You can assign a sample to T8 before setting it to Master Track. And you can open its recording in AED, but you can’t preview it. It’s a particular routing, unique case.
And IIRC you can’t send Master T8 to CUE. (Workaround recording MAIN or T8, playing it with a Flex sent to CUE).
Wait, you can totally preview the track 8 flex record buffer even if it’s set to Master — hit Func + Rec 3 and select “Edit this recording” and you can watch it recording in real time.
I remembered this from Max Marco’s tip re: using that record buffer as a master bus oscilloscope so you can monitor your outgoing signal visually. More here:
Editing to add: My Func + Rec 3 + ‘Edit this recording’ instructions apply to OT mk2. The buttons are a little different on mk1 but Max Marco uses a mk1 in that ^^ video so just follow what he says.
Yep. Probably greatest one.
I hope Max Marco @defenestration is still alive ! Hope he’s obsessed with different gear or different passions !
Give us some news please if you can.
Yes you can preview record buffer 8, and record onto it with T8 set as master, no one is disputing that, you just cannot preview it, or any other sample ON T8 (ie with T8 in focus/active track) if it is set to master. 
In the video he is viewing the buffer directly, using the hack, but you don’t actually need to disable then re-enable T8 as master to do it, just press REC3 and Bank with T8 in focus/active. So yes and no, it isn’t T8 being viewed but rather the record buffer 8 which happens to be recording the main output.
Yeah I don’t do the disable / re-enable thing, I just set T8 to master and to record Main on Rec3, then use that Func+Rec 3 and “Edit this recording” to view it in real-time. You’re right that it’s the record buffer 8 on screen rather than the Master track technically, but if you set record buffer 8 to capture the Main output anyway it’s pretty much the Master, right?
Edit to add — I read back over and I think we’re saying the same thing, I’m probably just getting some terminology wrong. The point is, Max Marco aka @defenestration is amazing and we’d all love to see him back as soon as he’s up for sharing more wisdom.
Yeah it is kind of confusing, because record buffers are independent of tracks, but to highlight the difference lets say you have something in record buffer 7, and also you have track 7 assigned to a flex slot, rather than its buffer, to view, preview or edit the flex assigned to 7 just press AED with track 7 in focus, this will show what is assigned to track 7 - ie the flex sample. But if you want to view record buffer 7 you press REC3 and BANK (mk2) where you can edit, view or preview the buffer.
So track 8 when set as master can do the latter, but not the former, when not set as master it can obviously do both, if set to flex.
You can just do REC3+BANK to take you straight to waveform, a bit quicker
Amen to that!
Okay I don’t want to belabor this cause I know we’ve hijacked this thread enough, but what is the material difference between previewing via REC3+Bank vs in AED? Obviously you can’t use AED because the Master is not a Flex track, that part is not confusing. The original question was about whether or not you can preview record buffer 8 while T8 is set to Master, which it seems like we agree you certainly can, so why bother mentioning the AED aspect?
By the way, thank you for that REC3+Bank tip! 
AED will take you to whatever is assigned to a flex track, REC3+BANK will take you to a record buffer regardless if it is assigned to a track or not.
But also if you assigned a buffer to a flex track AED will take you to the buffer 
To your earlier point about T8 essentially being the same as viewing the master, yes, but only if record buffer 8 is recording the master, which isn’t always necessarily the case.
I’m not trying to be nit picking, just trying to clarify the differences (semantics eh?) - and also thank you for bringing this up.
Ahh I actually totally see what you were saying now, it’s a good distinction to make. I was leaning on the implication that record buffer 8 was also grabbing the Main output which is not the same as T8 as master but… has the same feel to it hahah.
This conversation is a perfect reflection of how many factors are up in the air at any given moment on the OT. It’s hard to speak about it in shorthand because there are so many settings to account for, you end up leaving something crucial out.
I love the OT, don’t get me wrong, but it’s for sure my #1 machine for “hmm I must’ve missed something… oh yeah there it is” moments.
For sure, also I think a lot of this stuff seems more confusing than it actually is, once the distinction between record buffers and tracks is made, and their relationship to each other it becomes a bit easier.
Going slightly off topic here, but for a while when I first got the OT I wished there was a way to export tracks. Well there is, just set any unused record buffer to record whatever track (or combination of tracks!) you want, without needing to disturb your pattern, without needing to stop the sequencer, just by using either manual quantised or unquantised recording, or record trigs. Then just go to FUNC+REC3 with the buffer in focus, save this recording, then record the next part, and so on. It takes a few minutes to do all tracks, but works well, and is essentially the same thing as a dedicated export function on a pattern level, or even a song level if you have enough record memory left.
This is a really helpful piece of info. I somewhat knew it, but I think I just use either those by muscle memory and hadn’t really thought of that distinction.
Unless you do them all at the same time using rec trigs dufus
Yep. Rec AB + Bank for MKI users.
Hence no need to assign anything before using T8 as Master Track and a meter.
When I used it, I found that increasing zoom corresponded to -12db. Can be usefull if you want to respect that headroom…
Yesterday I realized that I haven’t used track 4 on mine in a few months. I disconnected the synth that used to be routed to a thru machine on 4 so I could free up the input for a stereo source I had connected in mono, and I just haven’t needed the track that was freed up for anything yet.
I never thought I’d find myself having MORE tracks than I needed.