Hey guys I’ve just sent my Digitakt back to store because…well…its just not my Octatrack. So I’ve traded it for an A4.
Does anyone have any tips or tricks, warnings, or things i should look out for? Any known bugs, and I’m guessing first thing i should do is update?
Any help much appreciated.
Nick
Main tip from me is just don’t write off the synth if the ‘sound’ doesn’t meet your expectations straight away. There’s a chance you’ll dig it straight off but myself and others seem to have taken months/years to reach the point where it totally clicks. Took me 6 months+ before the ‘still not fully sure about this synth’ voice in my head totally quit 
I’d never sell it now. The functions/depth are endless and stoked with the sounds I’m dialling in now. I still have a ton to explore/learn too. Great bang for buck synth, enjoy 
Edit - re bugs, I can’t remember hitting any at all but there maybe a few that I’ve just managed to avoid so far. Probably an ‘A4 bugs’ thread somewhere on here
Cheers guys, appreciate your replies.
Quick question, what are you using audio input for? Can you direct monitor with it, or is it for something else?
Cheers
I testify the same thing as the people above me. I now own it for the second time and love it exponentially more than the first time I owned it. You can pull crazy patches out of that thing! What’s really fun is to see what you can come up with right out of the box and nothing else. It’s a good piece to be really intimate with!
Another thing I’d suggest is to work macro to micro. Get to the satisfaction ASAP and then work down to the smaller degrees of understanding. Start out jamming with the premade patterns, then jam with the premade kits, then build your kits from premade sounds, and THEN build your sounds/kits from scratch. I, personally, have an ego problem where I feel like I have to do everything for each track-don’t go right to that, you’ll have plenty of time/opportunity for that. I’m the long run, you’ll be able to do amazing things with this powerful box but not if you stray from appreciating it-which happens frequently from what I’ve read
Yeah i get you man.
One question i have, which is not clear in the manual. Are the kits stored in the pattern level? So changing a pattern can change the kits loaded on tracks? And with that your performance macros etc?
Also guys I’m doing quite glitchy, ambient stuff. Think Andy Stott, Nicolas Jaar, Mount Kimbie. Im guessing the A4 FM capabilities are good for this, and drone, atmospheric stuff.
Quite inspired by this guys live video. Its the kind of stuff i do…
Yeah, the kits are on a pattern basis, but they’re very malleable without changing anything on a broader scale, so you can load the same kit between two patterns and you can make slight changes to the sounds and that gets saved in the pattern but not in the overall kit.
ah right that’s good to know man, and completely opposite to what the manual says. Quoting from the manual :
“Note that several patterns may be linked to the same kit. Changes you make to the kit while edit- ing one of the patterns will change the kit and directly affect how the other patterns sound as well. Remember to save the kit to a new location if you wish to avoid this.”
Is that wrong? Be handy if so
it’s not wrong … locks recorded into a pattern will be separate from a kit, but unless a kit is refreshed it will be temporarily changed to the last edited state (maybe at the last moment of recorded automation) so it’ll be changed, but it can be restored to the last saved version on pattern launch and manually restored
if you were doing this with a number of patterns/kits in a session only one or two of the most recently used kits will retain the varied-from-saved status (certainly if rebooted)
A4 is deep yet still accessible, the best tip is to find out what it does (a lot), don’t wait for it to be another synth, find its own strengths and there are so many … it’s a peach
Sweet man thanks for the response.
So your saying that when you change patterns the kit will refresh, OR you can manually reload it (function and f1?)
Thanks
word
My warning :
Beware, OT + A4 can stop GAS for a while. 
Great combo. I was with Ot + Blofeld, I’ll keep Blo but I’m quite sure I’ll do something like that
yeah - there’s a toggle for automatic kit reload on pattern change and you can manually do this any time with [Reload]No+[Kit]C
haha good to know brother! I was thinking earlier i cant think of anything else id ever need in my setup. What is multi map? Care to explain mate?
And i guess i can control synth parameters with crossfader for smooth builds / transitions? Just setup 4 x midi tracks on Octatrack to control via CC?
dude how do you toggle the kit reload on pattern change mate?
I plan to control some macros (2 or 4 out of 10) with Ot’s crossfader, with a really efficient midi processor : Event Processor +. Huge control of A4 parameters. You can’t control interesting parametes with crossfader without midi processing.
With Multi Map, you can map Ot’s notes to 128 Sounds (Soundpool only), play them over recorded A4 sequences, modify everything with macros, play some polyphonic chords over it…
You can either map instant jump pattern changes with transpose settings, as an arranger.
Crazy possibilities. Very free. You can use several tracks on the same channel, using Ot’s Arp with different settings… You can’t use plock or lfo to modulate A4’s arp.
Fill every slot of every performance macro for every kit you make.
Take the time to do this and the synth will always reward that work with pleasure.
Also, have a plan for how you want to populate the sound pool before you start populating it (i.e. kicks first, then percussion, then stabs, then fx sounds, etc), because “add to pool” always places that sound in the next available slot. You can’t choose the slot a sound gets to occupy when you add it to the pool.
And get down with Unison mode.
Global Option : Sequencer Config : Kit Reload on Change [x]
p48 pdf for details
Inputs can be used as two mono signals or a stereo pair with individual settings for FX sends and panning. LFO’s can be set to change all parameters for some cool sounds ie) sidechaining, weird FM stuff, and slow organic fluctuations.
You have to reach the point where you are creating sounds without looking at the screen. Then you’ll know for sure if you like the A4 or not
