The OTHER way to make a send bus

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Sometimes you make that killer FX chain. And sometimes you want more than one track to use it. Besides a loopback connection (CUE -> AB/CD with a THRU machine), there is a way to rig this internally without cables:

  • Cut the cue level for each track by holding CUE and zeroing LEV
  • Make one track a FLEX and select the corresponding buffer for playback (top of list)
  • In RECORDING SETUP 1 for this track, set SRC3 to CUE and RLEN to 16
  • In the same menu, set INAB and INCD to -
  • Make sure track length in SCALE setup is set to 16
  • In the playback settings, turn TSTR to OFF (unless you’re going for that sound)
  • Make sure the headphone mix in the MIXER settings is set to MAIN (full left)
  • Put a rec trig at step 1 (hold trig and make sure MIDI is lit and AB and CD are not)
  • Put a play trig at step 1, microtimed at +1/384 (1 step right)
  • Hit PLAY

Now, hold CUE and crank LEV for whichever track you want to send to the bus. Expand the FX chain by adding however many NEIGHBOR tracks after it you feel like.

The sequencer has to run for the bus track to play.
At high BPMs, you may need to nudge the playback trig another step right.

Speeding up or reversing the playback buffer requires actual psychic powers. Decent results can be had by delaying the playback trig sufficiently. Slowing the playback down is unproblematic.

CUE level is not p-lockable, and also not scene-lockable, which sucks. But MIDI CC #47 controls CUE and #46 track level, so they are automatable via an external controller (or MIDI loopback), just not internally.

23 Likes
Free Octatrack Tutorials list + Live setups & Performances examples
#2

Been doing this for about a year, pretty much the first thing I set up in any new project, works great. I never need to shift the play trig more than one click n the microtiming menu but I pretty much exclusively use it for reverb (usually spatializer or chorus in slot 1 and dark reverb in slot 2).

Other things you can do with this include manually sequencing asymmetrical, multi-tap delays by using more than one play trig and using the send bus’s cue level for feedback.

EDIT: not exactly multitap delays actually, since the track is monophonic, it’s more of a weird kind of stutter delay effect if you use more than one trig in the pattern.

5 Likes
#3

Other things you can do with this include manually sequencing asymmetrical, multi-tap delays by using more than one play trig and using the send bus’s cue level for feedback.

Right on! Not only does this NOT use an FX slot - it also permits p-locking all kinds of conditional irregularities, far beyond the possibilities of the delay effect + random lfo combo. Genius.

I’ll have to investigate more about the buffer delay.

#4

Thank you for sharing, bookmarked.
Pls have it also posted or linked in the OT tricks post.

1 Like
#5

Some you guys are wizards. I don’t even get half of what you’re talking about here, but clearly need to try this out. Thanks! :smile:

3 Likes
[decided - I will keep it!] OT mk II, thinking about returning it (why I decided to keep it is now in the main article)
#6

1/384 microtiming is enough.
If you want to use timestrech and increase pitch at +12 for shimmer fx, you need to increase microtiming up to 7/384 at 120 bpm.

For recording length, it has to correspond to time between trigs. You can use several rec trigs and trigs, to refresh recording while using pitch fx. You can always lower pitch. Once recorded you can use reverse, +12 pitch without timestretch…
For full reverse you need 2 recorders IIRC.

:wink:

2 Likes
#7

Really cool trick, thank you. Going to use this to feed track delays into a bus reverb.

#8

I’m going to bookmark this in case I ever get an octatrack. Most of this is over my head right now, but it sure sounds cool!

#9

Thanks !

#10

We should consolidate the threads about this.

1 Like
#11

Reminder : Recorders and Flex can be used as Master, but also Thru, Neighbor, Pickup with Overdub even OT slaved…with all playback page possibilities.

2 Likes
#12

Also a reminder to turn of timestretch on the track you’re using as a send, it’s unnecessary and your send will sound better without it.

2 Likes
#13

You mean the track used as return I guess…:thinking:
I use pitch shift with timestretch for shimmer fx and it is interesting. Otherwise I agree that timestretch has to be disabled anyway if not needed.

#14

Yes! I found the older posts about this after I posted it myself. Apologies for the redundancy. I’ll edit the top post with the great feedback from you all, and try to make it as much as possible a makesenseable how-to.

Confirmed. I must have had some other issue. Updated the post.

2 Likes
#15

Yeah, I guess I should have just said “used as the aux buss,” I was thinking in terms of hardware where the return would be AFTER the effects, in which case the aux track in the OT would correspond to the aux send chain, and the return would be its track level control. I guess the pedantic way to label it would be that the cue mix is the aux send, the track that it’s routed to is the aux effects, and the level control for that track is the return, but that’s even more awkward.

I made a track about this last year, too, not sure if it has been merged also. Mostly it was me trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work even though it should (I thought of it and didn’t know it as an existing technique, just like the OP here) and taking a ridiculous amount of time to realize that it was because I’d bumped an encoder doing something else and had an LFO modulating the aux pitch with a depth of 1, which of course made the record buffer underrun and go silent. Not sure that one’s worth merging, though.

I don’t know of any other threads about it. It seems like one of those techniques that’s really useful but keeps getting kind of forgotten and rediscovered because it’s not so hard to set up but kind of weird to describe in text.

One of the other great things about this is that it’s a good workaround for track mutes being post-effects. If you’re using cue for your reverb then muting a track doesn’t mute the reverb tail.

A down side is there’s no convenient way to adjust the dry track level and the cue(send) level at the same time since they share a single knob, so if you want to smoothly fade a track out you’d need some kind of external controller. Basically the send is pre-fader only, not a huge deal but a lot of the time post fader is better.

1 Like
#16

Interesting view, funny how different approaches are possible. :slight_smile:
I was thinking about a return like a mixer stereo channel, with pan, eq, fx insert. :thinking:

Cue Level = Aux Send
Cue Out Level = Aux Master Send
Track = stereo mixer channel
Fx = Insert Fx, post Amp stage ?

You can also use Cue Ouputs and Input AB/CD for external fx, a Thru Track for return…

#17

Makes sense. When I’m using a hardware mixer I usually path directly to the effects instead of putting them on an insert, so the ways we were thinking about it just reflected our different signal flow preferences.

I still haven’t tried using the this technique and external hardware on the aux outs at the same time in parallel.

1 Like
#18

I know this is an old thread but hoping I can get some assistance. I have followed this exact process and cannot get it to work. I’ve repeated everything several times and even tried in an empty project. The effects are not heard. What could I be missing? Note: the track I’m wanting to effect is a Thru track and I do have the Cue volume all the way up on that track. My trigs are both there with offset on play trig and rec settings are SRC3 CUE.

#19

CUE on? (Blinking in Normal Cue mode)
Or Studio mode active? (you can see Level and Cue at the same time)

1 Like
#20

How to you listen to it? If you are using headphones make sure your mix setting for the headphones in the mixer menu is 100% m(ain).

1 Like