Polyend Play
Sold a lot of my gear recently to invest in modular (for the first time). Most hands on setup I ever had, just standalone or for use with OT or Tracker.
Beauty of it is that you can just patch for ten minutes, let it drone away (with sound on or off) and then come back to it an hour later and make some changes.
I chose to build a Make Noise Shared System, not the cheapest option. But you can also do this with lots of cheaper (semi)modular options. Maybe not for the OP but worth considering for other people with similar thoughts.
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A drummachine, octatrack and a synth with lots of the standards as presets are a good combination for quick jams.
I think the ‘right’ gear for a live workflow really depends on the style of music you’re thinking you want to try and make. If it’s quite slow/ambient/acoustic you might want a different setup than if you’re trying to do something that’s very rhythically/melodically technical and complex. In general I would say loopers/live samplers are probably more suitable for the former, and maybe a powerful grid sequencer would be better for the latter. Most of these machines are quite versatile though so you should be able to get some kind of fun workflow out of any of them.
I think a good way to approach this would be a process of elimination, try to identify a particular capability you think you absolutely need in order to achieve the sound you’re looking for. It might well turn out that you didn’t actually need the special abilities of that Wonderbox 3000™, but that’s classic expectations vs reality for you, and if you’re like me is why you end up searching through YT vids endlessly trying to find a clear demonstration of a particular technique 
Personally I’m trying to go for a ‘fully live’ workflow which means that the track basically starts from the moment I start interacting with the gear and hit record, with no particular preparation of the composition beforehand and no stops during the performance to overdub or tweak things in a way that isn’t an integral part of the music. This self-imposed limitation helps me to narrow down what is and isn’t of use, and kind of defines a starting point I can work towards, e.g. using the Octatrack to sample live input rapidly create a polyrythmic wash or swell which I can warp, punctuate and play along to. So far it seems like the OT should be a fairly ideal tool for this kind of dubby experimental type of jumping off point, but I’ve also pondered whether the SP-404 or one of the MPCs would have been a good choice too.
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For me – a longtime in-the-box (Ableton) person who recently moved back toward the hardware realm – the Octatrack is the perfect hub for “jamming from scratch”. However: you should expect it to take a month or two until you get to the point where it is comfortable to sit down and get straight to making sound come out of the infernal thing.
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Yeach, exactly. It is not open the box and jam but if you have a plan for it, then it’s not that tough to get going with it.
What I like about the OT is it is a very versatile piece of gear. OP seems like he is GASing for a lot of stuff and will try more stuff out later. The OT is incredibly malleable towards new gear, which is what makes it special to me. He could feed a semimodular into it as long as it takes MIDI, sequence with the OT, have it’s audio go into the OT (so he won’t need a mixer) thru track, add effects, constantly record loops, get something he likes, mangle that loop into a who new thing.
It just is a really awesome jamming setup IMO because it is so versatile and conforms to whatever gear you have.
Another cool thing to do is to take that TR8s, record 4 bars of it, then chop and completely change up the beat.
It’s endless, really. It does have a learning curve but it’s worth the work imo. I learned mine over a year ago and it’s pick up and play for me even if I don’t use it for a while. It kind of stays with me, which is nice.
I should add that you can do a lot of this with a laptop (slider functionality is tough to replicate), but to do it with a semi-modular, you will need an audio interface with MIDI out. So it’s not as portable and small as the OT.
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for me it’s Circuit Tracks (once it’s stuffed with proper presets – anyway, i always deliver myself from sound design jobs, so YMMV).
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Out of interest what preset packs do you use on the Tracks? Any good recommendations ?
I would definitely not buy any more gear. You already have so much overlap. As you say, your in a GAS cycle. If I were you, I’d choose one sampler and a synth, or one groove box and try to focus.
In my experience, I’ve almost never found that more gear equals more fun. Making music almost always gets more fun once you start removing things.
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Overlap is a good point and I do have that issue at present. Some of it is down to workflow - so the force can do drums but I prefer the workflow TR8S offers. Likewise the sampling on the SP404, but the Force works great as a hub etc. I wouldn’t add any gear without removing stuff that I have. I don’t think I’ll end up changing anything, but interesting to explore the options!
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well, not sure whether my recommendations will be helpful for your needs, because it’s very genre-dependent.
anyway, my favorites are these:
and for acid lines, i use MAM MB-33 Retro.
or two.
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Seriously, just don’t GAS on the Octatrack, I think in your situation and for your purpose it’s a really bad idea to get it. I think you should just keep and explore what you already have, since you mentioned you‘ve already been through almost all kinds of samplers/workstations/synths.
disembodied Elektron Voice: Maybe you should GAS on the Octatrack
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I would certainly just focus on properly learning on what you have for now. Something that really helped me was tearing down the setup and just focusing on a single machine (Octatrack) and really exploring what’s possible on it. Focus on the core then add machines one by one when you need them.
From my view : no more hardware boxes. You are covered. The only thing would be really a modular system. But it’s a long and expensive journey. Can be frustrating but also exciting and you definitely can learn a lot. You can design your system so hands on and immediate like you want. There are a lot of sequencer and performance modules that can give you instant and hands on ideas. The sonic possibilities are endless. But I would only add a rack not replace your already very capable setup.
Octatrack is amazing but totally the opposite.
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