What are you using as the master clock? Octatrack has a pretty tight clock, most people use the Octatrack as master and slave everything else to it, especially if you have a daw in the mix. Make sure only one source is supplying the clock send and the rest are clock receive. That brief description of why you are having issues with your OT, it seems likely you’ve got something else as master clock going to OT and using OT as the master clock. If you can’t find it in your settings maybe take all other sources out of the OT and start adding each source and restart your sequencer after each time. Maybe that will help narrow down where the source of your issues are coming from.
2 Likes
MPC Live. Stand alone. Takes a minute to understand the quirks, but super fun. You can get really creative with the FX and automation.
Cubase is the master of them all 
OT is slave in all three scenarios.
Connected through my 18i8
Connected through Mopho
Connected through A4.
The tightest clock I get is when connected to A4 BUT I am unable to use midi from cubase as it talks with A4 through USB.
So in this case the A4 is the slave and the master at the same time as it receives and sends clock. A4 works like a charm in any config. All my synths work great besides the OT.
On each trigger the OT sets different tempo. It’s around 0.3 to 1BPM difference so my beats sound like somebody forgot to apply quantize sometimes. If I disconnect MIDI I can record the whole sequence to audio with tempo set in OT and it’s flawless. But that’s not what I want. According to support OT midi is sensitive and my problem lies within the DAW. I was advised to get a audio to midi converter and etc.
Considering the OT is the only piece of gear that after 3 weeks doesn’t want to play nice with others (and I’m messing with midi and cubase since 1997 and the atari ST days) I’m sending it back. Already got the RMA # so no loss here. Gave it a good try. It’s just not doing what I need it to do. It’s a shame as I really like it overall.
I went with MPC Touch (I don’t need standalone) and I still got plenty of $$ left from that deal so I’m gonna set it aside and hunt for something extra to add to my setup.
I appreciate all the input everybody. You lads rock 
1 Like
.3 - 1 bpm differance?
I slave everything to the mpc live and nothing jitters more than .1 … I have a bunch of units runinng in my Chain an it all stays tight.
To be honest I never had issues with sync like that. And I mean never.
Small jitters I don’t care but if my ears catch audible differences that’s bad if you ask me.
Wait … did you describe it as follows:
Cubase is Master Clock: midi-out --> 18i8 out --> Mopho through --> A4 through --> OT ? Why such a long chain? I use a midi splitter with quite short cables.
What do you mean by this:
Slave and master at the same time? Wasn’t that Cubase? Maybe a typo or the reason for the issues? You will always encounter midi problems, if there is more then one master or a midi-feedback-loop. Have you checked for a feedback-loop already? Maybe Cubase sends more midi to the net then it’s supposed to do. I had one day an issue, because one midi track of my DAW was set to a kind of midi-monitoring. This caused some problems until I switched the feature off.
As I said before, my experience is that midi technology of hardware is almost always rock solid, but if we miss something in the setup or have some software in the loop, the entire midi-net may show strange behaviour. But this can often be dealt with by optimising the midi-cabling and checking all the midi-related setups of the connected gear.
Maybe there is still hope? 
I have little elektron experience but the digitakt seems pretty solid midi wise after the updates, I just use the live and a keyboard as it’s my preference. I’d agree thats a strange chain goin on. Id use the clock to OT and slave everything to it. Maybe come out of the comp with the splitter? Lots of options just not sure what you’re going for.
CUBASE
- MIDI USB 18i8 <–> Mopho
- A4 <–> MIDI USB
OT <–> mopho
or
OT <–> 18i8
or
OT <–>A4
I checked for feedbacks but nothing there. Checked/unchecked all midi options in cubase and no difference.
A4 as slave and master to OT. Only option that lowers the jitter and it is generally ok like that but I am unable to get MIDI messages to reach OT. Support wan’t helpful here either. I guess that’s a limitation of A4 or something. Midi Thru doesn’t even work at all when A4 is connected via USB that’s why I need A4 to send clock.
Pain in the butt haha. No more though.
Maybe I misunderstand your description. Is the A4 connected via USB only to receive midi? AFAIK the USB midi is not routed to the DIN midi through connector. This might be the reason, why the OT doesn’t receive midi, if connected to the A4.
If the A4 clock can control the OT, without the jitter, then the midi interface of the OT should be okay and the issue is somewhere in the routing, or the computer. There might be a better routing possible. If you could describe, what your setup shall do, we could find a solution.
That’s the problem.
I use USB to connect the A4 to cubase but I want to use cubase MIDI to send/commands to the OT (track muting and so on) but through A4 just doesn’t work for the reason you stated.
Any other way jitter is too big.
On my way home from work I bought a short (1m) midi cable as a last possible option and nothing changed.
Ok…
so it’s 1am. I’m sitting on my couch with the OT just having fun without DAW before I need to pack it and ship it tomorrow.
My wife marches in and states that she thought I’m already sleeping here or something and asks why I’m still up. So I explain the whole ordeal and she just looks at me and asks… “well can’t you just use it like this for what it does best and get that other one to do what you need?”.
I tell ya, this woman knows how to make sense with bluntly simple solutions when I can’t find any haha.
I’m keeping this thing because I love all the weird shit it can do and I’m getting the Touch to go with it. With blessing from my better half makes me even happier. I guess I’ll start researching dedicated midi devices. MOTU seems to have great opinions but if that doesn’t work I’ll think abou that audio to midi thing.
I appreciate all the input. In the end all I needed was a woman to make it simple haha.
5 Likes
I am glad to hear this and congratulations to your wife. Sometimes we just need a person with a clear view and a simple statement to get us back on the path. She’s very right to advice that the OT has much to give, if used as it’s supposed to be used.
If the midi interface of the OT is not faulty, which I assmue, be assured, there is a way of having all your gear connected in one midi setup and working well. You might even not need to get a second midi interface. The Focusrite should do the job well enough.
What you could try is, let the OT be the master clock for the complete setup.
If you use a midi merger, you can send the clock of the OT to Cubase and the midi from your other external gear via the Focusrite. If Cubase is no longer clock-master, it will lock on the OT clock and receive/send midi via USB and the Focusrite to the external gear. To prevent a clock-loop, the OT has to ignore incoming clock-signals. There’s a setup for this. To start/stop everything from Cubase, you only have to tell OT that it shall acknowledge start/stop from external devices.
Another midi-port could come handy, if you need to address many of the OT midi-channel functions. In my setup the OT lives on it’s own midi-port, because I wanted to have all 16 channels free to use, like on my other multi-timbral instruments. If you have a similar use case in mind, a multi-port midi interface could indeed be, what you need.
1 Like
Why still choose the touch over maschine? 
Maschine is way more capable as far as I know. Awesome piece of software and kit. Way more developed than Akai software.
+1000
I own a Live and Maschine.
I like the Live for standalone, but the moment you use the software and compare it to Maschine you take a step back by about 5 years. The MPC software can’t even sidechain and the effects are much much worse than Maschine.
Plus NI has an outstanding record for improvement and bugfixes, Akai doesn’t.
I’m really happy with my Live as standalone unit, but if NI would announce a standalone Maschine tomorrow the Live would end up on Gumtree without a second though.
Akai thrives on the heritage of its name and on very rabid fanboys (even more than Elektron fanboys) but NI ha something else, just not the one thing I really want, standalone capability.
A suggestion : TM-1
Another (better ?) one : a MIDI hub such as MIO4. Seems costly, but makes everything sooooo comfortable !
1 Like
Go MPC-Touch its really good (has same pads as MPC Live/MPC-X)----i like the MPC touch sound card better than my old MPC-2500
MPC touch can be had really cheaply too PROBABLY because of MPC-Live,
Some sold prices in USD$250 range too
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=MPC-Touch&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684
I used to own two MPCs so I guess in a big way, sentiment is driving me here.
BUT I’m watching YT whole day and maschine micro is REALLY growing for me. Size is a massive factor as my space is limited and considering its main purpose will be focused on beats/drums I’m starting to feel that it will be enough.
What about software/samples when you buy a used one?
Is any of it authorized per user or I can just download everything from somewhere?
Some people sell it including software they can transfer the license to you online.
The regular maschine is really much more capable so I’d still consider one of I were you. The micro is limited. With the regular version you’ll pretty much never have to grab your mouse, let alone watch the laptop screen.
1 Like
good points, but the micro is so cheap second hand that its a great way to test the maschina software. If you get a cheap second hand micro you can resell it later for little loss, and upgrade to the regular sized one.
I’ve been tempted to grab the micro myself just to be able to get the software, as I could then collab with my mates better who use maschine… The price diff between the micro and the regular is significant, although it can be argued that with the micro you will not be getting all the benefits of the hybrid UX