How I store project information, might be useful

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi, there… so I have decided to use projects instead of banks for songs.

I started to add a recording of the complete piece I’m working on (the complete mix of the current state, including all external synths, guitars, percussion, sax, whatever) in a static sample slot, and I add a second one where I explain (a voiceover recording) what the project is about and what I need to remember when going back to it. Basically an audio notepad. For now I announce the title of the project at the beginning so I just preview that file to know what is loaded, what to configure and when I last worked on it (I might decide to split that info into small sections like “title”, “date”, “checklist”). Because I’m using a project for each piece (I rather call it a piece than a song) I will not run out of available sample slots.

Thought I’d share this idea, might inspire some other users who are struggling to keep track of all the stuff they’re working on.

(BTW, we always have an indication of what bank and pattern are current, not what project is current. Is the a quick key combination to retrieve that information?)

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#2

Good idea! I want to try to use 1 or 2 banks per song for live purpose and because with more than 100 projects it is a mess!
I planned to write things in the Arranger Reminder Rows, maybe with OctaEdit? Possible to name parts too, to write Bpm for example.

But why not recording audio notes. Thanks for sharing, I’ll think about it when I’ll use a mic or a recorder in my setup.

Project menu.

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#3

How can different projects be chained to play them as a session?

#4

You can’t on the OT alone but I don’t need to. I when I really want to, I use another sequencer to play while I’m loading the next project. Loading a new project is pretty fast anyway I find.

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#5

At least saving a audio recording of the performance inside the the project is somethng you can do, and because you don’t need to load it it’ll take up zero RAM and will not slow down load times.

#6

Can you give some examples about audio notes?

#7

And what about if the OT is the clock for everything?

#8

Yes. At the beginning, when I was loading projects after a while, I couldn’t reproduce what I intended first. A recording may help to remember what you did first!

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#9

Then I’d play pads, keyboards, audiofiles or announce I’ll be running for president

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#10

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#11

Yes, I´ll have to think about something ´cause now I´m using an OT as a master and a DN and a DT/TR8 as slaves.

#12

LOL :man_factory_worker:

#13

I keep a book, a large A4-sized blank notebook. On the right page of a spread, I add rectangles for each part, with the machine, and sample name in each slot. It looks like the screen, so it’s easy to read.

On the left page, I have lines for each pattern. A01, A02 etc. I make notes about each one:

A01 - bass and hats
A02 - same plus sliced guitar Bb7

And so on. Plus a mess of notes about scenes. I also write the part number assigned to a pattern.

It’s always a work in progress, but the general layout stays more or less the same. It’s invaluable to me.

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#14

I started to do that, I had printed out reference sheets and such, but I prefer when the information is saved inside the project and this is the most convenient way to do this and there’s no limit to the amount of information I want to secure. (I didn’t come up with any other way…). It’s just a bit of work (I update if neccessary each time I change projects). But not more than writing things down. I use a lot of different machines, instruments, I play with other musicians, there’s a lot to remember…
I thought this out because my paper notes, several months later, don’t mean that muchto me anymore.

Another thing that I do is when I use a sound, a patch, a sample or whatever else could be overwritten accidentally, rename it and add a prefix (my initials, actually) to the filename/pattern name/synth patch whenever it’s possible. So when I encounter such an item I know I’d better use a copy than the original because it’s already part of something else.

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#15

I don’t use the Arranger much personally; but can use REM rows for that. Limited number of characters though.

#16

I meant, possible to write them in OctaEdit?

#17

What isn’t possible in OctaEdit?

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#18

Use a crossfader to morph parameters ? :slight_smile:

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#20

Lots of ways to flow with an Octatrack… :slight_smile: Agree organization is key if you want to know wtf you were up to after long breaks and what not. I like the audio clip idea but I’d have to do it per part and pattern as I’m loop based and don’t have any sort of pre-structured arrangement in my project. I might do this though per part/pattern with me just describing what that part/pattern does to the loops and what my scenes do, and any little details I might forget.

The OT indeed can be set up so many ways and as you configure parts and scenes and whatnot it can get to a place where how you’ve set it up defines the workflow you need to use when running it. You really need to know what your scenes do and what the other parts are going to do, recorded setups. midi setups, arranger, etc… It’s super easy to loose track of if you have a lot of different projects that flow in different ways. I’m pretty sure if two users swapped advanced OT projects they wouldn’t necessarily know how to control the other users project even if they are both really good OTists.

My primary intentions with the OT is using it as a looper++, so things are different for me and my workflow than many OT users, but I like to share anyway as I do use an OT and it’s one of its possible workflows. I don’t really need to worry about how many samples can be used in a project because I just have like 3 of em and the rest of my project is primarily using the recorder buffers for looping and then OTifying on Flex. I also don’t need nearly as many patterns as many users because the sound any pattern is producing can vary wildly depending on the source material I’m looping.

With that in mind what I’ve ended up doing is slowly building and adding to one master project and in that project I try to keep some continuity of how tracks, scenes, recorder setups, midi setups, etc, are arranged across parts and banks. They do different things but any similarities I try to keep in the same location. For example my track1 is always for recording and looping my AR, the recorder and flex setup are the same on all parts and banks. I mix with scenes using xvol and I always have the same layout across the scenes even if they do different things, as one example on the left side the scenes (1-8) will always have the recorder AR track 1 loop at xvol max, and mixer direct AR xvol min, opposite on the right scenes (9-16). (edit: there’s a bit more to how I’ve set those up but that example still shows the concept) So on any bank/part the scenes are in the same location for mixing, and scene1 on left always corresponds to scene9 on right, scene2 left, scene10 right, etc… Of course I can break that rule if feeling it. By using the same master project and trying to maintain continuity within the project of how things are setup, the workflow gets deeply drilled into my brain over and over so it’s much easier to keep track of or take long breaks and get back to. Same project for 4 1/2 years, I save as new a lot but rarely go back to a previous version, although I do reload the current project a lot.

When I want to add new stuff I reload project, save as new(and save project right after) and do test runs until I know whatever new pattern/part/technique is solid and then reload the project and enter in the new bank/pattern/part/whatever precisely, then save parts and project. I only make incremental changes to my main project and never save it until I am completely sure that I can operate it without running into pitfalls, after lots of testing. That’s why I save as new(then save project) before testing so I know my last version is solid in case I mess something up. Since I only save projects and also parts exactly how I want them, I mess the sh*t out of them tweaking parameters and use part reload and project reload often to get back home. Being loop based I can get light years out of one project, 64 parts and 256 patterns is massive for a looper… Like days of straight audio! Still got loads of parts and patterns left…

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#21

Your book is getting bigger ! :smile:

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