Octatrack vs Mpc

The resonance is screaming, back it off a little :busts_in_silhouette:

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I find on mpc [Live mk2] I write much more linearly. my drum patterns and melodies are very deliberate.
to me it feels quite like writing on cubase & my akai s3000 sampler in the 90s, but in a beautiful, modern, focused all in one machine.
I absolutely love it for writing old school early 90s jungle.

with the octa I naturally lean much more towards a more spontaneous & generative approach. melodies n beats are looser n less deliberate. lots of probability and the unknown.

I love both. I love the OT more tho as mpc for me is very much for when I want to write 90s jungle. OT is for everything else. proper desert island piece imo.

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If creating sampler instruments (key groups) with your synths is a thing for you, go with the MPC.

Recently discovered autosampling and I love it. Bringing my soft synths into the hardware world and playing them chromatically has been a game changer for me :metal:t4:

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yea autosampler, sample layers, n scales are big pluses for me. love that sh1t :kissing_heart::ok_hand:

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Really dope!! Especially 1st video . ā€¦ but all, thanks!

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Thanks for the long helpful post!
About the q links knobsā€¦ is there a way to map a controller to change with the screen u r in?

My pleasure man!

So if you do the thing described in the link I posted, then you can map your controller to the global controls and have those function in standalone, in other words you can get a 16 knob controller (ideally with endless encoders) and emulate the Q-Links with that.

The Q-Links have five modes (you can see them in the bottom row of your MPC Liveā€™s screen when you press & hold the q-link button). The modes are ā€œProjectā€, ā€œProgramā€, ā€œPad Sceneā€, ā€œPad Parameterā€ and ā€œScreenā€, with Screen being the default setting.

So once youā€™ve set up the controller hack and set the Q-Link mode to ā€œScreenā€, your controller will always take over the 16 q-link controls of the screen you are currently on ā€” eg you switch to pad mixer, your knobs now control the volume of your 16 pads (one knob per pad). Switch to program edit, your knobs now control the parameters of the page you are on and so on. So if that is your desired behaviour then yes this works! :slight_smile:

If you DONā€™T want that, for example: if you want to map all of your programā€™s filter cutoffs and resonances and other sample mangling parameters onto your 16 knobs and have those consistently available to you no matter the screen youā€™re on (for example you can be in track mute mode while your knobs still control filter cutoff, which could be good for live performances) ā€” thatā€™s possible to. For that youā€™d just switch the Q-Link mode to ā€œProgramā€ or ā€œProjectā€ and in the Q-Link Edit mode youā€™d map the controls you want onto your knobs and boom, those are now there for you consistently until you switch your Q-Link mode back to ā€œScreen.ā€

With the hack Iā€™ve posted, you can also map a button or dial on your controller to ā€œQ-Link Mode Selectā€ ā€” so you can then use the button to cycle through the different Q-Link modes without having to switch over to that screen on your MPC Live.

And just to reiterate it, everything Iā€™m describing here works in standalone mode with no computer attached (you set it up once and it works every time thereafter). All credit for this goes to TheKikGen by the way, Iā€™m just a consumer of the solution :slight_smile:

Let me know if you need help setting this up for yourself.

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Pretty great!!
I don t have though a midi fighter, but a Novation Launch xl

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Thatā€™ll work! :slight_smile: you might even be lucky and there may be already a mapping for that controller in the MPC Software, in which case you can just copy that over. Make sure you follow instructions as lined out by TheKikGen! Good luck!

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I can t believe just one lfo in Force/MPC compared with 3 on Octatrackā€¦ wtf :frowning:

imagine if they put layering on the octaā€™s successor and sample freezing, would be nuts

8 ??

I think itā€™s 1 lfo per track with 8 possible destinations (plus the envelope follower but thatā€™s a separate thing). I sold an OT for a Live back when it came out then upgraded to the Force and Iā€™m super happy with it, it only needs more love from Akai in the step sequencer department but for my needs itā€™s pretty much perfect, thereā€™s so much it does beyond what I use it for so I should really invest time in dwelling deeper.
It might not seem super deep as a sound design tool, until you start resampling and using linked pads with different envelopes.
Remember every pad has 4 effects, filters and envelopes but these affect all 4 layers so you can just use linked pads to add more layers with different effects, thereā€™s no end to it.

The OT still wins in terms of flex audio and creative resampling but for me the Force wins in terms of getting me from turning on the machine to a finished track.

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Si even if I have just one sample, I can link with another 3 pads with no samples on them and get another 3 lfos to apply to the initial sample?

Unfortunately not, lfos and envelopes only apply to the current pad.

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If you use OT Neighbor tracks, up to 12 lfos on fx (24 with some trickery).

OT has also 3 lfo per midi track. Assign 8 tracks to an audio track channel, and you have up to 27 lfos on 1 audio track (48 with Neighbors) ! :pl:

Not realistic, Midi bandwidth limit of course, but 3 midi additional lfos is reasonable, even more with HOLD mode, sending only one lfo value per trigā€¦

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For what I do and to get my sound, I need at least 50 LFOs per sampleā€¦goddamn the OT sucks, SO limited!

:joy:

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Almost there! Youā€™d need 2 OTs, 96 lfos. Enough ? :content:

But unfortunately youā€™d have only one trackā€¦

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How would you pair them? Iā€™m looking into this and canā€™t decide which one should be the master. They both have good sequencers.

Great question and sorry I have no answer. I only have the OT available atm my Live is packed away. I was planning on a lot of trial and error till I find the workflow that works best. Def going to route Lives outs into the OT for scenes and fader goodness. Beyond that, I would also be curious how others may use the two.