Which is your favorite FX in the Octatrack?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Yo guys! When I’m playing around with the OT, I find I keep going back to same effects time and again to play with them, and some I barely touch at all. The phaser and the chorus doesn’t really work all that great for me, I find that even though I push them to the extremes, they barely influence the sound at all. I also tend to use the DJ Equalizer over the regular Equalizer, not quite sure why, just find it easier to use, I guess.

The Lo-Fi can be pretty allright, although I like it better in the Machinedrum, for some reason. I use the filter a lot, obviously, same with delay, and also the new spring reverb is pretty cool. The regular reverb is decent too, but nothing special compared to the reverb in the A4, for instance. The comb filter can be cool too, although it tends to end up sounding the same whatever type of sound you put it on.

All in all, I guess I wish there were even more better sounding effects. All of the effects in the A4 are incredibly good, in my opinion, but some of the Octatrack FX aren’t that great.

I’d love to have some sort of granular delay effect added at some point, I think the Maschine’s granular delay is pretty damn cool, for instance.

Which FX do you tend to use? Which do you like, and which don’t you like? And which effects would you like to see in future OS updates? :slight_smile:

List of Favourite Effect Settings for Octatrack
#2
  1. Dark Reverb
  2. Lo-Fi
  3. Comb Filter
  4. Spatializer
1 Like
#3

Like you… I am not overly impressed with the chorus and the flanger effects… especially not compared to the roland-fx i had over the years… but… happy days…
they didnt gel with whatever sample i chucked in until… I bought myself a stylophone (yeah 2,50pounds on carbootsale) and the difrence it makes… WOOOOOW
suddenly i enjoyed the chorus and the flanger and all that typo jazz…
I am sorry… i cant exactly explain what my stylophone does extra what makes it better…
option 1 : the stylophone only has headphones out
option 2: I did cut high and low freqs and boosted the mids with my mixboard
option 3: it does have a “noisy” output. so it could be the extra whitenoise that comes out

the good thing is… even if i just sampled it… it worked wonders…

anyways, back to your question, what i want… :
Is simple… whatever they can fit in the ot as an effect… i want. even if its a filter that “grannie-fies” my sounds by adding the sound of a 80year old granny that mumbles over my audio…

if i was king of the universe… I would love an envelope follower, like i have in renoise…
read a track as input, and twist and turn some other effect somewhere on the machine.
but then again… i am not the king… I havent even seen him on my machinedrum yet…
so i am not even a king-spotter :slight_smile:

#4

I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite FX on the Octatrack. I do use the Lo fi and delay a lot on drums and most melodic type stuff goes through the dark reverb.
I like the Parametric EQ a lot, It’s nice to get pulled away from EQing things visually or by numbers and being forced to do it by ear.
As far as the filter goes, having the low pass and high pass filters there together is great! I wish they had separate q controls, but I’ve found that in a live setting the linked resonance can be pretty useful.

#5

I always tend to go to (but in no particular order):

Lo-Fi
Filter
Delay
Dark Rev
Compressor

However, I do feel that even those are lacking in some parameter options I´d like to see. But I am quite spoiled by my Fractal Audios, and other pieces that got pretty much ALL parameters you could ever ask for and then some…

One thing that would be high on my wishlist regarding the effects in the OT:
Parametric EQ in second page of Lo-Fi and Compressor.

And a kind of mix function of neighbour tracks, so you can blend them better.

/Mike

#6

I think the FX on the octatrack are not it’s strongest point. To me, the filter sounds really good, the rest is a little average. The delay could use some modulation options (modding the time with an lfo is too extreme even on lowest settings). The reverbs got nicer with the latest update but they sometimes give the sound a little lofi quality (which can be nice in some cases).
And I don’t understand the chorus, it often ruins the sound with unintended phasing. A cheap multi-fx pedal usually yields way better results, like a zoom ms70.

#7

I love the dark reverb. On big synth lines from my mopho it sounds AMAZE BALLS. don’t really use a lot of the other effects. I should , I just dont. I would like to get an outboard reverb (like cathedral) so that I can add some delay and reverb and not have to use up my second fx channel.

#8

Delay and Dark Verb here get the most use. :slight_smile:

#9

filter
delay
dark verb
plate verb
spring verb
lofi
comb

in that order and never touch the others. Filter is the only one I really like. In fact, for recording, I turn off all FX other than the filter and replace with plugin versions. Especially disappointed with the phaser. Completely unusable. No big deal, though, that’s what outboard and plugins are for.

#10

filter or eq on FX1
delay or dark reverb on FX2

#11

Interesting to see, thanks for your replies! Not a lot of love for the phaser or the flanger. I think I need to make an experiment track and only use the effects that I rarely use, see what I can squeeze out. :slight_smile:

#12

filter or eq on FX1
delay or dark reverb on FX2

This. On all my tracks.

#13

The phaser doesn’t have a huge sweet spot, but I love phasers…and have gotten some cool sounds out of this one. This is a case where some fx tutorials or presets might help people new to the parameters.

#14

filter and delay ^^

#15

DjEq filter & dark rev

#16

Compressor. And Ägain Compressor

Lofi

Dark reverb

#17

I tend to use only the following:
Filter (almost on any sample)
Delay
Dark Reverb
Lo-Fi
Comb-Filter

As described by others, flanger, phaser and chorus seem to be a little “picky” and do best results only on certain samples/sounds.

I do love the sound of the dark reverb, but for shaping freqs the filter is just perfect most of the time

#18

The comb has been really lighting it up for me lately.

Standards:
Filter
Delay
Verbs
lofi

Eq and DJ Eq for sample prep

#19

[ol]
[li]filter[/li]
[li]lofi[/li]
[li]dark reverb[/li]
[li]delay[/li]
[li]comb filter[/li]
[li]other reverbs[/li]
[/ol]

i always try to use the phaser and/or flanger in my songs but nearly always i take them out after some minutes of parameter quirking, because to me (and it seems to many other users as well) these effects just don’t sound most of the time.

#20

Recently i am finding the delay a little unusable. its great for beat repeat but im having a hard time finding a tape delay setting i like. Need to tweak more.