Elektron Octatrack MKII

[TubularCorporation]

I still haven't actually tried Monolith TBH, I really need to.

[sheatheman]

Yeah once you get some single cycle waveforms it can do pretty crazy synthesis that isn’t possible on anything else. 

[TRiP]

On 12/18/2019 at 3:03 PM, T3551ER said:

Thnx to all in this thread for posting thoughts, ideas, etc. Snagged a MKII, arrived this past weekend, spent the last couple of days working through the basics. . . very glad I took the time before it arrived to dig deep into some tutorial videos. For future buyers/users, the videos here are an excellent introduction to the machine  - they want you to pay for the course, but you can watch up to 5 videos a day for free - I basically took the last few weeks and just watched a few a day and made some notes. Guy breaks things down in a very straightforward way - plus sounds kind of like Neil DeGrasse Tyson which is an another bonus. 

Another cool thing (I don't think I saw anyone post this before): https://ticticelectro.com/2017/08/26/octachainer-v1-3/ 

This is a prog that allows you take files and then create "chains" - i.e., you could do things like put all the samples for a 808 into the prog, and it will spit out a file that is one wav that is slice mapped to each sound with .ot file included. Don't forget the megabreak option

 

That prog seems vvvery interesting -  thanks for sharing! 

Also picked up a MKii recently and have been trying to get my head around it

Saw some of that guys tutorials on youtube and thought he presented well, shall check more I think

[T3551ER]

On 12/28/2019 at 8:15 PM, TRiP said:

That prog seems vvvery interesting -  thanks for sharing! 

Also picked up a MKii recently and have been trying to get my head around it

Saw some of that guys tutorials on youtube and thought he presented well, shall check more I think

NP! Do a search on the elektron forums for "megabreak" and it'll give you some ideas on how to use that aspect of the prog. 

I've been obsessively watching tutorials for this thing - here's a quick one that gives you something interesting to play with (a sort of granular playback thing using retrig and playback position):

 

[joeyblush]

heres a track I did entirely with a borrowed OT MK2 in kosovo. One take, no edits, stereo out of the OT. using whatever samples were inside:

 

[zlemflolia]

On 7/6/2017 at 10:28 PM, digit said:

 

exactly this. all these people clamoring for streaming each track out of their elektrons into separate tracks in a DAW so they can work on them further... they're just postponing decision making. fear of commitment.

 

get it right in the machine. balance, eq, all of it. you have so much control over the params in elektron kit. there's no excuses. get it right & then just record it. stereo mix. done.

 

of course you could fiddle with each track and each sound until the end of time if you wanted to. and then nothing would ever get finished.

 

overbridge sucks. totally at odds with the whole original philosophy of that company & their hardware.

I think this is a really inspiring post and I feel one of the things preventing me from being any good at making music is because of viewing it from a programming perspective.  I view the end goal as ultimate algorithmic control over the song to the point where you can start at the tweaking and only ever tweak.  Whereas in reality, the act live performance itself has to be there, it just has to be channeled through the right control over the controls of the instrument, which can be set up or memorized ahead of time and experimented with

[dingformung]

On 7/7/2017 at 7:28 AM, digit said:

of course you could fiddle with each track and each sound until the end of time if you wanted to. and then nothing would ever get finished.

How's that æ replica going? 

[xox]

Just now, dingformung said:

How's that æ replica going? 

Lol

[digit]

On 5/16/2020 at 4:43 AM, dingformung said:

How's that æ replica going? 

ha ha.

 

thats the thing, tho. with my tracks i record them just like i mentioned in the post zeff quoted. straight out of the machine, mostly improvised, edit out the boring parts. don't monkey around with them in the daw. it's easier & fun because there is no right or wrong. i can just do whatever i like.

 

with the ae reconstruction there is a right & wrong way. not only that but there is a pre-existing recording to match. it's the opposite of how i've always worked & very difficult & tedious. all i'm doing is monkeying around in the daw. i could do it quicker & just approximate it but then it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the recording. but yeah, i'm probably getting too obsessive with it.

 

anyway - octatrack is awesome. just say no to overbridge.

 

 

 

[dingformung]

nice to hear you're still working on it!  

 

[YEK]

i'm throwing around the idea of buying an octatrack and have questions.

 i own a 101 and 303 that i need to control. 303 would just be midi sync possibly? or maybe sampling and playing around with it the same with the 101, sequencing it with the octatrack and then sampling it. i don't understand what the 4 note midi polyphony means. does that mean a max 4 note at the same time like a chord? because 4 notes max doesn't sound that bad.. though i read that chords are tricky with the thing.

i'd just really want to know with my 101 and 303 and some learning if this thing is recommended for me. 

i like the fact it can control my synths with midi and then fuck with it a bit. i'm learning reaper and i wanted a drum machine but i figure a powerful sampler with midi sequencing would be even better.

[modey]

1 hour ago, yekker said:

i don't understand what the 4 note midi polyphony means. does that mean a max 4 note at the same time like a chord? because 4 notes max doesn't sound that bad.. though i read that chords are tricky with the thing.

Yes, 4 notes max, per trig, per track. As for actually sequencing them, you have the base note, then 3 additional note parameters that are above or below (I think it goes below as well? I haven't played with it in a while..) the root note.

So really it's more about programming chords than being a full-blown MIDI sequencer that will play everything back exactly as you played it. 

It's actually not that bad—if you know your intervals (root-3-7 for minor, root-4-7 for major etc.) it's pretty quick tbh.

[YEK]

11 minutes ago, modey said:

Yes, 4 notes max, per trig, per track. As for actually sequencing them, you have the base note, then 3 additional note parameters that are above or below (I think it goes below as well? I haven't played with it in a while..) the root note.

So really it's more about programming chords than being a full-blown MIDI sequencer that will play everything back exactly as you played it. 

It's actually not that bad—if you know your intervals (root-3-7 for minor, root-4-7 for major etc.) it's pretty quick tbh.

but if i don't care about chords how is it? sorry if i'm a bit daft but what does 4 note polyphony really mean? 4 at the same time? can i make basslines and such with more than 4 notes?

[modey]

50 minutes ago, yekker said:

but if i don't care about chords how is it? sorry if i'm a bit daft but what does 4 note polyphony really mean? 4 at the same time? can i make basslines and such with more than 4 notes?

Of course you can have more than four notes in the pattern. The four note limit is how many can be in a chord (or arpeggio) per step. These notes can be anything, at any time.

 

[zlemflolia]

hi im a 0iq baby and im considering buying this

lets say i wanted to be able to jam out quick sequences from an input large keyboard synth by hand and have them replayed in loops and maybe outputted to other synths as the voice, then add more and more of these layers. can it do it with this thing?

thx much

[sweepstakes]

43 minutes ago, cyanobacteria said:

hi im a 0iq baby and im considering buying this

lets say i wanted to be able to jam out quick sequences from an input large keyboard synth by hand and have them replayed in loops and maybe outputted to other synths as the voice, then add more and more of these layers. can it do it with this thing?

thx much

Definitely doable. You get 8 tracks' worth of dedicated MIDI tracks alongside the audio tracks. Real-time note recording is a liiittle awkward with the OT due to its a step sequencer implementation. I find the recorded timing with quantize off is a little bad, and it's not just my shitty rhythm - my MPC1000 is way more accurate. But if you're not fussed about getting delicate portamento or jazz chords, and just want to drop in chunky bass notes, leads, and 4-note chord stabs, you're good. It's a pretty fast sequencer in general and has tons of tricks up its sleeve: per-track timing settings (polyrhythms), several track speeds (2x down to 1/8 speed!), and trig conditions (e.g. probability, playing only every X playthroughs, fills, etc.) spring to mind.

The OT has a reputation for being really difficult to learn, but it's set up so you can fumble your way to whichever 5% of its capabilities you actually want to use, and whatever facility that is will likely be pretty straightforward. There's just a lot it can do.

Edited October 13, 2020 by sweepstakes

[zlemflolia]

1 hour ago, sweepstakes said:

Definitely doable. You get 8 tracks' worth of dedicated MIDI tracks alongside the audio tracks. Real-time note recording is a liiittle awkward with the OT due to its a step sequencer implementation. I find the recorded timing with quantize off is a little bad, and it's not just my shitty rhythm - my MPC1000 is way more accurate. But if you're not fussed about getting delicate portamento or jazz chords, and just want to drop in chunky bass notes, leads, and 4-note chord stabs, you're good. It's a pretty fast sequencer in general and has tons of tricks up its sleeve: per-track timing settings (polyrhythms), several track speeds (2x down to 1/8 speed!), and trig conditions (e.g. probability, playing only every X playthroughs, fills, etc.) spring to mind.

The OT has a reputation for being really difficult to learn, but it's set up so you can fumble your way to whichever 5% of its capabilities you actually want to use, and whatever facility that is will likely be pretty straightforward. There's just a lot it can do.

that sounds really sick and exactly what i want.  I wondered in the metaphorical shower once whether it would have noticeable quantization but I guess it's not a big deal.  thanks that sounds like something to use for a long time and therefore a good value

[xox]

OT is the best product Elektron eva made!

(but the Mnm is still my fav)

(Just came to say this. Bye!) 

[sweepstakes]

7 hours ago, cyanobacteria said:

that sounds really sick and exactly what i want.  I wondered in the metaphorical shower once whether it would have noticeable quantization but I guess it's not a big deal.  thanks that sounds like something to use for a long time and therefore a good value

The weird thing is, you can get really precise with microtiming. And its MIDI clock is rock solid. It's just when recording that it goofs it up - once you go back and dial it in where you want it, you're golden.

[YEK]

Yep sounds like a good investment. Don't know if I'm big brained enough though.

[modey]

I still think the complexity/difficulty of using the OT comes when you try to do too much at once. 

If you take it slowly at first and just use it as a sample based drum machine before anything else, then add things as you need them, it shouldn't be too hard to grasp.

If you try to handle sample playback, live sampling, thru machines, and MIDI control all at once, things can get super confusing if even one parameter isn't set correctly, especially if it's all coming from the same source. 

[Bubba69]

I've been doing music pretty much exclusively with the octatrack as my central hub for the last few years. (Though admittedly I kind of don't have shit to show for it but I'm very slowly accumulating "album" material I will eventually master and whatnot). I feel like the following techniques/features have been the most useful in adapting a style that I like to use when programming songs on it.

1. midi sequencing polyphonic synths. I'm never going to use that many midi devices at once in a song, so I just use multiple tracks to allow more complex overlapping note structures. It ends up working fine for me, when I used to be really annoyed by the limitation, I've still yet to hit it in practice. If I feel like I hit a limitation, just bounce it down into a sample, and now I can do even more with it!

2. Bounce stuff down, use fx, spend time making your loops sound ok. Once you have something you like, it's very simple to resample it into a new perfect 64-step sample, which you can then chop up and do all kinds of crazy shit with. Run out of voices for some reason? Using each track as it's own drum sound? Great! bounce the main out down into a sample, change to part 2 or a different bank, and start fresh with your drum loop. I Always have an aux input coming from my mixer into the OT. Sometimes I use it as a master insert (seems stupid but it works).

3. Pair it with another elektron device. This sounds simple but the stuff syncs perfectly. I can add 4 more synth voices and sequence my ms-20 by using the analog-four, great companion.

4. Sample stuff in, little hits, sounds from other synths. Load up big libraries of hip hop drum kits or whatever from reddit and load them into static slots beforehand. The sample lock feature is so useful to add variety quickly and easily to your patterns. It's stupid but it sounds cool to have lots of different sounds.

5. Slide trigs can do wild shit with sequenced precision, it's like scenes but programmed into the pattern on a per-voice level. You can use to do tape-stop fx, or crazy slidey bouncing ball (ok now you know my secret techniques).

6. Use the editor. Chopping up amen breaks or ANY other break is super easy on the OT once you know the workflow, you can get the attack PERFECTLY adjusted by zooming in on the waveform and adjusting every start point and then make sure to save your sample settings in a new file and assign it to a free flex or static slot. Hold function key to make sure your start point aligns with zero crossings. Get the sample normalized, all nice, and save it. You might also want to make the slices end point longer than you normally would, so you can do the tape-stop effect I'm talking about more effectively on sliced samples. The OT is different than a tracker but shares a ton of the DNA so many of the same tricks apply.

7. You have lots of patterns, use them. You don't have to tweak everything "live" you can work linearly and copy paste your pattern, build on top of it, edit it, change it and make quite long and evolving pieces.

8. If you want more than the 64 step loop I finally took the time to learn pattern chaining (dead simple, hold down the pattern button and press the patterns you want to chain.). Just think of 1+2 as one pattern, 3+4 as another. It's slightly more tedious to copy+paste correctly but you can still basically loop everything as you're working on it and get those longer phrases perfect. It's not as annoying or tedious as I thought, did a whole song that way and it worked out I think.

9. When working with midi tracks, make sure you have your patches figured out before you start programming the program-change and bank number into a midi track, nothing is more frustrating than when you forget to save a patch on a synth and your patch changes.

10. Don't overuse scenes, comb filter, or retrigs or any of the stuff that screams "this is obviously an octatrack". The octatrack doesn't have to sound like an octatrack. Limit yourself and hold yourself back on certain features that are convenient and sound cool. Those kinds of sounds are sometimes more interesting when they come as a surprise and more dialed in.

 

These are just the things I've internalized while using it. Really not trying to preach that it's best or anything, just the tenants I go by. There's still a ton of stuff I don't know how to do with it. I never use scenes anymore because I suck at using them and it requires a steady hand. I'm not great with the live sampling stuff but I think I understand how it works, I just don't trust it, too confusing. I just record stuff in so I know exactly how it sounds. It's just one way of working and probably still not that efficient, but I figured out how to make it work to fit my style and then let me really push it into places that I feel are interesting and let me get into creative territory that I never really reached when working on a PC.

 

[sweepstakes]

26 minutes ago, Bubba69 said:

8. If you want more than the 64 step loop I finally took the time to learn pattern chaining (dead simple, hold down the pattern button and press the patterns you want to chain.). Just think of 1+2 as one pattern, 3+4 as another. 

Also per-track length and scale can be handy for this. Beat-per-step is very intuitive in many situations, and microtiming can compensate for the reduced resolution. 

[TRiP]

7 hours ago, Bubba69 said:

These are just the things I've internalized while using it. Really not trying to preach that it's best or anything, just the tenants I go by. There's still a ton of stuff I don't know how to do with it. I never use scenes anymore because I suck at using them and it requires a steady hand. I'm not great with the live sampling stuff but I think I understand how it works, I just don't trust it, too confusing. I just record stuff in so I know exactly how it sounds. It's just one way of working and probably still not that efficient, but I figured out how to make it work to fit my style and then let me really push it into places that I feel are interesting and let me get into creative territory that I never really reached when working on a PC.

Thanks for all the above! Feel I need to read/hear these words every now and then to give me a boost of encourgment to push my octatrack workflow further

As modey also mentioned, one can get lost/overwhelmend by the seemingly endless possibilites of the machine

I find i've been stuck just using it as a live mixer/effects/remixer and want to get more out of it - think for me I need to treat it like Ableton and start to layout tracks with it by recording my lines in and seeing how further I can push them before hitting the DAW/tape

Side note on embracing the limitations of the Octatrack - on my last project I paired the 4 outs with the 4 inputs on my Tascam 244, soul brothers from differnt decades!

[modey]

!! OT UPDATE !!

Octatrack OS 1.40 comes crammed with new features such as Parameter Randomization, Tempo Per Pattern, MIDI Trig Modes, Parameter Locking Multiple Trigs simultaneously, Trig Preview, additional performance improvements, and much more

yesssss

 

So good. Gonna spend the day with it tomorrow