@Supercolor_T-120 I did a comparison between the Mk.I which uses YM2612 and Mk.II YM3438 version of the MEGAfm in the MEGAfm thread which might be helpful.
My experience of the OT learning curve so far is that it will definitely stymie you at first when you try to do some basic things, but the more you repeat the same actions in different contexts the less mysterious it seems, and the fog soon clears. Maybe this is an obvious tip but I recommend not spending too much time with constructing a rigid live set at first, but keep trying stuff out, tearing it down and then rebuilding it.
Like because of the way I intend to use it for very improvised live stuff Iāve been constantly changing what tracks do, where they record from etc, and changing out FXs a lot rather than doing a lot of pattern creation and getting too invested in a particular set of samples. So because I keep tearing down and recreating and reimagining how I might use the OT Iām starting to get pretty fast at setting up a track to do something, much of the friction that gets in the way of making music just goes away and the flexibility and power of the device becomes a joy to experience.
Iāll check it out, the only things Iām interested in getting any time in the next year or two is a Hydrasynth module and two iConnect mioXL interfaces (to replace all of the old, early 90s MOTU interfaces I use as routers and the early 00s one I use as an actual interface), but the money Iād saved so far is going to replace the wall in my basement studio I had to tear down last weekend because the people who built it put the ends of some drywall flush against an outer wall that gets damp a few times a year, and I spotted mold. Once drywall ahs any moisture on it the mold is unstoppable so I had to tear it out. Thereās just a half-meter crawlspace behind it and the frame is fine, so Iām going to make some DIY acoustic panels and replace the wall with them, let the crawlspace be a big air gap between the panels and the outer concrete wall.
It was a really close call, that spot is the only damp part of the basement and we had more rain than usual ove rthe last two months; if I hanāt caught when I did things would ahve gotten ugly fast when the warm weather hit!
The room was built for a graphic designer who lived here before me, this is what happens when you send a designer to do a carpenterās job. It looks nice, but functionally itās not that well thought out at all.
Interesting. I never lose audio from my buffers. That sounds frustrating, but itās really just a matter of making sure to save.
Itās not that much more work: audio editor -> file -> save sample copy. It even names it with a timestamp and you donāt need to assign it to a flex track.
Tomorrow is Valentineās Day. Buy your OT some flowers, some chocolates, and crack a bottle of wine. Sing silly songs and laugh like you used to laugh. Maybe then, you will fall in love with your OT.
Watching that video felt like being on one of those playground merry-go-rounds as a little kid while the big kids twril it, as I was barely hanging on to wtf they were saying.
The OT is honestly the best investment I made in many years. I am always finding new ways to use it and its Ā« limitations Ā» are never a problem as long as I embrace them.
I am currently working on an ambient album with it as its center in the sense that everything goes through it or is made entirely by it and itās a pure joy. Honestly even if I loved before my 204hp eurorack, I think I am really starting to embrace it as well now I am sending MIDI and audio back and forth between it and the OT.
This piece of gear will never leave my desk for sure and as of now I donāt feel that I need anything else. I only wished that it had a tuner in it but thatās okay.
One of the things I find really frustrating is finding resources to move forward on the OT.
It seems all the videos everyone hypes up are some guy doing amazing things I have no interest in. Like the one I just watched where the fella did a very meticulous breakdown of how he used only a few very short samples to create a ton of different sounds. I did learn that scenes override plocks. So that is good to know. But being able to wring every last drop out of 4 samples is not that important to me. I have 64GB of samples to start with. I can be here all day trying different sounds.
It just seems like one of those guitar exercises where you try to play a song on just one string. Challenging sure, useful?
And its not the video I am complaining about, its the entire genre of OT videos!
I swear all they do is try to stun us with how many ways they exploited every corner of the machine to make a recording of a door closing into everything including the vocals.
I think it was an Ezbot vid?
Guess Iām swimming upstream here because a lot of this stuff seems to be targeting IDM or house kind of styles and Iām more electro-industrial.
I could be happy just using the samples from my personal library and processing them with the filter and lofi to approximate an Ensoniq mirage a la Skinny Puppy.
But Iām also looking at some of the possibilities going hmmm.
Like I have a little Wendt field mixer I can use to strap two mic preamps on the inputs of the OT.
That gives me the ability to live sample whatever is going in in the acoustic space I am in. Like an underpass, or if I had a trumpet player etc.
Yet to make that one happen, but I guess I have to keep at it.
Was watching the Ezbot vid with Andrew Huang and not a lot was clicking for me.
All going over my head. Then Huang says heās had his OT for 5 years so itās good to get some answers to some of these things!
Suddenly I didnāt feel so bad LOL.
So i just had another incredibly fun workout with the Octatrack.
which furthers solidifies my love for this device, Iāve done this multiple times before, but i just remembered how incredibly fun OT can be just by itself.
so the basis of the session was that i had four different patterns which were all playing 16 step repetitive 4 to the floor patterns. i had track seven set up to record 16 steps of the que output whenever i press record (either via the record trig page or by hitting it manually.
I had one scene set up where every track level is set to MIN and track seven to MAXā¦ on scene A track seven level is set to MIN.
on track 7 i have a filter on the first effect where BASE and WIDTH are set to 0, DEPTH is set to +63. first step triggers the recorded audio, then i have green trigs on steps 5,9,13 (first make a normal trig then shift click the trigs and cycle till their green, this will make the LFO retrigger while the sample still plays)
after this i just play around with track 7, changing LFOĀ“s destinations and waves, changing trigs, changing pitch, adding new FX on FX slot 2, go in and change SRC SETUP option (things like time stretch etc.).
the main bulk of the performance is mucking around with track 7 and then using the repetitive patterns to add transitions and more solid foundations.
I can easily see myself doing a whole set like this, a set which would also be fun to dance to.
The reason why i keep the patterns at only 16 steps is because i find it much easier to be playful with the material when i can easily dissect where in the pattern i am currently at timewise. its just less stuff to think about and more time fore my brain to process mangling track 7
In that case, maybe try setting this up in your OT:
Use trigless locks (or trigless trigs) to āopen the gateā (in this case, locking AMP values or triggering a one shot LFO or effect envelope, depending on how you want to do it - Iād use trigless trigs and either a one shot LFO or an envelope opening a lowpass filter).
eheh. Not here for a debate, Iām not an expert and I donāt have much to say about it. I just trust my ears and I donāt like what I hear. Maybe itās my fault but who cares.
and you donāt need to assign it to a flex track.
