I already own Digitakt+Digitone.
I’d like to be able to jam out a live set, DJ style, by mixing between 2 sources.
Given the choice, as your next purchase, would you buy an Octatrack OR another Digitakt/Digitone pair?
The price is comparable so I’m just mulling it over.
If you think either workflow works for you I’d definitely go for the Octatrack. That gives you a boatload of possibilities you don’t have already.
…my club rig contains an octatrack, a digitone and an analog heat…
mic + tc vocal fx and the dtone end both in the ot inputs and been handled there by through machines…ot main out ends in the heat…ot runs in studio mode, so i can switch any elements on the fly to the cue outs, in case something needs to go paralell clean or solo instead of the all’s heated up chain…
got no need for master mode on the ot anymore…so no use of compression for the sum…
heat does all the summing trick…
be aware of the fact, handling more than three elektron boxes at once in a stage situation can end up pretty overwhelming and nerve wrecking…
if u really wanna show ur backlights to all common djs out there, performing live for real without a laptop, an ot is not ur first but only choice to do so…
u might need a synth on top of this…but that’s it…the dtakt is doin’ a great job but stays in the studio and was never with me on stage…
if we’re talking techno club music here, the ot gives the master clock to the dtone…if we’re talking broken beats, the other way around…
either way, i switch patterns and banks on both mchines manually…always using a whole bank within all pattern and part options for one “track” to perform…
don’t try to squeeze all in…if 16 “tracks”/songs ain’t enough…find an option to fill the gap for loading new projects…takes not more than 30 seconds…so don’t be scared…be fast, confident and kick back in again…but in most cases u never perform more than 16 pieces in one live slot anyway…
As a cheaper, simpler alternative: you could get a Kaoss Pad 3 and a simple DJ mixer, that way you can sample pattern A and mix with B…
That’s what I’m doing right now - I own DT and OT and I tried using then together until recently - not as two sources, but DT as my main sequencer and OT for fx processing, looping for transitioning (also fx on the loop) and playing long files…
Although it worked, I realized a few things:
I’m now thinking of selling the OT, maybe go for the Digitone ( I currently use the takt along an Audition for a P6)
Is it essential to use another source?
If you use global tempo on the DT, you can transition seamlessly between tracks… just leave one sound running, say the kick, and up/down the tempo to match the next song before bringing the other parts in. Maybe do something with FX to make the transition more interesting. eh, seems to work for me.
Don’t forget every project has multiple banks as well.
One thing to consider is that the DT & DN are much more straightforward to use than the OT. If you’re really happy with the workflow you have now on these two boxes, you might want to consider whether or not you want to add the relative complexity of the OT to your setup.
On the other hand, the OT is great at live loop resampling and mangling which can give very interesting results.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you might want to think about what workflow appeals more to you; do you effectively want to have two different “tracks” running where you can freely tweak everything in both tracks and where you can freely crossfade between them, or do you like the idea of live-recording loops on the OT which you keep playing while you switch to a different “track” on your other gear so that you can then bring it back in?