I got my Octatrack this Monday, one thing that bothers me is the sensitivity behavior of the encoder knobs, they are āslowā/fine by default and āfastā/coarse when pushed.
I would like an option to invert that. Problem is, having to push those encoders all the time inflicts pain in my shoulder quickly.
I tend to want the coarse behavior 80% of the time.
Even better would be to avoid having to press the encoders entirely by having those different behaviors assignable to the FUNCTION key as modifiers.
It is already used as modifier for setting to min/max/default defaults (as in 0, 64, 127). It would be great to have an option in the project menu to choose itās behavior: coarse, fine, min/max/default values.
I think it is a great machine so far nonetheless (reading Merlinās pdf in beforehand helped a great deal)
+1 for āFunction + some other button + encodersā in order to scroll faster
The press mod for knobs is a UI trait across the whole range of instruments. I wouldnāt hold my breath about it.
As an alternative, I seem to recall FUNC + arrows scrolling with decent coarseness.
Hello,
Iām in for the classic āre-pitchā algo.
Iām currently forced to use software editor to do this very basic featureā¦
There is a lot of good stuff in this thread! Iām not too sure what would be at the very top of my wish list other than more I/O, threshold sampling and metering multiple tracks, recording directly to the CF card and letting takes āpile upā and be automatically backed up to CF rather than ever being overwritten or lost for any reason!
I would be interested in options for Octatrack and other Elektron gear for people with dichromatic vision.
Seeing the LED states (red vs yellow vs green) has been a challenge. It might sound odd, but in a live setting, it might even be tough to be able to quickly tell whether or not trigs are placed or LEDs are lit at all, given the sequencer position marker and various flashes along with the clock and from different types of trigs.
Though it might sound silly, this is actually something Iād be interested in addressing as I want to use the OT a lot and would rather be able to see what Iām doing more easily. Does anyone know whether it would be possible to swap the LEDs?
In short, Iād love a steel trap sampler with blue/orange LEDs!
I donāt know if this has been said yet but have the option to change the direction of the sequencer. Forward,backwards,back and forth, random, odds and evens, prime numbers and all that action.
I second the earlier suggestion for an envelope follower or even some kind of amplitude-based trigger.
Something that would be super handy would be the ability to record macros. Some functions I use a lot (creating slices and randomizing the locks, for example) take a lot of button presses and are not very convenient in a live setting. It would be very cool to have some way to record those sequences and then trigger them with a single button press.
I would love to have external midi control of the master tempo nudge function.
And BPM per pattern!
THIS indeed.
I was very excited to see the addition of PickUp machines, but Iād really like too see them augmented for more flexible usage.
This is not (yet) so with the PU machines.
Before jumping for the OT, I was using a Gibson Echoplex (EDP). That unit makes it very easy to build and scale up loops, and just as easy to change time signatures.
At present, the OTās PickUp machines only work well when OT is clock master. When OT is clock slave, the PU machines can record and loop, but falter and fail with any Overdub or other secondary operation.
Moreover, all PU machines fall into a āMasterā and āSlaveā relation of commandā¦and when the OT is in clock master, using PickUp machines has the first (master) loop hijack your tempo (by assuming the meter of your loop is 4/4 !!! ).
Iād like to update/expand the PUs to better serve odd metric, poly-metric, or ambient (non-metric) usage of overdub-able buffers.
My suggestions:
[ul]
[li]At present, and any sampling machine (flex, PU), via the Record Setup Page 1, can set the Record Length āRLENā to OFF (manual end), 1,2ā¦64 steps, or Max (of memory allocated per track). Iād like to ADD to this list RLEN = āPattern Lengthā, (which is already available for recQuanitzation and playQuantization), so that the RLEN depends upon the #steps set by that Trackās SCALEā¦THIS would allow us to switch the meter of our Record operations by Track Scale. [/li]
[li]At present, the Pickup Machines front-page has a Length, which is itās scale of being 1, 2, 4, or 8 times the āMasterā loop length. Iād prefer if Pickup machines could OPTIONALLY detach from master/slave relationships, and all just slave to the clock. There is even a blank settings panel (knob D), that could be āModeā ā¦to set to the following suggested PickUp sync MODEs:[/li]
[/ul]
[ol]
[li]āflockā, the existing normal PU mode; for recording loops, then syncāing the OT sequencer to audio loops. Here first loop is a PU Master, and subsequents are Slave. Each PU track can set itās LEN(gth) to any integer 1~8 of Master (not just 1,2,4,8). Sequencer tempo can follow Master tempo, as usual, [/li]
[li]āclockā, an alternative, for those who want to work w/ PUs in any meter, once tempo is already set by Sequencer. Here, all PUs slave and (try to) time-stretch to the Sequencer tempo, and the LEN is now the play-length of the loop in sequencer steps; 1~16, or Pattern (again, set by Scale). ā¦and play-length can be Scene Locked !!! In āclockā, each PU looper re-starts at that Trackās Sequencer hitting the ā1ā. If Master tempo changes, then āclockedā PUs can stop (which seems to be the limits of lacking Time-stretch). This would narrow distance between Flex and Pickup machines, where Flex can slice, and PUs can do overdub/replace operations.[/li]
[li]āfreeā another alternative, that detaches PUs from any relation to Sequencer tempo. No loop sync, no time-stretch, no loop restartā¦ but can still can Play, Stop, Overdub, Replace, etcā¦This way you could record a few PUs worth of texture, overdub them, change tempo reverse a PU, stop sequencer, more PU edits, re-start sequencer, manually stop and re-start the PUs, etcā¦ and your PUs never drop out and fight the sequencer.[/li]
[/ol]
The goal inspiration here is that iād like to be able to drop sounds into PickUps AFTER I get a groove going, and not have to worry about:
[ul]
[li]first PU recorded hijacking my Tempo if RLEN = off.[/li]
[li]PU machines assuming/requiring me to work in 4/4[/li]
[li]PU loop length not easily adjustable.[/li]
[/ul]
This may be a dream. The live-looping PUs of the OT (in itās present form) may never be able to out-dance the Echoplex (especially the EDPs multiplyā¦), but after using the OT for a year, I see what it can do well in itās own way.
It seems like the above should be possible/close in the present architecture of the Player Machines and Sequencerā¦
YES!!!
Also, something simple.
On the sequencer side, you can set certain tracks to āPlay Freeā, so that the main Play/Stop controls disengage, and each Play Free track is controlled by their respective Track Trigs (trigger buttons 1~8).
Morever, each Play Free track can be start/stopped in One, One2, or Hold mode, so you can mash the trig buttons to drop tracks (of playback and re-sampling) in and out.
Not unlike the Zoom RT- series machinesā āGroove Playā mode, or launching/stopping senes in Ableton.
ā¦except that OT can have Record trigs and change Track Scale independently on the fly !!!
my ONLY request is simple.
buttons 9~16 light up RED each time those Sample/MIDI Trigs fire.
Please make buttons 1~8 light up (yellow or green) to indicate the run status of the Track Trigs in Play Free mode.
This would be visually distinct from the Mute mode (red 1~8, yellow 9~16), and would keep me from having to watch the main screen to figure out when Play Free tracks are runningā¦
May have been requested already so apologies if so (not got time to go through all 10 pages).
Latency compensation on the octatrack sequencer.
The ability to manually delay the start of the octatrack so that it plays in sync with an iPad. At the moment the sync is OK if the octatrack is set to slave but not as master -the iPad has a serious lag.
This feature would open up so many midi possibilities-A really important update if it is possible.
Iām sure itās been said, but Iāll say it again,
Copy/Paste Bank would be a HUGE improvement.
I have OctaEdit and love it, but it would be nice to just have it on the OT itself.
I can dream right.
1 Like
Think I remember asking about this a while ago and someone said you can do basically the same thing by copying Parts between banks? Guess that wouldnāt include all patterns etc tho. I never got round to trying it outā¦
You have to copy the parts and patterns.
If you have 4 parts per bank, YIKES.
It getās confusing to look at, especially on 3 machines.
Easy to make mistakes and screw things up too.
I just want a Bank+trig+copy combo to Bank+trig+paste
Or something to that effect.
Yeah man, bank copy/paste including all parts/partners/scenes is a no-brainer. It surprised me when I found it isnāt there. A few simple workflow things like that missing on OT.
this is essentialy the feature that drove me to purchase OctaEdit
banks can easily enough be copy/pasted within the same project from a computer (or perhaps even from the OTās own file manager?
For example to copy bank 1 to bank 3, in the project folder, simply delete the bank03.work file, copy and paste bank01.work and rename to bank03.work
I myself personally would love love love to have a āre-pitch to re-timeā option on the OT.
Essentially it would involve no time stretching whatsoever and involve a simple percentage pitch change up or down to match a loopās bpm to the current OTās bpm.
this would give super nice quality and super nice tonality and super nice formant creativity.