Thematic structure of compositions

Hi everyone, I’m new to Octatrack and I come from a different world, both for the music and for the mediums to use, but I am fascinated by this prospect of contaminating traditional pop or starting with a new genre. A bit the way Radiohead has come. I have a lot of material to convert and I don’t know if I will start from there and completely from scratch. I started with Digitakt and Digitone and it went well. I have now moved on to the initial objective: Octatrack and coming soon A4.
With Octatrack it took a bit of mental reset to get into the machine and I must say that even though it is still halfway through the work, I find it more complex to use than complicated to understand but I am a computer musician since 1980 so no problem.
I enclose a diagram that I have developed as a work plan to use the compositions in Octatrack. What do you think? Am I underestimating something? After all, if I understand correctly, the project is the level in which to enclose the “song”. Moving the lower level begins to tighten the space of action and going higher it becomes all dispersive. If you feel like it, I’d like to understand how you think.

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You can, of course, work this way if you want.

Some people, perhaps with less complex compositions, might not need (for example) sixteen different patterns for an introduction and so could fit more elements of a song into a single bank and therefore have more than one song (perhaps an entire album or live set) in a project.

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In one bank, you can have 4 parts, meaning different sample slots or different parameter settings.
Taking advantage of slices and conditional trigs and/or pattern length pr track is imo the better way of arranging sections of a composition. This way you could utilize your composition in 4 parts, each with 4 patterns available within one bank aka one “song”.
This also means that the different settings for a song stays the same ( is there a thru input in this one, a flex buffer in the other, only statics in this one etc etc)

In your approach, the bank with Fills will only have 4 parts available for sample settings. So any other sample has to be used by sample slot p-locking, or slicing. And then it will be in another bank, you will ned an excel sheet to keep up.

Ultimately, give yourself some sessions to just play with the octatrack without any planning. Because it sort of has its own flow, and the faster one comes to term with it, the better.

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Let me explain my first point a bit clearer;

In One Bank:

Patterns 1-4 PART 1 (Intro)

Patterns 5-8 PART 2 (vers)

Patterns 9-12 PART 3 (chorus)

Patterns 13-16 PART 4 (fills)

Using slices and conditional trigs, 1 pattern can be more than enough to carry out a 16/32 bar intro. Then you can simple use these cues to mirror the action, AKA; pattern 1 is intro, but pattern 2 is outro. Pattern 5 is verse 1, pattern 6 is verse 2, and so on.

Look at the step sequencer. Steps 1,5,9&13 is mardked with a square, so you will have a visual cue with this approach, also you have space underneath for notes.

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The doubt in which I was in the case you keep is about the arrangement.
If I take a song for Bank then I can use 1 arrangement for song at max…
While up level (Project) give me way to have till 8 arrangement for song…

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No, the manual states that 8 different arrangements can be made per project, meaning that any arrangement can access any of the patterns in any bank, but you can only make 8 of them.
These arrangements however can be very long, so you can have not just the arrangement of one song, but multiple in one arrangement. That way you can also save BPM per song. And write notes aka;

SONG ONE [note]
->pattern 1 bank a 120 bpm
and so on and so on…

SONG TWO [note]
->pattern 1 bank b 140 bpm
and so on, and so on…

If you make 8 arrangements pr song, there wont be space for any other song in the arranger, so why not work on the entire set, and then make 8 different versions? you will get 8x8 different songs that way

EDIT: to clarify, you can make 8 arrangements, and the amount of songs and how you progress trough them is up to you. One arrangement can be one song, or several songs. You could also make XXX amount of versions within one arrangement. Just add more rows and write a note.

Example:
version one [note]
pattern 1 bank a
pattern 2 bank a
pattern 3 bank a
version two [note]
pattern 1 bank b
pattern 2 bank b
pattern 3 bank c

and so on. I think theres space for 256 rows in one arrangement.

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In short: you completely ignore the benefit of configuration sharing by using parts (kits).

Since the Digitone and Digitakt doesn’t have a separate kit structure and store each and every configuration bit in their patterns it’s clear that you are used to work this way.

But sharing the setup of tracks across multiple patterns can be a great timesaver especially during the early stages when the configuration of the tracks hasn’t settled down (or you want to adapt them during performance).

With the A4 your structuring will work, of course, because the kits of the A4 can be used by every pattern of every bank.

On the OT it’s a little bit different. The kit structure of the OT (a part) is confined to its corresponding bank. So when you compose your song from single patterns spread across all banks none of your patterns can share a part with another pattern and you need to copy&paste changes around like on the Digitone/Digitakt.

For me this would be a no-go. Kit structures are essential to how I work and how I want to perform.

To make the most out of the configuration sharing with parts on the OT a song should be confined to a single bank. For example using patterns A1-A8 for song 1 and A9-A16 for song 2. This way all patterns of a complete song can even share a single part which requires zero copy&pasting of changes.


Another big drawback of this structuring:

Nope, because you are running out of parts to fit 16 independent songs into it.

@hughes1960
Since there are only 4 parts for each and every bank available you can only fit 4 songs into the OT which doesn’t share the same configuration (not 16 independent songs as you*ve proposed).

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many things to think about, thanks, I was looking for just that.

Also keep in mind that why we rather use parts / less banks is that loading a new project takes aaaaages. We should avoid where possible.

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so in summary Project = Album; Bank = Song: not 16 songs but max 8 songs because at the top of the whole bottleneck are the arrangements. Not for live where instead you can mount in a single arrangment also 16 songs… I’m right?

There is only a bottleneck in your mind.
You can have sixteen songs in one (1) arrangement.

I mean, live/not live, what does it mather?
We need a way to organize our projects (especially before added bpm pr pattern in 1.40)

So we have 8 arrangements of 256 rows to do whatever we want. One arrangement can be live set. Another is the album form. Another is remix. And so on… remember that the arranger has other powerful commands such as; “Loop forever here” “mute this track” and so on…

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I dont understand how any of this thread relates to “thematic structure of composition”.

Just play the Octatrack until it sounds good. That’s what I think. 6 years in and that seems to work for me. Of course, I had to learn how to play it. Spreadsheets were not part of my experience, but if thats how you get down, go for it.

I reserve the right to evaluate if it also works for albums because by logic I would like to know exactly where an arrangement of a song begins and not have to look for it in a single long arrangement. While in livesets sequentiality is fine, and how.

It does. I suggest you look into the arranger first now and understand what it does / how it works.

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You can visually break up an arrangement containing multiple songs into sections by using a few comment lines in between.

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to me it still falls into "look for it in a single long arrangement " category tho

I certainly agree that it can be done but it is a patch, the arrangement seems built for something else. my thought is that when I come back maybe after a long time on a project I would like to find a clear classification and not a patch where to understand I have to find some notes …

This is my start plan…
an album (project) may have max 8 songs (arrangement) and finally if will other song-rearrangement of one song, these may nested and host in single arrangement

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My humble opinion is that, as smart as it can seem to plan things ahead to avoid mistakes, talking about OT Arranger before having made tracks on OT is like putting the cart in front of the horses.

So my advice would be: do some tracks on the OT, make some mistakes, understand how you can work with it (instead of trying to bend it to your needs) and then study the arranger.

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