I picked up an Octatrack recently, my first piece of hardware, and will admit I’m pretty intimidated by it. I’ll go ahead and say that at this point in time, I’m only using the Octatrack to play back, crossfade between and manipulate: pre-cut loops, one shots, and longer backing tracks that have been loaded onto the machine. I can figure out resampling later. I’ll be using it to make more “ambient” tempo-free music, thus not using the sequencer. No midi will ever be used.
I’m wondering how to go about doing this, and what settings might be involved. In a way, this might be really straight forward once everything is set up. I’ve heard about the “plays free” mode, which is of interest, and that trigger buttons 9-16 are not connected to the sequencer? Also assuming I would just stay in Tracks mode, instead of Chromatic and all that.
I’ve been watching some tutorials, and while I’ve learned some functions, they’re ultimately not super helpful since they typically revolve around rhythmic music and live recording/looping. Any help with this would be much appreciated.
Don’t get frustrated, it’s not that hard to learn your way around but you’re going to have to read.
The online vids work to a degree, I’d suggest every video from elektron, secret music, sb-six , tarekith and others that do simple tutorials.
The best way is the manual while OT is turned on, start at the beginning and work your way through it with the OT in action, don’t skip sections as youll miss important and basic stuff. Structuring your project how you want it to work s important as is how your 8 tracks will operate.
Example, have you figured how to have all tracks at diff lengths? Do you know how to load different samples on diff trigs? What about slices for your loops and how to get the OT to trigger different sections of your slices? If not then you really are behind the 8 ball, rtfm is the advice people hate but with the OT it’s the best you can do.
Crack in and give it some dedicated hours, you’ll fly through it in no time if you just put in a pair of headphones and have an input occupied so you can sample when you get to that section
You could use the search function on the forum but it’s pretty hefty work sometimes as so many answers come up and you’ll be reading threads all day, best yo just get the manual and work through it, it really all makes sense if you take time. Parts, banks, machines and how they work are all vital areas you’ll need to u dear stand in order to create the type of music you’re seeking.
Agreed it’s not easy to start with. try setting the master and track lengths to 1/8 and trig other samples from the trigs on one track. that way the bar limitations to non loop based stuff are not so restricting. the only issue is the lack of resolution of the trigs, since they now assume perhaps 1 bar each. You’ll figure it out
I’d also add that when doing anything you want to keep, bake it into a bunch of patterns and parts, then use the arranger. before i knuckled down to using it I’d end up with a bunch of patterns that I’d quickly lose track of when starting up the next time i turned it on.
Look up how to do “Free” tracks that you trigger manually, and also how to trigger samples using the trig buttons. I use the Octatrack a fair bit for atmospheric backing tracks and so I use both of these with static machines loaded with long samples
I completely agree. I was like you (I thought I’d use only a few functions). It seems the only way to understand how to purposely NOT use some functions is to actually learn how to use them first and then knowingly ignore them later. The manual is written in such a way that every function is related to another and you will miss important instructions. If you use a feature you like and run into a problem then you will know immediately it’s due to a feature you don’t use. You will only know that from going through the manual. It’s like learning basics of colour theory before choosing your paints… so if you accidentally mix two colours with bad results you will know why it happened and troubleshoot quicker.
PS. Just wanna say that I use OT with same intention as you: abstract, free, rarely in a set rhythm. Once you understand all the functions, it is very fast and liberating to be able to navigate the OT in the free-form way you seek.
If you have specific questions about techniques or operations, do let us know. It’s just that the OT provides myriad possibilities and any two people will likely use it differently.
