Yes. Send concerned tracks to CUE. Record CUE internally, play it directly with a FLEX.
Kind of internal fx send/return.
You can send the FLEX (return) to CUE, and create feedback.
Also possible to manipulate audio on that track (pitch, small audio portion length, retrig, reverse…)
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I have yet to play around with this but you can also just set the SRC3 of a recorder to be from a particular track, I guess either method will be useful depending on what you’re trying to do.
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The evaluation has started 
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I’ve yet to click with the Octatrack the way that I did with the Machinedrum.
But they are complete opposites.
The MD is just a lot simpler to use. Most things you do are pretty obvious button combinations. It’s all very straightforward. Except when you get into sequencing other gear with it. Which has you turning a little knob for pitch values and just kind of trial and error-ing your way there.
The A4 and Octa have better melody entry methods. But everything else about them is less intuitive, more complicated and in some cases just plain infuriating.
But then I don’t have to fall in love with every single piece of gear I own. I hated the A4 after the initial honeymoon period. Only held on to it because I got such a great deal on it. Later I figured out how to get really good sounds from it (mod the detune!). And you know, for what I paid, if all it does is provide an amazing 8 osc bass sound, that is good enough.
Same for Octa. It is so stupid the way they name your drum kit ‘parts’ and limit you to 4 per bank.
Sure you can P lock samples per trig to get around it. But its just an odd limit to have on a sampler.
There are also a million very sophisticated things people do with it where they exploit every wrinkle of parts, scenes and P locks to make a whole song out of one pattern.
But just finding out how to sample can be the biggest hurdle on this machine!
At the end of the day I’m not doing all that crazy DJ style stuff, but I do wind up making a pretty solid beat just about every time I pick it up. And unlike the A4 or MD I can get the entire song done in the Octa. Beat, melody, bass, etc.
As much of a PITA as it can be I 100% like working in it better than in Logic.
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This seems as good a place as any to share my fence sitting on the OT. I am not a DJ. Only use stuff in the studio. I wanted it as mostly a sample player, which is great, but it’s overkill just for that, so I’ve been getting back into recording with it, which I mostly understand, but the process still strikes me as inordinately complex to set up and limited in terms of length, especially in 24 bit, as compared to doing it ITB or with the MPC One. One day it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, the next, I want to sell it. I won’t sell it, because I know I will regret it.
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Good move! If you can afford to keep it then definitely keep it, because you’ll keep finding new things to use it for even if it’s never your main tool.
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… so, I decided not to keep the OT.
I didn’t find it hard to learn (but of course I already use other Elektron boxes - DT, DN, ST and A4).
However, I know that I would never use many of these functions (as it was mentioned above, “crazy DJ style” 
) because they are not interesting for me.
I would’ve kept it though if money wasn’t a problem
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Looking for a stereo sampler with round robin ? 
Not interested in OT sampling / resampling features, or very long sample playback from cf card ?
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Not really I’ll do with the Digitakt until something other cool comes along. And 33 seconds is enough for my field recordings. If the flat batman thread showed me one thing, then it was once again that I use samples only as little splashes of colour anyway. I’m just obsessed to be able to do complete songs in each one of my boxes alone [actually just made this], even though I want to use them all together, each having their own role. Perhaps that’s my way of justifying a purchase and the hole in the purse. Getting a new piece of gear always feels horrible
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That sounds like a good reason not to keep it!
There’s a subset of Octatrack features I don’t really use. For example, I’m not super interested in pickup machines, because I’m very well covered with the flex machine sampling functionally – I’m constantly resampling, but the way pickups do it simply does not interest me that much.
The OT features that I do use however aren’t really available elsewhere, at least outside a computer.
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I’m constantly on the fence with selling it. Just find it so overdetermining regardless of it’s ‘flexibility’. Feels like 80% of the OT is in ‘workaround’ territory wrt how it’s accomplished. I have made some interesting things on it but I can’t say I enjoyed it that much (not the way I did with the DT or DN anyway). Don’t know…maybe it’ll click eventually.
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I’ve recently watched some of Ricky Tinez’ videos where he just builds a basic track focused around a specific sample. I found it very inspiring as I don’t use the OT this way. It convinced me to try that approach in the future. Also, I found it very encouraging to watch him: he’s doing most steps with ease as he has the muscle memory, doesn’t look much more complicated than navigating DT/DN this way. But of course because it’s the OT and it’s Ricky, he stumbles along the way, but finds quick solutions why something doesn’t work. I feel like that’s the OT experience in a nut shell. OT is rightfully known for doing crazy stuff, but it’s nice to see someone using it for rather minimal, basic stuff.
On a more personal note, I recently found that having an OT in the middle of your setup is a great way to connect your DAW, hardware synths and pedals. You can easily hook up MIDI and send a stable clock or sequences to hardware synths. You can send audio from your DAW into OT via interface or mixer and use OT sliders to manipulate filter, effects e.g. in a tactile way. You can record these manipulations in your DAW at the same time. You can also record them on OT and use them for making a project/song with stems. Or to mangle them into oblivion to get new textures for background stuff or transitions. You can send these audio signals to effects pedals via cue out and record them in your DAW/OT. It makes it a lot easier for me to arrange and polish stuff. Before I reach that stage, I also always have OT at the center with synths connected to it while jamming out first ideas. It took me about a year to find out that this is the way OT makes most sense in my setup, so maybe give it some time or rebuy it with a specific role in mind that might occur later on your journey.
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It is a magical instrument, but it does require a lot of practice to get really fluent with, especially if you’re using a lot of its features in an improvisational performance context. A dabble once or twice a week probably isn’t good enough tbh, you really need to be using it every day at least until you’ve figured most of it out. For what I’m trying to do with it I think I need to put at least several hours in a day to get fast enough.
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This is a good video, but I feel uncomfortable that he doesn’t save the sample! And it seems he has problems with this, eg when he switches to an earlier idea and is like “oh I lost the sample”.
I think it’s good to get in the habit of saving your sample immediately after recording and slicing it. It’s easy to forget after that point, leading to tears and teeth-gnashing/cursing
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I’ve had my mk2 since they came out, still learning new tricks on it. One trap I fall into is loading it with long samples and get cloudy in the mix as a result. Changed tack this week and using a lot of slices and leaving space so the scenes have some room. Pretty pleased with the results. But practice is key as many have said. If you don’t want to put the time in on OT then maybe move on?
True, I also felt like “dude, save your samples/project from time to time”. But I also feel like he’s not really intending to make a finished track in these videos, it’s more about taking us along with him.
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This has always been my goal–to have the OT fully incorporated into my Hardware/DAW setup. I keep using the OT for a week or two on its own, just to reacquaint myself with its basic functionality, and then never get around to really using it in my studio. I have created a space for it in my studio after having spent the past week re-learning how to move around inside the OT and get basic sampling and slicing done. I have owned the OT for two years now and have never even touched the Midi side of things (okay, well on occasion, I have accidentally hit the Midi button and then wondered why things weren’t working the way they should, and then seen the yellow light, and turned it off to get back to where I was).
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… but then you use the Digitone as a drum machine for the first time and your gut is like “fuck all of these samplers, why don’t I just use two of these and make one the drum machine”. I tend to forget my deep love for the Digitone and its immediacy combined with options to go deep. I much prefer that in live/jamming situations to the OT, had to remind myself of that.
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Lead me to sell it.
Limited, operators B and B’ warped my head.
For FM drums and more, I prefer Syntakt’s immediacy.
For “classical” FM I may prefer the PreenFm2, I feel more comfortable with this way to use operators and envelopes.
For deep FM using wavemorphing with several sources : Hydrasynth…
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Fair enough. I guess after mainly using DT for drums I was reminded how great it is to play drums on an actual synth and don’t have to select samples. But that’s quite off topic, just wanted to share my excitement somewhere.
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