Your "Eureka!" moment (OT edition)

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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There seem to be more new people around the (new) old Elektron forums than any time since I’ve been an Elektron-User-Whoops. I mean, Elektronaut!

After some qubbling on the A4 boards, I figured now is a great time to share the moment(s) that you said to yourself “well, all the time and energy really paid off!”. I suppose specifically, the question for today is:

Can you remember the moment you felt like you were using the Octatrack to it’s fullest potential?

For me it was only about 1 month ago. The OT is so deep and so fun and has so many uses, I kept getting sidetracked working, in-depth, on one at a time (Live vocal/sample recording, MIDI, Sample manipulation/remixing, etc.). During all this time, I always wanted to try resampling and bouncing percussion tracks down, as I hate using drum loops unless I use them to vary the percussion on my track with a different swing than my percussion track. Problem was 4 tracks of the OT were being hogged up by this, and I always knew the solution, but for whatever reason, never ended up following through and trying it.

I was about 78.4% sure it involved the MIDI button and the track trick being pressed together in some order to arm the recording and setting the recorder to pick up on the main outs. But I always got distracted whenever I got the notion to try.

Well, after 5 months (now 6), I had my Eureka moment the first time I actually sat down to try it. I fumbled around with the MIDI button and the recorder for a while, finally recording an air-tight 2 bar drum loop from 4 tracks. I then had the bright Idea to use scenes to mod up the pattern and record a bunch of 32 step variations. With pride, I actually took the time to thoughtfully label them along with their BPM for future use.

Unsatisfied with just 2 of them able to run on my sequence, I went into slots mode with 4 shiny green drum patterns waiting for the OT’s kinda "meh: pad-sampler imitation. Oh, how wrong I was. The resolution of the trigs and the sequncer allows for some pretty decent finger trigging, and some insane patterns straight outta (Compton) my dreams if you’re using a collection of samples YOU MADE to compliment eachother. From there I kept playing with scenes and the recorder bouncing around in 2 track quadrants using sa second track to bring in other elements pulling off some convincing transitions with some wide filtering/EQ and other FX. Before I knew it I was blowing through old and forgotten projects and brething new life into them, pulling samples for later use and digging up some forgotten projects with potentual. By the time I looked at a clock it was close to 3 AM and 4 hours spent lost in the OT, challengng myself with more and more obscure or sync-resistant samples from folders I seldom open. It was pure sampling bliss and the true power of the OT in the right hands became clear: 2 tracks+scenes+pattern banks+the arranger are enough to create an entire, professional sounding song. No more careless trig placements and shot in the dark percussion for me. I’m in OT heaven!

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Awesome!

One of the greatest moments that I personally had was limiting myself to one pattern and using scenes to make the changes in the song. While obviously this isn’t conducive for everyday song writing, it made for a fun jam in which I learned quite a bit about the power of scenes.

Would recommend for anyone to try.

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still waiting for my eureka moment :expressionless:

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As bandersong says :“One of the greatest moments that I personally had was limiting myself to one pattern and using scenes to make the changes in the song. While obviously this isn’t conducive for everyday song writing, it made for a fun jam in which I learned quite a bit about the power of scenes.”

I wholeheartedly agree, try jamming on just one pattern (8 tracks) and 4 parts. This is the best hands on knowledge you can gain with learning how scenes work; I use this technique in conjunction with a zero mII. Quick tip for crossfader control: on the novation sl you have all those LED buttons, what I do is assign the sweet spot position of the cross fader to an on/off LED button. Its like use mute scene but more efficient

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As the others just said, it’s probably a good idea to spend a few weeks just working with scenes and figuring out how to create tons of variation with a short sequence, parts and scenes. Start simply with 2 scenes and mess with the playback page only. Start with volume (4 tracks scene A volume MAX and Scene B volume MIN an vice versa) and spend some time literally crossfading. Then timestretching (rate). Then Rtrig (with -Rate it ends up being great for drums).

Then figure out how very small movements of the fader can produce very distinct variations and keep doing small tweaks to your value differential in the parameters from one side to the other until you can confidently reproduce the same variations at will.

Then keep moving down the pages and keep trying different values on one side or the other.

Then figure out the workfow for switching scenes (by holding a scene button and pressing an empty scene trig, giving that new scene values and switching back to the first one, then having 3 possible value differentials. Then 4, then 5, then…

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I think my Eureka moment was before I even had the OT, I was just browsing the manual and realized it would let me replace my laptop for live sets. I wasn’t really interested in it for writing songs, but for performing them it’s perfect.

Now that I’ve had it couple years and I’m seeing more ways that other people are using it (cough Dataline cough), I’m going back and relearning it from scratch to see if there’s some other way of using it live that resonates with me too.

As a loop playback and manipulation device I have it down, but for real time resampling and general messing with, I think I have a lot to learn still. Very deep machine, so many ways it can be configured for everyone’s own uses.

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When I started using sound locks. Things just started to click after that. I started banging out short tracks. Good stuff

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sound locks?

Yesterday felt like a eureka moment for me, although I am sure the real moment has yet to come. I was making a short track to put up on youtube, and I decided to keep everything simple and got my patterns working and used my x fader to move between my patterns, making outboard effects tweaks, it felt like performing even though I was doing very little compared to some other OT videos I’ve seen. Still a long way to go but it felt nice to make a simple track like that.

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I haven’t had the gigantic eureka moment that I expect to come but I’ve had a lot of smaller ones:

  1. Sequencing midi hardware (having never done it before even with my DAW)
  2. Farting around with slices and pitches of some vocal samples
  3. I could never recreate this but I took a sample, blindly twiddled stuff in the LFO’s, assigned something to the crossfader and it sounds amazing!
  4. Realising that 8 tracks is a limitation I could really do with for creativity
  5. Linking patterns together for the first time
  6. Playing around with p-locks and various trigger modes

All of the above is pretty simple stuff but Ive been slowly uncovering the Octatracks potential since I picked it up 2 months ago. I still have my doubts that it is for me but they are fading. Bottom line is that I know 100% Id regret selling it and Im knocking out half ideas every evening I sit down with it which is no bad thing.

Limiting myself to one sample pack and trying to come up with as many ditties as possible was one of the finest pieces of advice I’ve had!

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My eureka moments were pretty much the ones listed above! Plus:

Figuring out how to use LFO’s to change the sample slice number, and then creating sample chains (64s) with subtle variations that are played in a different order randomly as spot fx.

Figuring out how to make those 16 slot x 64 sample multi breakbeat things I’ve posted about on here

Finally getting my head around using cue to sample to SRC3 live on the fly. Next level stuff!

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As the others just said, it’s probably a good idea to spend a few weeks just working with scenes and figuring out how to create tons of variation with a short sequence, parts and scenes. Start simply with 2 scenes and mess with the playback page only. Start with volume (4 tracks scene A volume MAX and Scene B volume MIN an vice versa) and spend some time literally crossfading. Then timestretching (rate). Then Rtrig (with -Rate it ends up being great for drums).

Then figure out how very small movements of the fader can produce very distinct variations and keep doing small tweaks to your value differential in the parameters from one side to the other until you can confidently reproduce the same variations at will.

Then keep moving down the pages and keep trying different values on one side or the other.

Then figure out the workfow for switching scenes (by holding a scene button and pressing an empty scene trig, giving that new scene values and switching back to the first one, then having 3 possible value differentials. Then 4, then 5, then…
[/quote]

thanks for the advice Ryan. I do need to spend more time working with the OT. And that is a good methodical approach.

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When someone pointed out to me the idea of creating sample chains and using slices. Did not occur to me. Simple but was a total game changer.

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I totally agree about using the sample packs to explore some of the functionality of the machine. I started picking at the OT a several months ago but the point where it started to click was after purchasing one of the packs. Since then the pace of understanding has increased. I still don’t get a lot of the features and functions. It is definitely a hard instrument to learn as the terminology is very specific to it and really requires associating the terms with function, through experience.

What originally attracted me to the OT was the Midi sequencing potential, making it a hub to pull several synths together. I haven’t reached that point yet due to the creative depths using samples alone. This machine has definitely opened up my mind to the creative possiblities of resampling and performing genuinely interesting pattern based music live. You can push a lot of boundaries and be quite challenging musically.

I have my first gig in a couple of weeks time. Kind of nervous about it but I know my OT won’t let me down!

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Sample chains are definitely a game changer, been using those for the first time the last couple of weeks, really opens up a lot of fun possibilities.

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One of these moments was …

Sequencing my synth and got not the right variations. So recorded a 4 bar loop. Sliced it and assigned the trigs randomly. You can hit random assign trigs an with two clicks on “Yes” there are fulminating infinite variations

Eureka!

… and I think more such things will happen over time

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A selection of OT eureka moments:

Reading the original Octatrack specifications. After using the Machinedrum’s sampler for years, I knew this was going to be a revolution.

The first day with the unit, most of which I livecasted. Did some great videos of pitch and time stretching that night. So fun.

Competing in the 2013 Miltown Beatdown with the OT.

Playing a live DJ set at an anime convention for hundreds of people with zero prep. Never feeling nervous or wondering how to handle it. 90 min of original material on the fly, followed by a live remix of the cha-cha slide/RHPS TimeWarp. So. Much. Jumping. Awesome cosplay too :smiley:

The ridiculous material I am creating for the 2014 Miltown Beatdown. Any musical idea you have… you can just do.

I love this thing so much.

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I’d have to say scenes and the crossfader. The OT brings a tactile dimension to making music that I’ve missed. I haven’t owned anything that compares in this regard - the MPC1000 was, for instance and IMO, much less live performance friendly in terms of manipulating FX, sounds and patterns.

As a result of all the control, when I record my own stuff, from either OP-1 or OT, I tend to ‘live perform’ the recording. With previous setups I used to tweak everything to perfection and then just hit record and sit back. The new way is much more rewarding and fun.

Places that are likely to yield Eurekas in the future:
-Really getting my (internal) sampling chops together
-IF I can do it, getting my head around manipulating single cycle waves
-Figuring out some good way to create variations in a way that flows well (I think one shots combined with duplicating patterns is probably it)

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My Eureka moment was that last week-end.

By reading this thread, I finally understood what really are Parts and what they can really offer to me.

This, combined with two Pickup machines, two Flex machines that record the Pickup machines, the transition trick between the live sound and the recorded sound + OP-1 + Bowen Solaris + Space reverb on CUE OUTS… that’s gorgeous, that’s awesome, that’s beautiful.

I thank you all guys, for sharing your knowledge.

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I finally worked out what a sample lock meant last night. trig + up key. The final piece of the jigsaw… Amazing

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Nice! Yeah you can stretch a single project out for hours of you slice your samples tight and stick to the “Mixed in Key” color wheel thing whenever possible to avoid those awkward moments during transitions (either between projects or parts) where two samples are time-synced but sound awful when played side by side.