Stimming OT review

[acidhouseforall]

As much as I love to hate the OT, its sound has always been fairly transparent for me. No problem here…

[Prof_lofi]

The OT sound quality lives on!

[roadmoviemusic]

@Supercolor_T-120

I hear a little bit of difference in soundstage, nothing that’s going to be noticeable without a side by side comparison, about the same as the difference between rendering dithered vs. undithered 16 bit audio in a DAW.

I have all my gear routed though a external mixer. The main outputs of the mixer feed a OT recorder. That recorder is assigned to a track that is in cue mode, with a trig on step 1. The cue outputs go back to the mixer, but is muted. So I go ahead jamming, and at one point I hit “rec” on the OT, which will then record 4 bars (or more: 8 bars with 1:2 condition on the playback trig for instance) of the main mix. When finished recording, it plays back automatically, but because the recording goes to the cue outputs, into a muted stereo channel of the mixer, we can’t hear it (yet): we still here the main mix running (all sequences or whatever else) . Now here comes the magic: When I solo that stereo channel (provided the solo mode on the desk is set to “in place”) the main live mix is replaced by the sampled mix from the OT. This transition is seamless. I can switch back and forth between the live mix and the sampled mix without noticing whatever difference. It a brilliant trick I use a lot, and is made possible only because the OT’s sound quality is transparent. There have been many threads on the subject, most of them I don’t understand. If properly gainstaged (and this is a piece of cake, no menu-diving or fiddling with gain internally, it’s OK as shipped) OT is “what goes in, goes out”. If some fellow users notice a difference between original and sampled sources, there must be, IMO, an issue up front. FWIW…

[DaveMech]

@Supercolor_T-120

I hear a little bit of difference in soundstage

Can you elaborate on what difference you hear exactly? Using the term soundstage in this context seems odd to me since it’s used mostly in context with (high end) audio reproduction (speakers) and the way they throw the sound in front of you in a three dimensional manner. Are you saying that the separation of instruments and location of them in the sound is altered by octatrack somehow?

[igtheflig]

I think that should be the last word. Thanks! (For my own part I put it down to looking for it, and imagining it after reading too many OT scary stories.)

[LyingDalai]

I thought absolutely everything had been told on the subject.

OT - sound quality

OT and I got friends. Nevertheless I need more time to evolve a fluid workflow, but I think some hard nuts are already cracked. Thanks guys for helping! What really keeps me thinking at the moment is - after watching Cuckoo´s video where he´s comparing the OT (…MK1) with the Digitakt ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmA2vSoYL94 ) - the overall worse sound quality of the OT: Even before this issue was quite obvious to me, but hearing the units side by side, you might get it - the OT it´s pr…

OT sound quality improvement by disabling filters?

Somewhere in the vast online resources of people complaining about the OT’s sound quality (namely that it sounds) I came across a post where someone mentioned hearing a significant improvement in sound quality when disabling all track filters (which by default are enabled). I tried this and noticed a slight improvement but not sure it’s worth the trouble to disable for playing live. I may need the filter on a few tracks for live improv. Has anyone here performed live with filters disabled (or mo…

OT Sound Quality & FX

I haven’t had my OT long, just a few weeks. I haven’t tried to build a track yet, I’ve just been intensively learning its different functions using single samples by reading the manual, guides and asking questions on here. But, what struck me when I first got it and the more the I play with it is that the sound quality overall is weaker than I expected it to be. At the moment I’m using it through the headphone-out and I’ve made sure time-stretching is off. I use an Apogee card for my Mac and I…

Do you think the OT SQ thread should be reopened?

[igtheflig]

Probably has all been said, but for such an enduring machine you have to expect/accept some “eternal September” effect on the forum.

[sabana]

Nothing to see here. Move on.

[darenager]

Not to mention sample accurate duration of synced recordings, and almost perfect (less than 250 microseconds jitter) triggering of those recordings.
I am yet to find another machine that can do this.

I think probably the simplest way that anyone can test for themselves is to have a machine with good sync connected to a mixer that has an alt bus, when the alt button is pressed machine is routed into OT inputs. This way they can easily and quickly A/B between direct to mixer, thru OT, and OT recording.

Then if you can hear any difference which bothers you, then fine, good luck on your quest for perfection, but I suspect 99.99% of people would not notice any significant difference.

[Microtribe]

You hit the magic number. End of thread.

[NoiseLab]

@craig

@NoiseLab

I was hoping more about a sound quality comparison between different kind (vintage/new or cheap/expensive) of hardware samplers.

That would make for a great thread actually. Why not kick it off yourself with some examples from different bits of gear? I’m sure there’s enough techy people on here who would contribute with examples from their own gear.

This would be a interesting aspect between all kind of samplers.

• neutral?
• time stretch and pitch shifting?
• filtering?
• onboard fx?
• summing?

So far too busy to start this, for making a new thread.
Anyone else maybe?

[Supercolor_T-120]

Yeah, it’s about the same as dithered vs undithered CD audio - it’s almost inaudible.

[Supercolor_T-120]

@DaveMech

Can you elaborate on what difference you hear exactly? Using the term soundstage in this context seems odd to me since it’s used mostly in context with (high end) audio reproduction (speakers) and the way they throw the sound in front of you in a three dimensional manner. Are you saying that the separation of instruments and location of them in the sound is altered by octatrack somehow?

The perceived front-to-back depth of the stereo image seems very slightly flatter. If you’ve ever recorded anything straight to tape, it’s like the difference between listening straight off the tape vs. digitizing the tape through decent but not amazing converters (like an older MOTU interface, which is what I was using when I was recording to tape in the mid 2000s) and playing that back.

I like to use this visual metaphor for it:

You’re sitting in a room with a plate glass window overlooking a field. The glass is relatively clean and flat but you’re still looking through a thick pane of glass.
Now imagine replacing the window with a cutting edge, high definition display showing a high quality live video feed (with infinite depth of field) of the exact same view. In a lot of ways it’s more revealing than looking through the glass - the colors are more vivid, distant objects are more distinct - but it’s a two dimensional image on a flat plane.

That’s the best way I’ve come up with to describe how the difference between fully analog monitor and monitoring through average quality converters (on the Octatrack or otherwise) sounds to me, Octatrack or otherwise. It’s a non-issue now because I monitor everything through the DAW these days anyhow. It sounds more than good enough and I never hear what I’m losing so I don’t miss it (much).

I’ve got no complaints about the Octatrack’s sound quality.

[DaveMech]

Interesting. I wonder though how you compared this? Did you AB the same piece of music as is from your daw with a version that went though the converters of OT? I ask because it’s a pretty wild observation so I hope this is not a feeling but really checked in a test. Otherwise there are just too many possible psychological influences amongst other things that can influence this perception.

And we’re talking about an OT without FX /filter/TS right ? Just purely the converters

I highly doubt it is noticeable or that the converters really are that average. If I find time I might do a an A/B with a hifi production. If anyone has a suggest for a piece of music and can provide a lossless file, let me know. I’ll do a null test and see if I can get a perfectly leveled A/B/X test to post here. Might take some time before I have time to do this. It’s really not that important but it is interesting. Certainly because a few people have made some pretty interesting claims which would be fun to see if we can confirm those.

[Supercolor_T-120]

Like I said, it’s barely noticeable and doesn’t matter in the context of an instrument, but it’s there. I’ve done blind ABX tests of stuff that’s a lot more subtle (the difference between a CD and a burned copy of that CD on the same player is a good one - audio CDs weren’t lossless in the way data discs were, and error correction is audible - or it was when I was 10 years younger than I am now), the OT was obvious enough I never felt the need to formally test it but minor enough that it doesn’t matter to me at all.

“Average” converters doesn’t mean bad, they’re fine. Most modern converters are, until you get into the really low end stuff. The closest thing to high end converters I’ve ever been able to own myself was a BLA signature modded Digi002 and it sounded noticeably better than the Presonus Studiolive 32r that I use now, but not better enough to offset having 4x as many inputs, lower latency, more stable drivers, all of the other quality of life things the Presonus offers (on top of being a full 64 channel digital mixer in a box).

Really high end converters like you would find in a mastering studio are going to cost mor eper channel than the entire Octatrack costs, but you’re also well into the diminishing returns zone at that point. The difference between a $30 interface and a $300 interface is pretty big. The difference between a $300 interface and a $3000 interface is fairly small. The difference between a $3000 interface and a $30,000 interface is almost negligible at best. With the Octatrack we’re talking about the $300 interface zone - it’s not the best but it’s more than good enough for what it is, and it’s absolutely not going to ruin your music or something. It definitely sounds a lot better than the MBox that came with Pro Tools when I had to buy it for work a few years ago.

Like I’ve been saying, I’ve got no complaints about it.

If you want to get really nitpicky about this stuff, here’s an interesting AES paper about the audibility of antialias filters and 16 bit quantization:
https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conventions/?ID=416

[NoiseLab]

@Supercolor_T-120

The difference between a $30 interface and a $300 interface is pretty big. The difference between a $300 interface and a $3000 interface is fairly small.

So a sound test between a Waldorf Quantum/Iridium vs Elektron Octatrack mk2 would be fair

[Supercolor_T-120]

On the other hand, this is a fantastic sounding album, one of the best, fidelity is overrated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYwljDNBgeY

[NoiseLab]

I disagree, on a well tuned high end system or a ‘normal’ stereo you will get a complete different experience.

[GovernorSilver]

@NoiseLab

So far too busy to start this, for making a new thread.

I don’t believe it, considering how many posts you made on this thread within the last 8 hours.

If you were really so busy you wouldn’t have had the time to post so much.

Come on, start the new thread already.

[Rid_im]

I run my octatrack as main hub for all my gear (at 24 bit) but then i ALSO run octa into a vintage 1970’s mixer, that has on board spring verb so i can send aux to sweet sounding spring verb. It adds line noise to the mix, but considering half the music i listen to reaches for vintage and/or glitch type vibes, it’s pure gold to me…