Upcoming band gig with my OT

Elektron Gear Octatrack
1

Hello there Elektronauts!

So, I’m having an upcoming gig with my band. It will be my first with them, they’ve had a few before, without keyboard player. Up until last rehearsal I’ve only played other keyboards, but always had the idea to incorporate the Octatrack, as an effects processor for vocals and keyboards, to livesample said inputs, to use the sequencer and play ‘live’, i.e. use the trig buttons. Well, I brought it and it all worked out surprisingly well, but I of course want to make the most of it, and be as well prepared as possible for the gig.

I’m still a bit of a newbie with the Octatrack (mk1 if that makes any difference), and like many others, I’ve created new projects for every song, until realising treating projects more like a set and banks like songs probably makes more sense. So according to the internet and this forum, it seems like I can copy banks/patterns to other projects, but I will have to load the samples again, as well as remake the effects for the tracks?

If I understand correctly, you can’t set tempo per bank (which would make most sense for me since every song has a different bpm), but instead there is a master BPM for the whole project, and then you can set specific BPMs for the patterns and arrangements? I also read that the BPM is a bit glitchy when changing banks, and a way to circumvent it is to make a bpm change by the end of the previous bank and then have the correct bpm ready for the next one?

As mentioned, the plan is to combine using the arranger, patterns and individual samples. The setup for the songs would be more or less like this:

T1: Thru track - vocals from input C
T2: Neighbour track
T3: Thru track - keyboard from input D
T4: Neighbour track
T5: Flex track
T6: Neighbour track
T7: Flex track
T8: Master track

T1 and T2 will use CUE hardpanned left to Output C
T3 and T4 will use CUE hardpanned right to Output D
T5-T7 will use MAIN to Output A+B

  • Song 1 (Bank E):
    Launch Arrangement 1
    Play live keyboards through T3+T4

  • Song 2 (Bank F):
    (Probably launch Arrangement 2, which will only contain one empty pattern, to establish BPM for next song and activate the Thru tracks)
    Launch one sample and fiddle with the crossfader
    Play live keyboards through T3+T4

  • Song 3 (Bank G)
    Launch Arrangement 3
    Launch a few individual samples
    Play live keyboards through T3+T4

  • Song 4 (Bank H)
    Launch Arrangement 4, vamping on every row
    (Possibly launch different patterns manually)

  • Song 5 (Bank A)
    (Probably launch Arrangement 5, which will only contain one empty pattern, to establish BPM for next song and activate the Thru tracks)
    Launch samples from T5-T7 using slice mode
    Play live keyboards through T3+T4

  • Song 6 (Bank B)
    Launch Arrangement 6 (vamping on first row before playing the rest of it)
    Play live keyboards through T3+T4

So, what I’m curious to hear your opinions on:

  1. Does this approach seem reasonable?
  2. The tracks that are most dependent on correct BPM are obviously the ones with arrangements and patterns playing (Song 1, 3, 4 and 6). For the sample in Song 2 bpm sync would be handy aswell, but it might be possible to sort this out with setting the LFOs manually, if no one has a better idea? Would the easiest and safest way to execute these tempo changes be to add a pattern with the next song’s BPM at the end of each arrangement?
  3. For Song 2, there is just one sample that I plan to launch and stop manually (it will go on for a while), I am thinking that the easiest way to do this is to launch it by pressing T5 + Play? I know there is also a Plays Free mode, but I don’t know if there are any advantages in using it?
  4. To activate the Thru tracks, I will either have to start playing them one by one, pressing Tx + Play, or start playing a sequence, right? If so, an arrangement for every song, even if just an empty pattern, would be the most practical way to activate them?
  5. It seems very easy to loop certain rows in Arranger, when there are no set amount of time a section should be played, and then just click the next row whenever the rest of the Arrangement should be played? For track 4, my first idea was to launch patterns manually (it’s 4 patterns) in Pattern mode, but I might aswell do it from the Arranger, with every row having its own Pattern, set to loop infinitely. Does that make sense?
  6. Anything else that doesn’t make sense? Any other tips and tricks? Or perhaps someone wants to share some experiences of using Octatrack in live band situations?

And also, a massive thanks for all support I have gotten already before joining the forum. It’s fascinating how often I want to achieve something with my OT, searching for it and finding a solution here, sometimes another solution and sometimes a “I never thought of it but I guess this way should work”.

Much love,
R2D2 (how was that name not taken?)

1 Like
2

Hello homeboy.
First of all, congrats on wanting to embrace the octatrack on its full potential. I feel the arranger specially (and pickup machines) gets neglected due its nature of many options available. But once you nailed down to your needs, it can really save you some headaches and available hands to handle some operations.

I cannot really confirm this is possible afaik, but you can totally save sample settings and having them available outside of the project you have made it. I am more of a one massive-master-project person, trying to work with banks as best as possible.

Personally haven’t had problems changing BPM, although I can see having issues when changing BPM related to effects carried over the transition, like having delays nor reverbs and not having such on the incoming part/pattern, same with effects implying change of volumen

Sounds right, the question is: would you have a free hand for it?

Couldn’t you just have them all with one trigger at the beggining of their pattern to open/trigger the playback? so you just push play to engage them all (?)

My questions/observations would be:

  • Do you really need different arrangements? the way you explained it, points out to different arrangements, when -I think- you can just have one main arrangement and have different looping points waiting for you to go for the next section. You can also always set the BPM you need accordingly to the section. One thing with this approach though would be nailing down the timming to hit the next section on time, depending on the length of the playing part and the repeats -if any-. This can totally duck up the timming.
  • In terms of playback, it concerns me the idea of changing arrangements, unless you don’t mind stopping between songs and having a silence
  • Being so BPM dependant in some parts as you mentioned, How are you planning to keep the rest of the band on time? would they need some sort of click?
  • Generally your approach makes sense, although sometimes I feel you would have to be 300% involved to not miss out some of your cues, there are a lot of “manual operations” as you described and considering yourself still a rookie with the machine, it could get very stressing very soon.
  • I would try to automatize things as much as possible, which is totally possible, but it would also require to have the rest of your band and yourself aligned to it.
3

Thanks so much! Yes, I think a lot of people, especially with a rock kind of background, has some kind of hesitation of how much you can “cheat” in a live situation. And my initial idea have been to create patterns for different parts of the songs, loop them, and then punch in the next and so forth. But these songs already have set structures (except for maybe some intro lengths), and for this gig specifically, there is an exact setlist with arrangement, so it just makes a lot more sense to use the arranger then.

Yes, noted from now onwards, I will stay in this project for songs belonging to this band :slight_smile:

Ok, yes I think I read something like that it could be because long samples/reverb tails are still playing. This really seem to be a bit of a “some people have had troubles, some haven’t, and we can’t really know why or how to prevent it”.

So I’ll be operating three instruments including the OT, but I have for this gig put limits on myself to stay on one at a time, so that hasn’t been a problem yet while trying it out, left hand on the T5+Play as well as Stop, and right hand on the crossfader :slight_smile:

Yeah, that was kind of the idea, but using Arranger instead of pattern. At least one the songs won’t have any patterns playing, so it would literally just be to engage the Thru tracks. The reason I was thinking to play it through the Arranger would be to kind of have a one arrangement per song idea. Even if one of the arrangement is just an empty bar.

Good questions! So the drummer always plays with a click, and most songs begins with a count-in from him. The click has been syncing exactly to the internal BPM of my Mininova before, and flawlessly with the Octatrack on the first try aswell. Long term, I might be in charge of the tempo and send a click to him with the Octatrack as master tempo, but for now I am basically pushing the play button as close to a downbeat as possible. What I am thinking here is that if I somehow miss a beat I have the option to scroll down to another section and set that beat better.

The potentially trickiest one is a song where the sequenced samples don’t play until quite a bit in to the song, meaning I will start the arrangement early on (to turn on the Thru machines) and then look at the flashing lights to see if it seems to be in sync, but not hearing it until it actually starts playing later on.

For this gig, we are planning to have quick transitions between most of the songs, but still with some space, and usually waiting for the drummers cue. Because of this, I think the one-big-arrangement concept might not work, since that would mean the loop point in the Arranger between the songs would have a bpm that (for now) the drummer wouldn’t hear.

The only actual transition that shouldn’t have any silence would be between song 5 and 6, and for song 5 I won’t use any sequencing or patterns until the end, basically starting song 6 by then.

Massive thanks for the input, and yes I do hear you. It does feel a bit overwhelming, especially for a first-time-live situation. In fairness I am not really planning to enjoy this, more just do the job as clean as possible. I hope I will be treated as a regular keyboardist and placed in some dark corner where noone will see me :smiley:

Regarding manual operations and so forth, I am very well aware of that, and a lot of the things I had planned to do from start has been totally scratched. For example, I’ll just play one instrument at a time, even if technically I would sometimes have a free hand to play another instrument. I will use the scene crossfader, but just moving between A and B, without changing them.

Most of the songs we will play were written and arranged before me, and the rest of the guys do a great job creating a nice wall of sound, so a lot of times not playing anything at all is not an issue. So I keep reminding myself that less is more.

I have also up until just recently played on other instruments than the OT, so if for some reason the OT (or my brain) breaks down, I can just leave it. I know the songs well enough on my other instruments, so I’m trying to use the OT just in cases where it can play something that felt like it was missing and couldn’t be recreated otherwise, or in cases where it actually makes it easier (more automated) for me.

Really appreciate all the input! Might feel a bit calmer now actually :upside_down_face: