What Elektron companion?

Listen to all the other suggestions, I just like OT because it doesn’t just add something to what you have going on (although you can use it that way), it can take what you have going on, multiply it, fold it unto itself, spit it through a wormhole, and come out as a fractalized morphogenic matrix of sound… :smile:

3 Likes

How you decided which Elektron you’re planning on going with?

It sounds like you’re covered as far as synthesis goes- so the OT might be harmonious for your set up.

One thing you could do is imitate poly from your o-coast by live sampling it’s feed into the OT- and have that feed into three tracks and adjust the pitch of each of them- given the small intervals, I doubt it would add too many artifacts. You could also use it as an FX processor for both of your machines(it also has the best midi sequencer of available Elektron machines)

a4 and digitone are a bit redundant to preenfm2. what youre missing is a sequencer and a sampler. sampler is important to ocoast, because it cant save presets.

so its either digitakt or octatrack

digitakt is easier to learn and cheaper, but can only do monosamples, has no songmode and no timestretching, but is a nice compagnion to a daw

ot is much more complex, can do songs, stereo and timestretching and cost twice as much.

1 Like

Also, you can’t control audio pass through. This is the biggest flaw to the Digitakt. The inputs of the machine are pretty much exclusively for sampling- you can’t just run audio through it and sample a particular thing- if you do, then it’s going to be light in the mix

well audiopassthrough is just mono, but it works. its great to run a ocoast through it.

True as well, you just can’t control the volume of the inputs in accordance with everything else. I suppose something small like the O-Coast wouldn’t be much of an inconvenience- I dunno it’s just frustrating to me

Spoiled I suppose

just turn the volume knob if the ocoast or any other synth that runs through it to fit

Yep, external sound processing on the A4 is amazing.

External signal processing on the A4 can go as deep as you want. You can select IN-L or IN-R as source of the oscillators (instead of the standard waveforms) and go from there.

You can process the incoming signal mono by assigning only one side to an oscillator. You can process the signal stereo by assigning OSC1 to IN-L and OSC2 to IN-R. Or you can even go really wild by assigning the inputs to the oscillators of multiple tracks and processing them differently in parallel.

It’s just a matter of imagination (or happy accidents) what you can do to a signal running through the A4.

Update:

Removed a quote from @Ryan, because I’m not able to read correctly :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Sorry to correct you here but I was saying processing on the DN isn’t as deep as the A4 :wink:

3 Likes

You described the OT as it would be just another sampler, but in my opinion the real differences are in its performance features, like:

  • live sampling and looping
  • mixing 4 input channels with its own sounds
  • hours-long stem replay from CF-card
  • much more and more flexible FX (not just send FX, but 2 separate FX units for each track)
  • 3 LFOs per track
  • crossfader with excellent scenes support
  • slices

And much more. It is also not limited to 1GB of content, but 64GB on replaceable CF-cards with an hassle-free file transfer by drag-and-drop via USB drive mode.

3 Likes

Sorry for that (updated my reply). It seems I’m still not completely awake :wink:

3 Likes

A lot of folks seem to completely miss, ignore, or just utilize a sliver of the OT’s main thing it’s got going, the recorder tracks and playback buffer paradigm, the reason it was created…

Folks tend to use it in the same regard as a more traditional sampler, which it was not really designed for. OT has other things in mind that it really excels at and nothing else does…

4 Likes

All good, I can see how it could be vague.

Also, I’ve been up for 5 hours and am still o my at about 60%

2 Likes

Thank you for your replies guys! It seem that OT is the way! A very long way I guess :joy:

1 Like

It’s only as deep as you need it to be. It can do surface level stuff pretty simply and the more advanced elements are there if you ever need them.

Scenes with your gear is going to be awesome though! You’re going to be very happy with your decision :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

I guess I’m somewhat of an Octatrack fanatic, I get riled up and start preaching OT… It’s a fantastic box but the other ones are flippin great too! I feel I have to repeatedly give warning that to some folks it confuses the smack out of them and they dont really like it, it takes some work to handle. It’s super geeky really but also can be a very playable instrument, you got to put a lot of effort and build a project that makes it a playable instrument, it’s different in that regard. You don’t just start a new project and let it rip, you design your own custom approach over quite some time and then you can rip on that in all sorts of ways. Look into it, I try not to do any convincing toward people to get an OT, I love it, others feel drastically different…
(It does f**king rock though… :joy:)

2 Likes

I mean, all the pre-Heat machines were pretty geeky too.

The Analog Four can also be really difficult to get the hang of as well(especially if you have an aversion to presets and established kits)

And the silver boxes, while awesome were SUPER difficult to navigate.

The Octatrack is the most liberating (pre digi) box. I’m still a bit sad that you’re limited to 4 kits per 16 patterns though(but everything you GET with those 4 kits though- phew!)

2 Likes

It has liberated my music in many ways, after months of adopting to and learning its ways, the more you put in the more you get out, it’s like that… :slight_smile:

I don’t talk about it nearly as much but I also completely love the Rytm, I think its frickin outrageously awesome and definitely more of a streamlined approach than Octatrack, but in a really good way. I think I’d probably love all the Elektron boxes of I had them, only ever touched OT and AR… Call me a fanboy I don’t care, I’m definitely an Elektron fan these boxes just groove and the amount of absurd modulation easily available is ridiculous, I got them to sound less like a boxy repetitive robot, love the scenes and performance features for quick switch ups then bam, back in the groove… :smiley:

2 Likes

yes of course, ot can do everything but a cappuccino. As Im not playing any live sets I do all this arranging and mixing in a daw, because its more flexible and has a larger screen. for getting Ideas and melodies down, I combine modular gear with a digitakt. its capabilities are enough for this purpose and i can transfer everything to a daw later. The point is when I use my ot, I always have to look in the manual to remember certain button combinations. This is because I dont work with it every day and forget details when working with other gear.

The ot is kind of a jealous partner: it gets a bit angry when it doesnt get enough attention.

you should get a job on one of those $ex hotlines…

caller: talk dirty to me.

open mike: You have 8 recorder tracks that can do sequenced recording and realtime warped playback. On any step of the recorder tracks you can have the recorders sample the inputs or tracks, and some other options. Any of the 8 play tracks can play any of those recordings on any step. You make patterns with placeholders of the not yet made recordings and as you sample they populate in realtime.

:joy:

4 Likes