Thoughts on a prospective setup

Elektron Gear Octatrack
1

I’m a noobie currently looking at picking up an Octatrack and record player with a built in phono preamp (likely the AT LP120x). My plan would be to effectively use the Octatrack as a mixer (as well as sampling) in this way:

  1. Turntable -> OT via TS to RCA
  2. OT -> Focusrite 2i2 via TS panned left and right

And monitor everything through Ableton. This would mean that even for casual listening I would have both the OT and computer on but I don’t really mind. I’m not overly concerned with fidelity either but will there be a big drawback in audio quality?

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Why?

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I really want to keep the setup as minimal as possible and basically be able to listen to everything at once through the studio monitors.

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Will you be using the OT for sampling or doing anything other than mixing? Because if not, you could just get a cheaper DJ mixer instead.

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Oh yeah I probably should have mentioned that I’ll be using the Octatrack as an instrument as well, not SOLELY as a mixer, my bad :sweat_smile:

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Okay, cool! Then, yep, no drawbacks in your plan from what I can see. Enjoy mangling records!

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This is what I do with a MOTU interface.
The only drawback is latency increases once you start to add on lots of plugins. I typically just save that phase of production until after recording, which gets around the drawback nicely.

Focusrite should have a good enough low latency specs at 64 samples /48khz. My MOTU’s round trip latency is under 4ms at 64 samples. About the same as sitting a couple meters away from speakers.

If you want to scratch on that TT, low latency will be crucial.

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Well, :elot: sound quality… :smiley:

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Which is ideal if you want it to be transparent. So not a drawback as much as a draw-through.

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