Tips : Multi-track/Looping tips

Elektron Gear Octatrack
1

I’ve been trying to find the best way for me to track and loop my eurorack system
and thought I’d ‘document’ the best way I found :slight_smile:

note: there are some more notes in the youtube description.

my goals were:

  1. Simple setup and use
  2. Allow me to hear realtime octatrack fx (Realtime Monitoring)
  3. Overdub / Layer a track
  4. Record multiple tracks
  5. do NOT bake in FX

I wanted to use Flex machines since I love the flexibility they offer, and I really don’t like Pickup machines altering my tempo (esp. at low tempos!)

I knew how to overdub (using src3) , and I knew how to ‘realtime monitor’ (using microtiming) - but I found if you combined these, you get feedback.
this video shows my solution :slight_smile:

I hope its clear, though I found it a tricky balance of brevity/concise, and ‘rambling on’ explaining what everyone already knows… and is well documented.

a shout out to everyone here… Elektronauts is a fantastic source of information, many tips n’ tricks Ive learnt have come from people sharing here … thank you.
I made this video to hopefully give back to the community, perhaps help some future elektronaut.

of course, like anything with the Octatrack, this is just one side…
e.g. I simply use MIX:XDIR in the video, but we can use cue and transition tricks if this was in a live scenario.

I’d love to hear if you think there are ways I can optimise or improve this,
or if you think there are flaws or drawbacks that Ive not taken into account.
(I’m far from an Octatrack master, as some are here :slight_smile: )

13 Likes
2

Nice video thanks for sharing. Couple of questions
You mention using another track for playback in a live setting, can you explain what you mean by this ?

Rather than constantly changing T1, guessing you could use parts to streamline the work flow.

3

Instead of re-using T1 for overdubbing of different tracks (which requires to reconfigure it each time) use another free track.

For example:

use T1 (with rec2 buffer) for overdubbing on T2
use T3 (with rec4 buffer) for overdubbing on T4

3 Likes
4

Nice tutorial video! Btw, those were quite some nice sounds coming from the modular, which modules were you using, if I may ask?

1 Like
5

Hey Technobear, I’ve been playing around with this setup all afternoon. What can say :open_mouth:. So easy to operate. I’m also sending modular into the OT. Thanks so much for sharing this. This has really helped me and my use of the OT. :ok_hand:

1 Like
6

Thanks for the track tip. I’m using 4 tracks now hardwired.

7

cool - glad it’s useful @dchild_1982

how many ‘playback’ tracks you use, is really just a function of how many spare tracks you have.
whats great about the octatrack is within one projects (say on different banks (or parts), you could have setup where you are capturing loops/layers … so dedicate more tracks for ‘playback tracks’,
then have another bank, which have none… since you’ve moved more on to using what you have captured.

@Schnork thanks - Intellijel Plonk and Mutable Instruments Ring
I had planned to setup some nice sequences and sounds for demonstration purposes…
but I timed out… as it took so long for me to find a way to get the camera into a good position for the OT, and then getting audio - arghhh… so just did it on the fly - need to get that ‘sorted out’ !!

I do love the modular + OT combo, they really play to each others strengths, and tackle each others ‘weaknesses’ - hope to share more of my explorations (with some music next time!) once I sort out the camera/audio issues.

1 Like
8

And those lovely hats? Plonk?

OT + modular is such a huge playground :innocent:

1 Like
9

Yeah, Plonk…

Plonk is really great… its a clever design,
its got presets, so you can quickly pull things up to use,
but the 3 main pots / cv then change the character.
then if you want to go deeper, you can easily pull up one of the menus. (then save as preset)

initially, you get a bit bewildered by number of parameters, but doesn’t take long to find your way around since they are nicely grouped.

for is functionality, its really small too.

yeah… I think in some ways they follow similar ideals…
a kind of playful / hands on approach to audio - that constantly makes you ask ‘what if… ?’

but the OT brings so much ‘practicality’ to modular… meaning you don’t need a huge rack.
percussion / sample playback on the OT, midi sequencing.

also, whilst modular is very much about now being in the moment,
the OT allows you to ‘save’ things, so you can work/play with them later.

Ive been playing a lot recently with granular (e.g QuBit Nebulae) and I need samples for that…
so having the OT on hand to capture things that I later might use for this is very useful.

sure a laptop could do all of this too, but the OT keep things ‘in the present’

1 Like