I’ve only had my OT for 3 months, and one thing Ive learnt is because its so flexible I can end up continuously tinkering with it, to ‘perfect’ your setup/project.
my example:
my main focus for the Octatrack is to record stems/samples from my modular, so that I can multitrack/layer.
its a pretty focused task, but Ive gone thru countless iterations of ways to do it, with endless refinements - trying to get it perfect.
using flex machines, using scenes to xfade, ‘live vs record’, manual trigs, one shot trigs, using pickup machines with overdub, with multi tracks, track pattern lengths and multipliers, messing with fin/fout, master clock or slave clock.
don’t get me wrong, my hours of tinkering were not wasted… I can now do the same thing in many different ways, each has its advantages, and each has its limitations - each has its use.
BUT the hard reality is, even my first attempt on day #1, would have been ‘good enough’ to fulfil my goal, and to make music!
as others have said, its flexible… but you dont have to use everything on every project.
one project you might just use it as a simple drum machine, others a loopers, others as a mixer or effects box. (*)
(*) I mistakenly thought for my use - I was going to have one project template for how I use the OT, now Ive started to question this… and learnt it suits me better to setup a new project each time, as it really doesn’t take that long to do, and means I just use the OT for whatever, I have in mind at that time.