The 'I still love my Octatrack' thread

I am about to renew my vows with OT darling.

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i got pre-wedding jitters re/ the impending arrival of the OTmkII, did a runner with the Digitakt mistress. Then came to my senses, why not both? The best of both worlds. :heart_eyes:

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Once a cheater always a cheater.

Love the :elot: it is an enigmatic beast, if it were a person it would be a genius - socially awkward but immensely talented.

There are certainly some things about it that I find annoying and strange, like the pickup machines - totally inconsistent operation with the flex and static machines, the whole part structure - totally inconsistent with the kit/pattern scheme of previous and later Elektron machines, the awkward user interface - sometimes a menu with a list of items, sometimes only accessible by holding two often unrelated buttons, etc.

But without doubt it is the best sampler I have ever owned, the DT is cool in a much more immediate way but also nowhere near as powerful, for me the DT is better suited to drums and melodic samples and the :elot: is better suited to loops and more complex samples, and of course realtime mangling of live audio and other such audio alchemy.

WRT sound quality I can hear no difference between DT and :elot: I think that is a myth personally.

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but the OT is so strict, i felt the need for fresh air, adventure, to regain that certain ā€œje ne sais quoiā€ ā€¦ the uncountable and indefinable quality that makes something distinctive or attractive.

the unbearable lightness of being was singing a magical mystical melody just around the way further along the valley so i had to go and explore.

and what i found has reignited the furnace of my passion. :heart_eyes:

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i beg to differ darenager, as in fact admin have confirmed the completely reworked approach to samples in the coding.

This includes non-linear programming techniques to simulate and support warmth in the sound of the Digitakt. So for those who hear the difference there is in fact logical reasons why they would perceive a difference, rather than just sentiment or wishful thinking, or being pussy-whipped by the multicoloured attractive workflow.

my ears hear a great-yet-subtle difference between the Digitakt and the OT. not complaining about the Octatrack though.

Fair enough - I base my comment about it on sampling the same sounds into both machines and no hearing no noticeable difference. I guess there could be reasons for this - such as my hearing, the source material, listening environment and so on, but after reading some of the initial comments about the DT sample quality, I was expecting to hear big differences, but at least on that occasion I did not.

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fascinating ā€¦ so important to be honest with oneā€™s own audio perception response. I havenā€™t really heard enough video audio to know whether i really perceive a difference over a wide range of material. Went ahead and fell in love anyway, will know soon enough if the Digitakt is ā€œall thatā€ when the unit arrives in physical reality rather than fantasy.

if i had to choose one machine it would be the Octatrack for sure. The level of creativity and fun potential is next-level, especially after the requisite 3 years to become comfortable with the machine.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised that the octatrack definitely does not take three years to learn. While it is an instrument it simply is not a guitar or any other traditional instrument, if youve never used OT youā€™ll see what everyone means about it being hard to wrap your head round at first. it quickly passes if you take the time to read the manual while learning, the learning curve is steep but also massively overstated, I think the idea stems from a time when there were few very OT experts out there and little information on the internet about it. Also the OT was born buggy so that probably didnt help, but trust me it wont take three years

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Maybe you know how to setup the OT so that the signal chain fron ins to outs is not altered.
Maybe my former OT was old and some parts involved in sound quality had aged or suffered a bit from misuseā€¦

The difference of sound was what made me get rid of OT1. This and the Part paradigm, that I find so much less usable than Kits in the Analog series.

But I will get OT mk2, and if it sounds sufficiently similar to or better than DT, seriously consider to depart with the later.

Because I miss mine.
I miss this 4 inputs / 4 outs mixer.
I miss the ease of trig controlled sampling.
I miss the sample chains, and even the sample editor that I had become used and efficient to operate.
I miss the FX per track insanity.
And most of all, I miss this so powerful immediate creative tool that is the scene crossfader !

Canā€™t wait to unbox the slightly upgraded version of the black box, my very first :3lektron: instrument and deep water dive into electronic music.

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lol i so agree. it took me five years.

to clarify: start being creative with the Octatrack within a few hours.

go further within a few days if desired.

but to comprehend the machine and all the gain staging technique, looping, recording, resampling, effects, timestretching and so forth, well for most people i would suggest it does require a long time.

but the fun starts immediately.

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^ Ha, you guys got me second guessing myself now! I just sampled a few different drum hits from analog drum machines into DT and OT, I routed drum machines into Samson SM10 mixer and fed monitor out from SM10 into DT and OT inputs, I ensured that levels were precisely adjusted and that the monitored DT and OT were consistent level wise. I observed that there was little to no difference between the source sound and the sampled version by either DT or OT.

I really should re-investigate with a wider range of sounds and at different listening conditions before I make any more comments about this :slight_smile:

Iā€™d encourage other people to run similar tests if so inclined, it could be interesting to have a larger pool of testing.

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It could also be interesting to see if imported audio has any difference between OT and DT.

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Good to know.
I trust your science, dear :smiley:

Could AD/DA converters be damaged when used for a long time with too hot incoming signal ?

My main lead now is my own ignorance.
After all DT requires / offers no configuration wrt gain staging.
With proper headroom and @Open_Mikeā€™s intel about gain staging in OT, I should be able to reach some sound quality I couldnā€™t on my previous OTā€¦

(We should be careful to keep DT/OT comparisons in the right thread, Iā€™ll see how I can put posts in the right place later :slight_smile: )

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Oh sorry man didnt read all posts, or properly at least, I thought you were getting mark 2 as your first OT my bad! Still though I just cant see it taking that long, Ive had mine nowhere near 5 years and I feel super comfortable with it, ive had it less than 1 year and I can generally do exactly what I need to do, how much different would you say you feel about the OT 5 years on?

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Thankyou for putting the time in, you should post recordings. Ive been curious about the difference but dont have access to a DT, I almost bought one but decided it would be pointless with OT already, and then they went and announced probability :sunglasses:

watching the online tutorial videos and not spilling Liptons Iced Tea on the buttons would essentially ensure a much quicker comprehensive practical understandingā€¦ yes, in reality one year would be more than enough time to become familiar and comfortable with the OT.

Last comment confused me, did you spill iced tea on your OT?

HIndeed, I think it took me one year and getting an AR before I got comfortable enough with every part of OT to combine them together and find my way through the endless possibilities it offers.

Have you contacted :3lektron: about the tea, to get an estimate of the cost of fixing this ?

Yes, I spilled Iced Tea on my electronic gadgetry in 2012.
To the Octatrackā€™s credit, she kept on going, just a drag to use.
The incessant re-pressing of buttons became a melancholic abstract percussive poetry.

Now is put out to pasture, purchased last year by another elektronaut as the testing machine for the OctaEdit program.

i was investigating the prices for used Octatracks this year and then two days later the fabulous news of the mkII surfaced. i thought it was a hoax, the timing seemed just too perfect to be true.

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