So who actually came up with the octatrack then?

Is it one mans dream? A team of designers? Programmers gone mad? Im assuming whoever had the first vague idea of a concept must be pretty proud to have brought it into its current glory. Was it intentional? Was it a fluke that just evolved from the idea of a x0x style sampler/sequencer? Cause the thing really is one of a kind, Who came up with the elektron sequencer?

3 Likes

There is some fluff about this in the OT manual.

Regarding the sequencer, it’s a lot like a tracker really.

3 Likes
2 Likes

Trackers are an old school way of making computer music (see above). When you start comparing how they deal with parameter changes, different sounds in a single channel and slides, you can see a lot of influence.

While getting the nuances in sound was a little tricky, converting a bunch of old MOD (tracker file) structures to Elektron boxes recently was much like going from a vertical to horizontal grid.

3 Likes

With MachineDrum UW
 the RAM machines made it possible to record sounds in real-time and instantly play them back, were utilized in ways we originally couldn’t even imagine.


the ultimate raison d’ĂȘtre of the Octatrack: its capability to re-establish sampling as an art form.

11 Likes

Yeah, for sure. I didn’t get that until I actually had my hands on one but it completely made sense when I realized it’s really a hardware tracker combined with a really innovative phrase sampler (the sampling workflow always strikes me as being more like a next-level-and-then-some SP-303 than “Ableton in a box” and I mean that as a compliment). P-locks and retrig and microtiming are all classic tracker functions with slightly different names.

It makes sense, considering how Elektron started.

EDIT: I also see more than a little Roland VP-9000 (the way it handles slices, the minimal polyphony + timestreching and pitchshifting instead of multisampling, the whole live resampling part of the workflow) and LExicon Vortex (interpolating parameters between two different values in real time, although the Vortex goes the next step and actually interpolates between different DSP algorithms and signal paths, too!). Which is fantastic, because in my book those are two of the most misunderstood and underappreciated pieces of digital gear of all time,and the way the Octatrack reimagines some of their ideas (and it’s totally possible that they weren’t directly inspired by either piece of gear but there’s a lot of crossover between a few parts of the OT’s architecture and what those things do, especially the VP-9000 - the Vortex is weirder than anything the OT can do with its effects, but also a lot more limited) makes them a lot more flexible and playable even if some things like interpolating between algorithms with the fader, or polyphonic pitch shifting and formant shifting in the VP9000, aren’t in the OT.

4 Likes

Well, you can read the credits for each instrument in the manual, and a little internet searching will find you a lot of information about how the SidStation grew out of a student project, but here’s something from the old Elektron Users forum (the only post ever by Jesper Kouthoofd of Teenage Engineering ) from 2010 describing the creation of the OP-1, which also talks about the earliest concept of the Octatrack:
https://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=28&func=view&id=95826&catid=13&limit=9&limitstart=41

Here’s a very quick Elektron history:

and something from around the time of the OT’s introduction:

21 Likes

Very informative post, exactly what I was looking for, thankyou. How interesting

1 Like

I often feel the primary omission of the Octa and other Elektron gear is that they never really tell us what they had in mind. They give a bit of overview but then silence. You’d think the designers would love discussing this. Yes, there is something to be said for letting the users find their own way but I can’t imagine the designers not wanting to talk more. Likewise, interesting (and perplexing to me) how Jesper said he never posts to forums and that his single post was the only exception. Very strange. Yes, forums can “waste” time and get one side-tracked but they are also a valuable source of information and camaraderie among like-minded people.

5 Likes

It can be difficult to have time to deal with the outward facing parts of the business when you’re a small company. You can have the best of intentions but end up being so busy you don’t have the time/energy to really showcase your work to full potential. That and these days it is very difficult to act in an official capacity on a user forum without people jumping on everything you post.

Often I think that people forget Elektron are a niche within the niche of music tech and really punch above their weight in terms of hype etc (for better or worse).

All that said, they have Cenk, he probably sells way more machines than some cheesy demo reel/interview.

7 Likes

it was the brother Daniel who mainly conceptualised and programmatically implemented the Elektron Machinedrum sequencer.

the Octatrack is an extension of the Record Play machines of the Machinedrum, taken to fabulous heights.

2 Likes

No doubt! Cenks blunt accent heavy product demonstration of the octatrack combined with 40 uses of the phrase “this makes the box
 Very powerful” genuinely fully sold me in the octatrack, I didnt nearly fully understand it, I knew it was complicated, but it sounded insane and I needed it. Not a single regret

@previewlounge what an absolute tragedy that he didnt get to see where we are at today. May he rest in peace :frowning:

@tr909 Yeah I do find jespers complete self removal from any forums unsual, maybe thats what seperates me from more succesful men than myself in a business sense, I love the community feeling but I waste a lot of time online. Or maybe he is among us under an alt, I find the latter to be likely

3 Likes

Same

Yes, I very much enjoy using the MD-UW and then the Octatrack and seeing the how the idea evolved. I remember the initial promo vids for the UW and can see how the Octa was the real goal.

What is doing Daniel Troberg now ?
I’m curious about his actual setup, what Elektron machines he’s using here :

It’s covered in the comments on that track.

Not that it should matter, but this whole set was performed with an Elektron Analog Four, Roland MC202, Doepfer Dark Energy and an Analog Heat. No samples nor any other external processing used.

He had another recent performance that was Monomachine heavy, video and description at CDM.

3 Likes

In doing some background research, I found an old thread on elektron-users.com that I had never read before:
Elektron-Users - Re:Daniel Troberg Interview about Music and Technology - Elektron-Users
which linked to this extensive 2010 interview with Daniel Troberg:
The man from the Elektron world /// Part 1 – Interview - Just Music Makers

We are developing the Octatrack right now and we have a scheduled release in Q4. It will put back the fun in sampling, playback, treatment and re-treatment of samples and loops, it is very cool. It’s a flexible product that caters to many sorts of musicians, some see it as mainly a dj product because of the fader but that’s just a way of controlling transitions between several values at once.

16 Likes

ASM Hydrasynth

1 Like

This bit from the Troberg interview has always intrigued me: ”Of the original founders, one left quite early, one was sadly killed in a car-accident and I miss him dearly, the third one is still within the company and is the real mastermind behind our products, the invisible one.”

Any idea who he is referring to and is this person still (2021) ”within the company”?

3 Likes

Of the three founders according to Wikipedia, Daniel Hansson is the one who died, Mikael RÀim is still in Göteborg but apparently at Volvo, and Anders GÀrder is in the credits in the Octatrack and Digitakt manuals.

4 Likes