Yeah, unfortunately, finally realized I don’t at all gel with the Rytm (had the same sort of experience with the DT) I tried so many times. Still enjoy the AK for certain things.
And yeah, was just using a Machinedrum of my friends, and you are so right about the MD and OT lineage.
It’s strange how with elektron machines the workflows are all very similar, but there are little differences that can throw me off.
Did you expect the learning curve and accept it when you bought it? If so, stick with it. You’re second guessing because you’re at the worst part of the learning process. You’ll look back in 6 months and be glad you have super powers. Intuitiveness is overrated and must be sacrificed at some point for power (and OT is plenty intuitive in many of the ways it can be).
If you just bought it for stereo then perhaps it’s not worth the time to learn.
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There’s so many ways to use the OT. You absolutely don’t have to “master” it to use it effectively, on the contrary I would try to think what you actually want it to do, or more specifically what functionality is missing from your setup, and then set your OT up according to your needs.
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I think my next attempt at accommodating the OT will be with my AR and A4… I can pretty much leave it fixed in that role as a mixer and hopefully ease myself into it.
Risky. The temptation to do transition tricks may overwhelm you. It’s a slippery slope from there.
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I use it mostly as a performance mixer & midi controller nowadays. All 4 inputs in use, use scenes for fade ins and outs and pickup machines for looping. Some FX here and there. I can’t even remember the last time I actually edited or mangled a sample. It works brilliantly as a performance mixer.
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Do you have anything without the Elektron sequencer, with maybe a simpler interface, so that you concentrate on the OT interface? That may help. When I first got mine, I would watch movies through my OT and practice sampling that way. Plugged my computers soundcard into the OT inputs, and sampled while I watched YouTube stuff, or podcasts, or whatever. Just to practice. I also spent my day and nights reading the Octatracks Tips and Tricks thread. I was obsessed.
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For July, I have packed away my Rytm and polysynth, so I could “focus” on the OT. I kept two monosynths out. My intention was to practice anything with the OT (and maybe the monosynths) once a day for a month, recording as much as I could organise myself to do. I’ve managed about half the days. Here’s tonight’s scribble. It makes me laugh:
The aim of today’s “lesson” was to play with the arpeggiator (and then wherever my nose lead me). Once the comb filter went on the synth line, the whole thing started asking for some drums. I recorded it using internal sampling.
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Thats where I’m most confident. The OT arp and my SH01a audio routed back into A&B is just funk first play. I think the arp on the OT is one of my top 5 things i love about the Octa.
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I’m reading and watching videos about OT and all are saying that is deep, limitless and with a steep learning curve.
But my question is: is steep to learn all the OT functions and use it professionally or is deep to just to get started?
Can I just load a bunch of samples and start recording the trigs like I do with the DT?
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There can be really small things that has me not vibing with a device. So I fully get the notion of “maybe it’s the small screen”
I’d say stick with it a bit more
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Almost. You’ll need to learn “enough” about Static and Flex machines, and the sample slots, sets, projects and the audio pool (so you can put the samples on, find them and use the right config to play them. It sounds worse than it is)… I don’t have a DT so I don’t know how much of that is similar on the DT.
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Wondering this same thing; thinking about an octatrack because I really love my DT, but I just want “more.” More effects, stereo samples, more modulation, more sequencing capability. The idea of parts and scenes also appeals a lot to me in terms of performance style arranging and finishing tracks quickly. I understand the DT will always be faster to get up and working, but just by how much? Is it just the extra steps of picking a machine, assigning samples to slots and assigning FX? Or does it involve more than that?
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If you’ve already used the Digitakt, it’s not that difficult to get up and running with the Octatrack. If anything, filling it with samples is easier, as you can just drag and drop them into files, as the OT is basically a card reader via USB.
The only thing you’ll need to get your head around is the sets/banks/patterns/parts structure, as it’s quite different to the Digitakt, in that each pattern on the Digitakt can have any samples from the sound pool in any sample track, but with the OT, track types and sample allocation is uniform across patterns (which is why parts exist, but you’ll pick it up pretty quickly).
The thing I’ve struggled with the most with my Octatrack is figuring out all 6.5 million different ways of recording stuff with it, but again, just getting sounds into it isn’t that difficult.
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I agree that it’s not that difficult as a sample player. The difficulty of OT is in áll the possibilities and how you set them all up. But if you just use it as a sample player, like a Digitakt, the only thing the learn is the kit structure and setting up flex/static. Will take a couple of minutes every time to set up a Kit, instead of almost immediate on the DT. Other than that you’ll be fine.
Only 4 parts for 16 patterns though.
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True, it’s probably the most annoying thing about the OT for me, but you get used to it.
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What are you doing in these minutes (compared to the DT)? For a basic setup (without configuring stuff the DT simply not has) there is not really a difference. The only additional steps are to decide if you want flex or static machines to use and (probably) turn timestretch off.
Or to you mean the DT’s functionality to re-use “complete” sounds?
Yeah I was wondering about this when I wrote it, but decided it rings true to me. What I’m meaning is that with Kits it takes some thinking usually to me:
- Do I work with a premade kit, for example also with a Thru track or two? Then make sure to copy it correct (and think about which version of the Kit you copy, i.e. not the one with all the edits in the fx/lfo pages). Plus then copy the Pattern over that has the right trigs in it to activate the Thru track.
- When I move on from a track and continue on a new pattern; I have to check if I’m not accidentally am still in the same Kit, so I don’t ruin the previous pattern with its Kit. Have I already used up all four Kits in the Bank?
Those kinds of things just take a little bit more thinking for me before getting going, then with just an empty or copied over DT pattern.
PS @tnussb But I guess you’re right that when sticking with the described situation of just sample player, it’s probably almost immediate
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With twice as many banks as on the DT (16 instead of 8) I simply start with a new bank which gets you automatically a new kit without any thinking involved.
Additional benefit: you always know where a new “song” starts (pattern 1 of a used bank).
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