SP-16 would have been a great option too if they were still going for $600-700. Has some limitations, but it’s a pretty great device overall. For me, it’d be the Roland SP-404, Blackbox or MPC One. Out of those I own the MPC.
I use both op-1 and the field, or koala/drambo on the ipad
listen to this with headphones
I guess everything has it’s place and time, no real wrong answers, I just follow my ears
lol
Octatrack can’t record mono files, nor convert stereo files to mono files. 
(It can read mono files, which is ram use friendly)
so weird for a box that can seemingly do everything
This is a good example of the use of stereo field recordings in a piece of music, and why you might want to have the capability -
It’s definitely a fair point though that in many cases you can be better off with mono samples and building up the stereo field via careful panning and effects, it really depends on your compositional style and what kind of music you like to make.
I want to make use of my stereo mics and recorders in the field. Plus it gets me out of the house!
We can agree. Sometimes mono is best, sometimes stereo is best. And to have the choice is always best.
I don’t understand what is happening here. There is no apparent sequence running.
Good to know thank you.
It’s a little hard to see but if you look at the little track status icons on the left and right sides of the OT’s display you can see that each one has a little S on it which indicates that all tracks are using static machines, which just means that they’re streaming samples from the CF card. So the entire composition is purely composed out of looping audio files that Substan is tweaking and applying FX to with the knobs and scene slider. Simple but effective for that kind of thing. He’s also apparently running the audio into a 1010music bluebox which is probably applying extra reverb.
I know this is not what the OP wants (mono, low fi), but I wonder if anybody has paired the Syntakt with a MicroGranny… would that be that a good setup for experimental/ambient stuff? Can it do resampling, i.e., record the Syntakt output and feed it back in?
Get the SP 404mk2 it’s fun and great to sample the Syntakt to and resample and the effects are really fun. You can trigger one off clips easy and longer loops instantly faster than using the Octatrack or Digitakt based on using these devices. Plus it has guitar amp models that are fun if you play guitar can sample that and use with drums from the Syntakt. Or get an MPC Live.
