I’m in a similar situation. I went solo around 6 years ago and am very happy with that move. I’ve done a lot of live looping as well as stems played back with Ableton/Push. I’m in the process of designing an Octatrack centered show involving stems and live looping/singing. I did break my stems into 4, 8 and 16 bar sections so I could vamp on any section or even change the arrangement. I want every show to be slightly different. I’m keeping the stems as bare bones as I can and playing the other parts live. I did end up using the arranger because like you I want to store the bpm per song. I have the rows that I might want to vamp on set to 64. Some rows I have set to change automatically because I know my hands/brain will be preoccupied. I’m still in the process of setting up transitions and scene effects to add something fluid and possibly unexpected to each performance.
This way of approaching the Octatrack seems very fun to me, and I wish the way I wrote songs kind of fit this workflow.
But when I have a song, that’s it. That’s the structure. If the verse is 18 bars long, it will always be 18 bars long no matter what and I don’t want it to be fluid. Like I’ve said though, intros/outros/transitions are a different thing–those can be fluid and I’m having a lot of fun playing with what I get out of those.
I hear ya. I’ll be honest my songs are pretty structured and I usually do stick to that structure. However if I want to vibe longer on a chorus or intro or something I have it set up so I can.
This thread got me started trying to get some stems going.
Started off finding sections of my track that sort of fit into 4 bar loops, bouncing those down to audio and then trimming some of the fat in order to use fewer patterns. Right now im just loading up each file into static machines with sample locks, I feel like I maybe run into some issues here but it’s working out okay so far. It sure is nice to get some hands on control of this stuff!
It’s been a huge hassle/learning experience since the stuff im working with isn’t really in time or quantized, had to really get my warping chops up. Plus the the added abstraction of using extended sample locks has kind of got my head spinning.
I now realize I would like to he able to real time sample my own voice and play it back and mangle it. Here’s the mixer I have
I’m thinking I need another little mixer that I plug my microphone into. Then, the L output goes into an input on the octatrack and the R output goes into the input on my yamaha mixer. Does this sound reasonable? I would like for this little mixer to have an fx send of some sort in case I want to play with delay pedals and such. Any recommendations?
Also side note this mixer confuses me. It has an FX send but no return. Anyone know how that works?
Or you could just get a mic pre amp and use your Octatrack instead of a seperate mixer?
Sounds like from what you want to do, that mixer in the photo may not meet your needs.
Personally, I would use a mixer that has an aux send, and a send return. That way you could route the mic channel down the aux to your OT for mangling, and use the send/return for pedals.
I think on your mixer you sacrifice a stereo input if you want to do send return stuff, or, soon as you plug something into the sends, it knocks out the onboard fx. I only guess at that since it has on board effects. They always screw you somewhere.
Got a good rec?
Using a preamp and having my mic go directly into the octatrack sounds like a headache I want to avoid.
Allen & Heath have lovely mic pres and gorgeous eqs.(thats what I have, a wee Zed 10)
Mackie VLZ have more features that you want, 2 effects sends, aux sends .
Either of those will do the job, both built to last. Both affordable.
So with the zed 10 I would send the mic out to the octa via the aux, and I would use the fx send on channel 1 (mic channel) to get delay/reverb in the mains? The signal going to the octa would be dry right?
Good question! I can try later if you like and get back to you. Unless someone chimes in first with the knowledge.
Yes please! Take your time. And tomorrow I’m gonna try some aux send stuff with my mixer and my octatrack. I think you’re right that I only get either on board fx or fx send which kinda sucks, but still.
A dream mixer would have both…
Ok mate I tried it on my zed 10.
I have the fx put going to a reverb pedal.
The reverb pedal comes back in to the playback input.
I have the Aux out going to the Octatrack.
I have one input on the mixer (DFAM)
I can get a dry aux signal through to the OT, and the fx send works as expected, but, for some reason I also hear the dry aux signal through the main mixer. Kind of like bleeding over the top. Im no expert with this mixer, and the manual is, sparse to say the least. So I’m left scratching my head at this point.
Really appreciate that. It seems that at this point the best option for me is to do what I said earlier: Get a tiny little mixer (or something equivalent) just for the microphone input, then take the L out into Octatrack and the R out into my Yamaha mixer (it’ll all be mono anyway, right?). Either that or invest in a really good mixer with dedicated aux and FX sends and all that good stuff, but money is tight right now.
Yes I concur.
I think with the zed 10 you either get send or aux as a return. Which is a bit silly to me, but then, its a budget mixer.
A little 2in 2out mixer with a mic pre will do what you want as cheap alternative to getting a mixer with full features.
Hey people, fairly New to the octatrack. If I got my track bounced down to 4 bar loops and loaded them up to the OT, how do I manage that the OT changes the samples when I go to another pattern ? My plan was to have a new 4bar loop every next pattern. I get the concept of parameter locks but what do I have to lock in this case? I couldn’t find a way to lock the sample choice in static machines…using mk1 btw
Sample lock.
Hold down a trig, turn the level knob… you will see the sample slot list pop up on the screen, select a sample, let go. Done.
Or… if you only fancy 4 changes, use parts.
Or… make sample chains and then use slice mode. (Saves slots)
Enjoy.
The reason why there is no special FX return on your mixer is that there is nothing special about a FX return. Every normal input channel can be used as FX return.
Don’t know if that helps, but I tried to describe the way I play some time ago. It’s also mainly playing back studio stems with some live remixing/resampling.
I use the arranger with maximum repeats per pattern to get something like ableton live scene launching.
In my later livesets, I tried to dissect the studio tracks even more and used 6 tracks for instruments + 1 resampling track + 1 master track.
I had the instrument tracks like : kick, rest of drums, bass, instruments1, instruments2, instruments3
Anyway, here was my description some years ago
Hope that helps
Thank you !!!
Can anyone elaborate which would be the best LUFS for individual stems? Obviously i gain staged in Abelton aswell - any idea how to approach it?