I’m getting along nicely with the OT but currently one of my “barriers” to jamming is having to name a new project before I get started, because I am starting from a template project and don’t want to alter it.
When I start up the OT for something new, I load up my “000 Default” project, which is my Template. Unfortunately I realized that I can’t simply jam around on this track and only save to new if I get something I like (which would be ideal.)
I prefer the sample saving to project file method, and this ends up leaving my Template track folder full of random samples from ideas that didn’t pan out.
So, what I do now is open template. Immediately save to new as something like “sdjahjkas” and start jamming. If it pans out and I want to save it, I will rename it to “WIP 001” or something. Of course I end up with a bunch of random projects cluttering up my workspace.
Octatrack has the best file management system of any elektron I’ve used, and I know I can solve this with a little more care and maybe creating a system I stick to for naming.
I just wanted to hear from some others who have thought about these kinds of issues. What do you do?
Maybe you just say fuck it, and have a million random projects? Maybe you just have a perpetual jam project that you just continually work from and change ( I saw one guy on here who did this. )
E: Ooooh! I’m very happy to have been wrong about something.
I can totally just start jamming from my template and nothing saves until I manually “collect and save.” - so I can just start tinkering and only commit to save to a new file if I like what I’m making.
As you mentioned yourself; I have a template project, and when I start something new. I save it as a new project and work from there, and have tons of things that never god anywhere
I’m using a template project with routings and midi settings saved and use that to create new saved projects
I’m trying to not create a new project each jam like when I first got the OT, instead I’m creating seperate projects based on genre and try to get a few ideas that are similar working within each.
This way each project can evolve into an EP or something with some shared resources
What I do is use pre-prepared small sample sets of loops and one shots that I make ahead of time.
EG: Some drum one-shots, complimentary loops, pre-gridded slices of melodic notes or chords
So, whenever I put together a new project, I just have a bunch of folders of kits to choose as a skeleton. I use pages for different song sections, so having a template is never really too useful.
Going in straight onto OT for unprepared projects gets way too messing and file managing for me. I wind up with like 100 “Project 2098357”
Over time I build up these tracks on PC, so I can just put together custom sets with work I’ve already done and have a general idea of how the track is gonna be.
Use the Octatrack to remix the basic loops; real spicy with scenes, external synths via MIDI, fills, playing slice trigs… Resampling if I’m feeling brave.
I’ve just been using the same template for everything since 2020 (except occasionally when I start a new one to make a specific sound or experiment), and any new versons are iterations/improvements on the previus one. But I’m doing 100% live processign and looping right now, so I don’t need a lot of different projects.
This week I’ll be designing a completely new project for a new trio and it will work the same way (since it also won’t be based on existing samples or sequences), so it’s a matter of starting a new poroject named after the new group and then saving numbered versions of it as I refine it (so I can always go back to an earlier revision if something goes wrong) plus the occasional redundant copy in case the active one gets corrupted.
I figured out why I was confused regarding stuff cluttering my Template project file.
When you load samples from memory into a Project file, it does not save them to the folder until you “collect and save”
When you record anything from the external outs, it saves directly to that project folder.
My Template folder has quite a bit of random crap I recorded on the fly. This is fine I guess, I could just live with it and ignore it, or occasionally clean house.
