Hi Elektronauts
Not sure which of the forums i should post this in, but here goes:
Just got really hooked (after hours and hours on youtube and reading review) on the octatrack and going to order it this week , but also have the budget to buy another machine. I do a lot of sampled based electronic music, but would also like to have some synths to play with. With the octatrack i hope to spend more time playing with music instead of clicking around in my DAW with my mouse. Now the big dilemma seems to be what other machine i should get?
At first i was thinking A4, but after looking more at the MD it also looks really interesting. I was thinking i would quickly run out of tracks on the OT if i have to use it to program all of the beats and percussion, and therefore im leaning a little bit towards getting the MD, but the analogue sounds of the A4 also is a bit tempting… So dear elektronauts, what are your thoughts about it? anyone been in the same posistion?
I suppose it’s a question of what role your OT will play…
Machinedrum
If you think you’ll run out of tracks on the OT and won’t be able to cater for drums, and if drums are a very important aspect of your music making then I’d recommend the MD!
Having said that, depending on what your sampling needs are, you may find a highly specced out MD (i.e. with the +Drive) useful (even as an alternative to the OT, but that really depends on what you’ll use the OT for).
It’s possible to load samples into the MD (albeit with 12-bit quality) and then trigger them and do some modest sound-mangling with the MD editing controls. So, what you get with the MD is an incredibly capable drum-synth bolstered with nifty sample playback!
Analog Four
However (uh-oh devil’s advocate) if you think you could just about squeeze the drums into your OT, I’d definitely get the A4 for the sheer sonic range that you’ll have at your finger-tips. OK, so it’s only 4 tracks compared to the 16 of the MD, but it would be wrong to compare the track-count. What the A4 ‘lacks’ in track-count, it more than makes up for with flexibility.
The A4 has ‘sound locks’, in a similar manner to the more well-known ‘parameter locks’, so you get the ability change a single step on the sequencer to play a different sound - meaning you get a bit more mileage out of your 4 tracks!
All in all, I would personally choose the A4 as it would offer a nice balance between the sample-based and then pure analogue synthesis. In my mind, that would represent the best of both worlds!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesnt really matter what you choose, because you will probably end up with all four boxes haha. I bought the A4 and it was like crack. Then came the OT, and thats a hell of a Combo, but the OT didnt do drums the way I thought so then came the MD. Then I loved the combo so much I sold some of the lousier VA synths I had and got the MnM (which is A BEAST) its soooooo (i hate this term) cold. It sounds like some miserable assembly line with misery and machines in the future… and I love EVERY second of it. The contrast to the A4 and what you can do together is just carnage.
Yup. I bought the MDUW. Loved it. Bought the a4 the next week. Loved it. Bought the OT, the following week. Loved it. I even traded my OT once on a great trade deal, and bought another one within 3 months. Been on the look out for a great MnM deal, but am living without it for now.
If you can only have 2, I recommend the OT and A4.
I agree with the OT + A4 folks. Killer combo. I own those two plus the MD+UW, and while I really like the flow of all of the boxes, the MD is a bit less inspiring to me due to the limited # of built-in drum “machines”. Given that, there are plenty of tips to squeeze a tremendous amount of sound out of the box, so don’t let my pet peeve put you off… if it’s drums you’re after to supplement sample-based synthesis, then I’d say go for MD+UW with the OT!
