Should I choose OT or MPC Live?

Same to you sir. :wink:

Itā€™s probably because of limited DSP power.

2 Likes

Iā€™ll take it! That sounds perfect!

Edit: didnā€™t notice this was from March- from before the announcement of the OTmk2.

Iā€™d still want a DT style 4 track stereo sampler though(for longer loops and slices)- OB enabled, though.

You could always get two OTs if 16 tracks is the dream, Ive considered it. It would be nice to have two autosaving machines. Iā€™d be able to dedicate one to drums and Iā€™d be able to have 8 mono outs, also if I put a neighbor on every track Iā€™d have 8 audio tracks with reverb and delay plus double everything. One dayā€¦ I think when that happens though OT 2 will appear and Iā€™ll have doubled down on mark 1s which would be frustrating

1 Like

OT or MPC live ??? continuedā€¦

I play ambient guitar with beats and found sounds. I make stuff in ableton or pro tools and just need something to preform live at this stage. I need to be able to launch audio loops and midi clip arrangements simultaneously. I am not sure which would suit this set up best.

Live Instruments
Electric Guitar and Pedal Steel Guitar looped to AC 30
Large midi synced pedal board

8 Audio Tracks (to be manipulated live )
3 Rhythmic loops (max 1 min )
1 Synth Drone loops (max 1 min )
1 Bass loops (max 1 min )
3 found sound loops (max 1 min )

3 Midi tracks
1 TR-8S
1 Monologue
1 Guitar pedal board receiving program changes / Hardware looper receiving beat clock

Anybody doing something similar or any suggestions as to what would work best?

Do you need all 16 tracks simultaneously? If so then OT wonā€™t suit, unless you get 2.

I would need 8 audio and 3 midi tracks simultaneously. Whatā€™s the max the OT can do?

8 audio 8 midi simultaneously with the option to sacrifice an audio track as a master channel to put FX on

1 Like

Cool so itā€™s defo do able on the OT

Yeah, you could on MPC too though

Iā€™m kind of headed in a similar direction but not as far as you. Iā€™ve played gigs using the OT to loop my viola and start/stop a Bassbot TT-303 w/ MIDI Clock but thatā€™s about it. I havenā€™t gone so far as to test sending MIDI Program Change from OT to my Monologue and/or my Eventide H9 FX box and making sure the patch changes happen as expected,

BTW, thereā€™s a 4-voice polyphony limit per MIDI track on the OT, though it doesnā€™t look like itā€™ll be a problem for your setup.

1 Like

Parameter locks/triggerles locks, trig condition.
16 additional LFOs for your external gear! Automatic sampling.

But the live recording could be better. If you wanna record your midi stuff, this could be a dealbreaker. You canā€™t import midi files unfortunately.
MPC live is probably more portable because of the intern battery.

I donā€™t own a MPC live. But i did a lot of research, because i wanted the most flexible hardware sequencer.
OT is really fā€¦ing awesome!

1 Like

Sounds like an interesting setup. I am sending prog change to a H9 via a disaster area from ableton as well as prog change to the monologue and it works great. Just looking for a smooth transition to ditching the Laptop for live gigs. The midi will be mostly program change messages in my set up allowing me to have all my effects etcā€¦ set up for each peace of music.

In your research Karl did you find the OT better for building a sequential set than MPC live ?

In the OT, the ā€œsong modeā€ is in the Arranger. I admit I havenā€™t worked with it much outside of the Milwaukee workshop. I could have sworn I read somewhere that you give up some things in Arranger mode but I forgot exactly what. Hereā€™ Cuckooā€™s tutorial on using the Arranger - might want to watch this if you want to use the Arranger to plan out a tightly, well, arranged live set.

Can someone tell me if this is possible to do this on the MPC live.

Is it possible to have different tracks playing (audio and midi) and change for example only my lead sequence to another one without altering the others tracks ?
Or you have to change your entire sequence ?
Like on the Beastep Pro you are able to change pattern of Sequence 1 keeping Sequence 2 running.
I feel like this is what its missing on the OT because Iā€™m used to create different sequence that play well together on one pattern but all the midi or audio track are fix to the same pattern so if I want to change my drums it will change all my track at the same time.

Thats interesting, I think I am not after song arrangements like this, probably more patterns that keep looping till I am ready for the next one. I looks sooooo complicated to get going compared to ableton. Please tell me its simpler than it looksā€¦?

In my humble opinion, i think the Octatrack is a little bit more flexible as the MPC Live.

I have different ways to create my music. Sometimes i create and prepare a bunch of patterns and mix them live, an create a track. I do this often just because of the fun factor and for different versions of a track. The results are always interesting, every performance is different and unique. But if my goal is to create a full track in a more traditionell way, i use the arranger(song mode) to create the complete track. This takes usually a little bit longer. If the melodies and the arrangements are done, I start to experiment with the scene functions. This way i can create several versions of the same track. The amount of possible timbres are insane. You have 16 Scenes and a dedicated scene fader. You alway can fade between two scenes.

Scenes are a big plus, IMO.
A example for scenes: Scene ā€œAā€ plays a sample every time it gets triggered by the pattern. Scene ā€œBā€ triggers the sample for letā€™s say 10 times. If you move the scene fader a little bit from ā€œAā€ to ā€œBā€ the sample gets triggered more then one time. If you move the fade more to ā€œBā€ the parameter changes seamlessly until you reach scene ā€œBā€, then the sample plays 10 times every time it gets triggered. If you use a snare for example. You can do a complete snare roll, just by sliding a fader. But you can do much more complex stuff with it. You can change (almost) every parameter with this, even multiple parameters. It can be just the cutoff of a filter. Or change the sample play speed into minus area (playing backwards) and change LFO speeds, play with the pitch of the sample, fade into another effect and do everything at the same time. With 16 possible scenes you can go wild and destroy or enhance your track! But unfortunately the scenes work only for the OT but not the MIDI tracks!

Some people donā€™t like the small screen (you wonā€™t have problems to read from it, but donā€™t expect animations or high res graphics).
This is probably a strength of the MPC. Very nice screen. A piano-roll like menue and where you can see when a note is set direct on the screen. Especially if you have complex melodic patterns the MPC is better in this area.

Whatever you buy MPC Live or Octatrack, there are both awesome machine that are worthwhile money!

For my taste the MPC Live can be replaced by a laptop, but the OT is more like a instrument. (You could probably all the stuff with a DAW too)

Sorry if i donā€™t make much sense. Iā€™m tired and need to go to sleep now :slight_smile:
Hopefully i could help a little bitā€¦

Some things to consider are:
What gear do you want to sequence with it?
How important are the pads from the MPC for you? Do you need something thatā€™s portable?
Do you like DAWs or are you a hardware guy?

2 Likes

I did have to work a lot to go from scratch to being able to gig with the Octatrack. The Pickup Machine is not difficult to learn to use. If all you use is just one track on the OT, and thatā€™s the pickup machine, itā€™s pretty simple. :smile:

A lot of the fun though is learning how to use the Flex Machine, how to route audio from a Pickup Machine track to a Flex Machine track, then using LFOs so modulate playback parameters in the Flex Machine. The OT does have a selection of FX, w/ 2 FX per Track, but most of the audio mangling potential actually comes from messing with sample start, retrigs, etc. in the Flex Machine.

This was all stuff I had to learn gradually over time, and practice a lot because of the button combos that one has to memorize. Basically I learned pretty quickly that I have to rehearse for gigs by practicing what Iā€™m gonna do on the OT, just like I have to practice what Iā€™m gonna play on viola/electric violin.

As for the Arranger, I learned a bit about it at the Octatrack workshop in Milwaukee a few years ago, but thatā€™s about it. Doesnā€™t look that hard to learn, but this is my perspective based on experienced with the stuff Iā€™ve learned so far on the OT. What I learned at that workshop that I use the most is Parts and setting up Scenes for use with the A-B fader - very, very handy for performance.

1 Like

Thanks for th detailed reply, I see how your using it as an instrument. I think i would like both, I am currently moving from Ableton and I need an MPC Live or OT for my Live shows, they are all about my guitar playing and the beats and loops are second to that and very ambient. I really think I need to try both out, only problem is I live in the West of Ireland about a million mikes from a shop.

1 Like