OCTATRACK // uses / tips / tricks //

[kasselvania]

Barker (under his Voltec Labs) has posted a cool set of audio/midi files and a run through of how he uses his Octatrack in a live setting!

Octatrack Chord Chains — Voltek Labs

[noiserock]

This made alot of sense. Tried to get it up and running now but just ended up with a nasty feedback loop.

Current setup:

Guitar/mic/synth etc. > Field Kit > HX Stomp (with 2 FX loops for the rest of the pedals) > Octatrack input AB.

Octatrack cue out > Norns > Octatrack input CD

On the Octatrack:
Pickup machines for live looping inputs on track 1-4.
Flex Machines for further pickup buffer manipulation on track 5-6
Static Machine on track 7 for field recordings etc.
Thru Machine on track 8 for track CD monitoring.

The mixer is only monitoring input AB.

I want to be able to use the Norns on all tracks, and on the live AB input.

Any ideas on what I have done wrong?
Thanks again!

[cold_fashioned]

Oh - I guess I should have mentioned that you have to select “cue mutes track” in the Octatrack setup menu. That should help.

[dspk]

to use Norns on the AB input you’ll need to create a Thru track for the AB input so you can send it to the CUE output. (which is where the norns sits as i understand from your description).

Could you be sending track 7 to the CUE? this might cause feedback as that would mean the signal is going out to the norns and then back to it again?

[ezbot]

Easy Octatracking lesson. Make quantized loops quickly

Octatrack Workflow Tutorial: Recording Quantized Loops!

[cold_fashioned]

Whoa. There are a lot of good tips in here. Thanks for sharing. I think I have some other videos of yours saved for later viewing. I should probably do that soon, as well as follow your setup guide and create a template based on this setup. Cheers. Have you ever done any videos on gain staging in the OT or a breakdown of the compressor? The compressor is something that still confounds me after a couple years of using the OT.

[corpusjonsey]

What issues are you having with the gain and compressor?

[cold_fashioned]

I don’t have too many issues with gain settings anymore, apart from the fact that it seems like the OT outputs seem HOT (mk2). With the compressor, I just seem to struggle applying it smoothly. It seems to go from not doing much to compressing the shit out of the track (or master, if used there) to the point of distortion / clipping. I think I used to know how to set it moderately, but I forgot how after not using the OT for a little bit.

[dspk]

not sure if they’ve been recommended already but Max Marco’s OT tutorials are so excellent… quite different from the normal ‘this is how you loop and cut up a breakbeat’ stuff…

Octatrack: Compressor Detail, Master Track 'Oscilloscope'

[cold_fashioned]

Thanks - I’m a big fan. I think he did something for the compressor. I should revisit that (and all his other OT stuff).

[encephalitislethargi]

max marco is my favorite octatrack youtuber. he makes me think of it and use it more as a sound design tool. i really love the ping percussion synthesis techniques, comb filter karplus strong, conditional resampling, reverb artifacts. all of them. these are especially helpful and inspiring:

Octatrack Fake-outs: 'Live' Reversing and Re-pitching

Octatrack: Conditional Sampling, Audio Arpeggiation

[TomFoolery]

I could have sworn that I stumbled upon the tape simulation tutorial for the octatrack in this thread but it appears not!

The following video tutorial by Ran Levari outlines quite a fun sounding technique for tape like processing using the octatrack.

Octatrack Sound design Tutorial - Tape-Machine emulator patch

And, here is a demo that I made with some monomachine synths being fed in instead of drums.

"Saturate" // Elektron Octatrack tape simulation + monomachine ambient

[license]

I finally did a thing I’ve been thinking about for years, and set up a couple Faderfox templates for controlling current track delay time and retrigger time with buttons instead of knobs, so now I can instantly set it to 1 beat, 1.5 beats, 1/4th beat, etc.

For the more beat-driven stuff I tend to do with the Octatrack, this is a real game changer for me. Now I can precisely set a repeat length, flick delay volume and feedback up and send level down, and I have a super easy looper with the delay controls intact for dubby fun. No trigs, sequencer trickery, or scenes required. It’s kind of a cheap trick but is surprisingly fun and should help my rhythmic improvisations a lot.

I also set the tempo to 1/2 the perceived speed which means the delay and retriggers can go up to 1 bar.

Additionally, the OT can use incoming MIDI to set p-lock values, so this could be a sequencing aid as well.

[encephalitislethargi]

I’ve recently been trying to like reconfigure how I think about structuring things on the octatrack. And I guess the conversation usually comes back around to this anyway. But I was wondering if it would be smarter to think of loops as clips in ableton. I’m used to launching clips in session mode to form full compositions. I’m not sure what the best way to do that here would be. “Plays free” only works on 8 tracks, but if working with patterns, you can have like 32. I’m still not super proficient with those yet. Not that they are that complicated but I’ve been getting weird (probably user error) bugs when switching to a new part and back, where if I copy part 1 to 2, machines will be switched around.

So I’m thinking I should use banks more. But the big thing, is how to trigger “clips”. Any sample can be a loop as we know from the asynchronous loop conversation already discussed heavily here. But if we want to trigger them “sequencer or not” in a compositional manner, is it best to do that with slots, with slices, with static tracks, plays free tracks, triggering audio tracks? I’ve noticed that when I set a track to “plays free”, triggering it behaves in the same way no matter which trigger mode I set (one, one2, hold), which is maybe something I should revisit the Manual for. If I can figure that out, im curious about which method other people use for this kind of thing.

It seems like maybe the most powerful way to visualize this method, for more complex autechre-like stuff, would be to just use slots. And not really using one shots, but slowly building loops by resampling sequenced on shot patterns and saving those bounced loops. Then once you have those short loops, sample locking them into patterns like you would on an ableton timeline. So maybe that’s the best way for compositions. It seems very limited compared to ableton. That may be why most people use it for techno. But what would be the best way to trigger loops live in an intentional “launch” type technique?

I’ve asked similar things before but hopefully I’ve been a little more clear on what I’m asking here. I was looking at follow actions in ableton and it got me thinking about session mode. Maybe the deluge would be better suited for this type of workflow. Do you think that people use the octatrack more for shorter tracks or more focused parts of a larger composition? Sorry if this is redundant

Ableton Live Tutorial: Loop Variations w/ Follow Actions

[license]

@encephalitislethargi

“Plays free” only works on 8 tracks, but if working with patterns, you can have like 32.

I’m a little confused by this - there are 8 audio tracks and 8 MIDI tracks. Where are you getting 32 from?

@encephalitislethargi

But if we want to trigger them “sequencer or not” in a compositional manner, is it best to do that with slots, with slices, with static tracks, plays free tracks, triggering audio tracks?

I tend to use slices for most of my Octatrack stuff, as I find them to be a sweet spot of ease of use and modulation/lock friendliness, for my use cases anyway. That said, I don’t really “compose” as much as I prepare one-shot samples and then improvise rhythms. I generally avoid using loops on the Octatrack, which I acknowledge is maybe a bit odd.

When I trigger clips, it’s usually non-rhythmic stuff and I just trigger it with the track’s step button. But I think if I did want to trigger loops in time, I’d probably set that track to Plays Free with some kind of quantized trigger, and then plop down however many trigs I want - maybe just one at the beginning. I personally get bored with static loops, though, so I’d want to do something to mess with it pretty quickly.

One somewhat related trick I’ve been using more lately, and I spotted JakoJako doing this on YouTube, is to take a track that has a pretty sparse amount of events, like a slow pad, or a loop getting triggered every 4 beats or something, and set that track to play at 1/4 (or 1/2 or 1/8) speed. It ends up being pretty intuitive to have a step correspond to a beat. This has a couple of other benefits to me - obviously you can cram up to 64 beats into the track, but you can also cram 4 beats into a 4-step pattern, and then things like repeating hi hats become much easier to improvise with, especially using microtiming and trig conditions.

Also, depending on how long your loops are, you might look into the retriggering options as well. You only get up to 8 steps, but you can modulate the start and length, so it can be interesting to perform with or to build up complexity from a simpler sample. If you want to get really hacky, you can halve, or possibly even quarter, the perceived BPM to get what feels like 16 or 32 steps, respectively. For example, if you’re working at 120 BPM, instead change the clock to 60 BPM and then your 8-step retriggers are actually 16 steps. Of course, this breaks time stretching, but I almost never use it.

@encephalitislethargi

It seems like maybe the most powerful way to visualize this method, for more complex autechre-like stuff, would be to just use slots. And not really using one shots, but slowly building loops by resampling sequenced on shot patterns and saving those bounced loops. Then once you have those short loops, sample locking them into patterns like you would on an ableton timeline.

I’ve thought about this a bit, not with slots but with flex recorders. I haven’t managed to get a good flow with live sampling yet. It seems easier said than done. I do record stuff synced, but it usually ends up being samples of external hardware that I then turn into chains (slices).

@encephalitislethargi

Do you think that people use the octatrack more for shorter tracks or more focused parts of a larger composition?

I personally use it as an improvisational hub, for:

• Building drum patterns from one-shots
• Sequencing external hardware
• Processing all the above

I like the OT for how fluid it is - the boundaries are blurry, there is almost always more than one way to do something, and you can change things quickly. If it only played loops, garbage-in-garbage-out, I would have got bored of it years ago. Put simply, I’m fickle and the OT suits me.

[MaxMyriad]

I get what you’re saying with 8 audio tracks x 4 parts (no matter the typo) amounting to 32 different possibilities. With plays free mode it’s important to remember that it’s “playing free” the sequencer, not audio. Yes you can use a “1st” conditional on a trig for a sample and it will kind of accomplish an Ableton type clip launch but fundamentally it’s starting a sequencer, not triggering a clip.

I think people tend to overlook the utility of controlling the OT with external MIDI commands vs trying to do everything it’s capable of with 16 buttons, a handful of encoders, and a crossfader. Perhaps you’re intent on not complicating your physical setup (totally understandable) but for your use case you might experiment with sending the OT MIDI notes corresponding to C2-G2 on each audio track’s respective track. This is the “audio track sample trigger” command. It will adhere to your Qplay settings (for getting clips in sync) but I’m pretty sure you can disregard the sequencer from there (so long as the BPM is what you want).

Ultimately it’s worth thinking about whether the OT is the right tool for this job - or if something like the Akai Force, with a more ableton-y clip launching paradigm is what you’re looking for. That said I haven’t tried the Force so I don’t know.

The OT will never do what you want the way you want it, but it will get you 85% of the way there while offering a lot of fun and interesting possibilities along the way.

[papernoise]

Quick question because I think I’m doing something wrong but can’t figure out what.
The problem: pickup machines stop playing when I change pattern. This never happened to me and is a big issue.
The set is pretty simple, everything is in one bank and uses the same part… any idea what it could be?

[papernoise]

Ok, I figured it out. There’s an option in ther track settings called “start silently”. Had totally forgot about it. It’s set to AUTO by default. Normally I think this means it will be OFF, but for whatever reason AUTO made it be ON. So it would mute the pickup machine when changing pattern.

It happens to me a lot with the OT that something doesn’t work, and it takes me ages to hunt down which setting is causing the issue.

[doomglue]

@papernoise

It happens to me a lot with the OT that something doesn’t work, and it takes me ages to hunt down which setting is causing the issue.

+1
I recently tried again to get into the Octatrack but really cannot force myself to using it much. I guess I am happier with a slightly dumber thing like the MPC line. For weird sequencing I still have a Polyend Tracker which is however too limited for a few things that I usually use and want in my workflow but still a lot of fun and a great lofi machine.

That being said, I guess the Octatrack can do nearly everything I would want and need but getting lost is such a regular thing that I just think we were not meant for each other. I don’t know the mk2 version which has a few more direct menu buttons but it usually is not about finding the menu anymore but more the subtle things like the one you describe in your post with the AUTO setting.

[license]

@papernoise

It happens to me a lot with the OT that something doesn’t work, and it takes me ages to hunt down which setting is causing the issue.

Yesterday I was in a minor panic thinking I’d somehow broken mine as only one track was audible, and muting/unmuting had no effect whatsoever. Turns out I had accidentally soloed some tracks. Must have been all the MIDI I flung at it. Had to crack open the manual to figure out how to fix it.