Upgrade from a boss RC-505?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello,

I own currently a boss RC-505 and i’m looking at the octatrack as an upgrade.
I wonder what i can get from the OT that i couldn’t get from the RC-505.
For those who aren’t familiar with the RC-505, i will sum it up its features :

  • 5 tracks recorder per pattern
  • Time-stretching
  • Reverse
  • 1 input effect at once to choose from 21 (delay, reverb, transpose, chorus, flanger, slicer, octaver, vocoder, HPF, LPF, EQ, dynamics, Lo-fi, etc…)
  • 1 track effect at once for tracks (of course you can select which track should have the effect and not) to choose from 25 (same as input effects + rolling on some beat repeat, beat shift, beat scatter and vynil flick).
  • You get many extra classic drums patterns pre-recorded for every musical genres and you can edit them a little
  • You can have 99 patterns (beats) saved
  • tempo sync with external gears
  • can be used as an audio interface and as a storage usb device
  • 1 mic preamp + 2 balanced line inputs.

Now i know the RC-505 can’t do that from the OT :

  • midi sequence external gears
  • 3 more tracks in the OT
  • probably more effects at once for each track

Anything else ?

I’m interested to know how much you can edit the samples with the OT. Everyone seems to praise the unit for this and i 100% believe it but what exactly does it do more than the RC-505?

Thanks for your answers

Locking PM Looper Tempo
#2

Nobody thinks getting an OT is a smart move ? awww…

#3

I think that boss looper looks nice…I’m thinking of getting one to pair with my A4. I think the OT work flow is gonna be slow and complicated compared to the boss. I’m curios how good the midi is with it and also kinda sucky the boss is 16 bit quality…I think the OT may have better sound quality then.

#4

Mate!
I have both these units, whatever you do keep the RC and get the OT too!
The OT is so far removed from the RC that you shouldn’t even be seeing them in the same area. OT will mangle your samples and tracks to hell and back, all the crazy loops you make on the RC can be dropped into the OT for use and performing on the OT whilst recording into the RC is a great way to make complete tracks (set your RC track to unspecified length). Having a mic also makes it easy to get some claps, for example, in your particular space (custom reverb!) into the OT from the RC.
Honestly man you should go for it, I really like using my other gear to make heavily layered loops and then use the beat repeat/stutter fx to find odd loops to sample into the OT, then remash and record back again.

PS, I love that with the RC you can record the beat repeat/shuffle and vinyl fx into a pre-recorded loop, also I use it as a kind of looper within a longer loop as you can record on a track just to that segment while it repeats!

Get an OT
Keep the RC

2 Likes
#5

Niiiice! Thanks a lot that’s the answer i wanted !

#6

Thread Hi-jack… sorry:(
But I have an RC 505 question. I’m looking at making live acid techno… and one of the things I would want to do is record live vocal loops with the RC 505, so long as I can specify the number of beats in the loop. Do you know if this is possible? At them moment I’m making the music I want, but I need to pre-record the vocal snippets and mangle them in the machinedrum.
The RC 505 looks like it might be able to do this, but finding definitive specs is hard.
Thanks,
Sorry for the hi-jack… but what Beardy says… get the OT:)

#7

Yes you can set as many measures you want.

#8

Just to chime in.
I was thinking today of getting a looper for my Octatrack!(sounds crazy I know) and the first thing that came to mind was the RC-505!
There are various ways to transition between tracks in the octa (crossfader transition and part method come to mind.
Both work but eat up tracks or a part and aren’t truly ideal, although great tricks.
Anyways I don’t think I will end up buying a looper, and try to work more with working in the Octa.
If you end up getting both, would love if you chimed back with some feedback.

#9

Thank you:)

#10

Yeah i plan to buy an octatrack this year, not sure exactly when. I guess it will be cool, with a tempest and the RC-505.

#11

It sounds like there is a bit of overlap in features. OT has 24 bit support although recording and playback in 24 bit needs to be turned on in the settings as it chews up more RAM. Hasn’t been an issue for me yet so I just keep it on.

A few other things not mentioned would be scenes, sample switches using parts, and the sequencer.

I’m not sure about your work flow but something I didn’t expect when buying my OT was how I can use projects to organize and control my song structure. I really didn’t need the MIDI tracks because I already had an MD UW which I was sequencing other gear just fine with.

When you load up a new project you have:

• 16 banks
• 8 arrangements.
• 128 Flex sample slots and their associated Flex samples.
• 128 Static sample slots and their associated Static samples.
• 8 track recorders and their recorder buffers.

Each bank contains:

• 16 patterns.
• 4 parts.

These patterns can be chained within a bank to make some tracks long and elaborate while other tracks can keep a simple 1 or 2 or however many measures (patterns) you need. (Remember to turn on per track pattern chaining and per track pattern length before starting your work. It is a PITA to correct later).

Each part contains:
• Information about which machines are assigned to the tracks.
• Information about which Flex and Static samples are assigned to the machines.
• Track effects assignments.
• Track parameter settings.
• 16 scenes.

So when people say you pay for the Elektron sequencer, this is why. With proper planning you can get all of these features to make very elaborate compositions. There is a brief delay in changing projects though so this doesn’t work too well for a continuous set but in a per song, studio environment it is a god send (for me at least). And the only limit to projects is how big the CF card is. Each project takes about 20MB’s and then you can have the samples used copied to the project folder from the settings, so 20MB’s + used samples.

TL:DR
If you just want some more tracks and an audio editor but have no use for sequencing then don’t bother with the OT. If deep sequencing and some time in the studio is something you don’t mind and you lack a good sequencer then get the OT.

1 Like
#12

The OT lets me do something I haven’t seen in other loopers: Record an initial loop, and then time-stretch preexisting samples so that they play in sync with the initial loop without changing pitch.

On the other hand, dedicated loopers such as the RC-505 have features such as undo that the Octatrack lacks.

#13

I’m back to this thread as i can say i have an octatrack making its way to my studio now! I should have it in a few days.

I still have the Boss RC-505, which i still think is nice. Here’s my live setup and how i plan to use :

Ipad into a DSI Pro-2.
Pro-2 into Octatrack
Tempest into Octatrack.
Octatrack into Boss RC-505.

The RC-505 will be a recorder and a master effect box.

#14

Did you tried them together ?
What is your workflow now ?
I have a Octatrack since a few weeks and I had a Rc50 and 2 Rc300.
I think I will buy a Rc505 or another loop station to loop easily and modify it with the Octatrack.

#15

how are the new boss loopers in slave sync? i’ve heard there were some major problems in the past getting the loops to sync properly. that held me off from getting one.

#16

The OT’s looper (pickup machine) has much less recording time. RC-505 has a max recording time of approx. 3 hours in stereo. The OT doesn’t come anywhere close. It can play back audio files from the CF card up to the maximum memory the card allows, but it cannot sample directly into the CF card.

Yes, you get 2 FX per track. You can chain tracks together for additional FX by using neighbor machines. You get one machine per track.

I am currently using my OT as my only looping device but I work with fairly short loops - well under the 16 sec. default recording time (this can be increased but at the expense of RAM for flex machines -where most of the fun is on the OT).

I agree with the others about keeping the Boss for sampling/looping longer audio files and using the OT to grab audio from the Boss for mangling, or for breaks/drops, pseudo-scratching, etc.

#17

Yes, I’m desperate to know how well these slave sync as well. That is the only issue that kept me from buying an RC505.

#18

Hello, the Boss RC-505 will slave sync just fine to a master clock. You can set your scales as well, if your using something other than 4/4 such as 3/4 etc… You can pre-set the lengths of your loops, so I usually have a template with 8 step, 16 step x 2 & 32 step x 2… this usually works out well for me for most of my tracks.

I have a question regarding one of the posts above… I do not know how you are using the Boss RC-505 as the master effects box (last chain before going to the mixer or audio interface). In order to get any sound out of the RC-505, you have to be in record mode and record a loop. Is there a way to bypass this? If not, and your looking for an effects box, I would have thought the OT would be a better fit for this.

Anyway… yes to the tempo sync, not sure regarding processing an external signal with the effects (without actually recording a loop).

L8r,
Mike

#19

Oh… and one more thing, the RC-505 will stretch each loop to tempo match… quite handy actually, and I’m surprised they didn’t market this feature.

#20

This track isn’t my proudest moment, but shows the RC-505 sync quite well. For this track there’s a short 8 step vocal loop and after the break I introduce a 16 step vocal loop. They stay in sync perfectly… for this track, the TR-8 is the master clock… since the elecktron stuff is rock solid midi (at least with my MD & A4) I don’t anticipate there being any sync issues what-so-ever.
Regards,
Mike