Song as opposed to Loop
Oh I forgot.
DIGITONE.
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I don’t know why you seem so bent on the OP getting an Octatrack.
The Digitakt is a perfectly good and powerful tool, especially when used via overbridge, which seems to be what the OP wants to do. I’m not sure how it would be “training wheels”.
Anyways seems a fucking odd thing to be arguing about on a Thursday morning, I’m off for a shit.
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I basically took this as a challenge:
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HAHA…trig-less trigger
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I only have experience with the DT of the two options you’re considering, but I would say that in my experience, the DT is a great tool for sketching out an idea to the point where you have a pretty clear idea of how the overall song structure will be. I’d say it gets you to something like 70% of a completed song, and those 70% are a fun and very rewarding journey in itself.
From there on, nothing beats working in a DAW to finish up arranging, mixing and mastering because it’s just so much quicker. To your point, this is much more of a chore than a fun journey (at least for me it is), so why not use the most efficient tool there is for it so you can move on to the next song faster.
In summary, I think you’d be very happy with the DT if you accept its limitations that it only gets you to those magical first 70% of the song.
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Making beats/ loops - IMO the DT is quicker - more sexy
Arranging a full live set with one device where you want to do transitions and do big changes to the sound live - OT
Making detailed “polished” tracks - DAW
In the end you can do all of the above tasks with all of the above tools.
If you want to get really good at it, chose one or two instruments and learn them INSIDE OUT, before buying the next tool
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I’ve used the DT a lot and the OT for around 8 months (I don’t have it any more), and I agree with the posts that suggest sticking with the DT + DAW to finish songs. The OT is really fun to perform with once everything is set up, but whenever I used the OT, I spent more time setting up than actually making music. It can be set up to do pretty much anything, but there’s a lot of inertia when you want to try something that needs a different setup.
The OT also trusts that the user knows what they’re doing, which does speed things up if they’re very familiar with it. But it also means that there’s no guard rails or safety nets. Even after 8 months of use I’d still accidentally overwrite my sample buffers and ruin parts and patterns regularly. I got better at not running straight into these traps on the OT, but it was a sort of paranoid experience: “is it really safe to do this? Phew, it worked.”
Also the OT doesn’t have overbridge or audio or midi over USB. This made it a lot more cumbersome to use the OT with a DAW.
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Also while the OT doesn’t have overbridge, it has four outputs meaning if you pan your channels, you can record 4 tracks the your DAW at once. I do this all the time if I want to say save a sketch I’ve made with a few synths and maybe samples on the OT. Sure, the digitakt can record all 8 channels at once but if you have other synths, it’s quite convenient that you can just run them thru the OT into your DAW while having the OT sequence them with midi and playing back patterns made with samples, everything nice and synced.
Indeed.
If you remove the DAW from the equation - then clearly OT. Has the best songmode of all elektrons, and compressor, eq and generally - fx per track. Streaming long samples is another big plus.
But if it’s about sketching out patterns and arrange + mix in the DAW anyway. DT + OB is the more straightforward solution
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You’ll need an audio interface that takes 4 inputs for this to work. This isn’t needed when using the DT, because it is an audio interface itself. You can also sequence external gear with the DT and access the inputs directly in a DAW. Now with OS 1.30 you can run the inputs through the DT’s compressor, delay and reverb too.
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For sure, just saying that the lack of OB isn’t such a big deal with the OT as people make it out to be.
depends on your setup.
I really love that you only need a usb cable and no interface for OB devices
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True, it’s not a big deal if you already have an audio interface. If that audio interface also has MIDI inputs, that’s even better. It just means more cables to hook up.
Without OB you’re looking at at least 2 jack cables and a midi cable, as opposed to 1 usb cable. Just a convenience thing, but something I’m really glad for when using the DT and DN.
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This is such a minor inconvenience that it’s not really even a inconvenience. If you buy more equipment, an interface with only a stereo input will start to feel inadequate fast. An older generation 8 in interface costs around 200 euros, even less. Overbridge is also still a buggy mess, for example unusable for me, I tried to use my AH as an interface for a bit but it kept crashing. No problems with a Zoom 8 track recorder as interface.
It’s a huge convenience if you don’t have a dedicated studio. I put all my gear in a closet when not in use, except for a PSU so I can just grab a device, plug in the PSU and USB cable and go.
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In that case even more convenient would be not to have any equipment at all. After all you can do everything in a DAW. I mean you’re talking of plugging in two cords vs. plugging in three or four cords. It’s honestly such a minor inconvenience that I wouldn’t even consider it one.
same.
And I really hate the cable clutter. Makes my space inconvient. For me it makes huge difference.
I have DN + A4 + Maschine on my stand currently. 3 USB cables with overhub.
Works totally fine.
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You guys would probably start itching all over if you saw my mess of cables and gear
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