I have to say - I’m in your camp. I spent all day with this (again) and I’m just not discovering anything with it that works for me. I think if I was a more conventional musician I’d enjoy it so much more but I’m not. And I really want to enjoy it! But it’s not happening. I’ve been holding on to this for so long because it’s ‘the best sampler ever’ etc but I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that it’s not the best sampler - for me.
Life is short, time is precious, I’m selling it.
ps - no shade on those who dig it, glad it’s working for you (really)!
This. I really like and listen artists who use it (dataline etc.).
I’m happy with a maschine + as a central hub and a small modular. Different approach and less powerful at mangling samples, but I love the straight forward interface, the effects, the looper, the autosampler.
Plus the lock states are similar to the octatrack crossfader.
When will people finally learn that you can’t say bad things about the Octatrack over here?
We will ruskie up some guys and let them timestretch your head until you feel a thousand slide trigs crossfading through your brain.
I actually get that. I felt the same with the Polyend Tracker. A lot of people made it sounds great. But whenever I used it, the samples felt cold and harsh, the filter sounded really bad in the higher frequencies and the envelopes were duller than a Woddy Allen movie. I held on to it for a long time due to its incredible performance mode. But I hated using it for samples. Tge sampling interface was incredible as well
With the challenges of using the OT it is fitting that Elektron supplies us with this support group.
What a great thread to read through
I will say that after really putting in the time with the OT and taking a break, coming back to it is very rewarding because even though you have forgotten things, you are standing on the pillar of the knowledge you already have.
It’s a tool for people with certain mindsets, I’m not always sure I’m one of them either, but I still have it, so, maybe? Will it make you waste your creative energy fiddling? Maybe. Will you create something inspiring? Maybe. Is it evil? Maybe
Definitely not, best at some things by a considerable margin though.
This is the most important thing. If the stuff it does well are not important then no point in keeping it, I have a few different samplers, they all have different +/- including of course the OT.
Well, I’m back, and I’m happy to report the Octatrack is finding it’s way more and more into my permanent setup. I sold the Polyend Play which was starting to get on my nerves and opted to stick with the OT.
I’m slowly unlocking more and more features.
Tonight I made it a mission to fill all 16 scenes and have been going wild with the cross fader.
I’ve also been playing around with slices, and I have a feeling I’ve asked this question before but possibly didn’t get a solid answer.
Is it possible to take a long sample full of sounds and have the OT slice to each transient and then sequence or jump around the slices somehow. And if so, could someone point me to a video that shows me how to do exactly that, or similar?
Glad to see this thread has taken off and hope it will enlighten some other peeps in the same way it has done with me.
The OT can make 4/8/16/32/64 evenly spaced slices and it gives you a zero crossing option when you do that, which I think just moves the slice point to the nearest zero crossing to avoid pops. AFAIK it doesn’t a mode that puts slices on detected transients though…
There is Octaedit which I have yet to use but seems to have a transient slicing functionality. Alternatively you could use a DAW or dedicated audio editor that to create seperate files between each transient and chain the individual slices using Octachainer (a very handy little tool).
Transient detection slicing would be a good think for Elektron to add in a Mk.3 I think.
I see. Not to worry. Let’s assume I have my slices all cut up, in one way or another.
I’m wondering what creative ways I can use to step through the slices.
Hoping for some happy accidents here, so something that’s random ish to setup, but then repeatable.
For example can I use a looping LFO to select which slice gets played on certain trigs? So I would play with the LFO speed and depth until it’s selecting slices I like, but then have it retrigger st the start of every pattern so it selects the same ones every time?
Is there a reason you want to do this with an LFO? Why not just use the Assign Random Locks feature in the AED page? Just roll the dice until you’re happy with it
You could map an LFO to the slice number, map the crossfader to the slice number in a scene, p-lock the slice number on trigs, or use “assign random locks” on existing trigs. There might be other ways I’m not thinking of.
And you’ll need need to find the transients yourself. I find it useful to start with a slice grid, which is evenly spaced, and then I adjust start/end of each slice manually. It’s usually less steps than creating slices one by one.
I’m totally addicted to using the OT for pretty much everything, so I wanted it in front of me at all times. Recently got one of those sliding keyboard trays that’s dedicated to it. It stays tucked away nicely, all cabled up in the back, locked and loaded:
I’m really liking this because one pair of inputs is from a aux channels on a mixer. I can send whatever I want into the OT at any time without recabling.
Set LFO to affect the sample Start point. Make sure Slice mode is on.
I particularly like using the LFO designer for slice selection, as it gives you more control over which slices will be selected.
You can parameter lock LFO depth to zero on certain trigs, leaving them unaffected. Play with the various LFO triggering options, eg Sync One. Incorporate scenes/crossfader. Etc!
