I’m on the verge of buying an Digitakt or Octatrack MK2 but can’t seem to find a source of comparison for the sound engines between these two.
I really like the sound engine and sample workflow of the DT, does any one know if this part is the same on the OT MK2?
Thanks CarlMikaelBjork, yeah i’ve seen Cuckoos comparison (2x) and now curious how equal that is on the OT MK2, i believe there’s a new firmware init so sample workflow could be different, but if the sound rocks the same on the OTmk2 as the DT
i’ll get the OT2.
Don’t know if the new converters and added headroom makes for more similarities - I find making such comparisons much too boring. I think they (OT MKII and DT) still have their own sound. They are great instruments in their own.
I’d say the DT is the more efficient machine out of the two- in price, size, ability and workflow. With OB you’ll be able to better integrate it into a DAW(which is often the most efficient of accomplishing things)- and it has a pretty rich sound.
The OT is an everything machine- sampler/sequencer/dynamic fx processor. Will not be able to integrate well into your DAW. For studio use most of the production work will have to take place in the OT opposed to the DAW or getting tracks out will be much more of a process. You can do exponentially more with the sound in the OT, but it won’t sound as rich(but still good) as the DT.
There are people that swear by both, so there are no bad decisions. But a DT and a OT mk1 seems to be an excellent decision
I still have to do some precise comparison, but sound wise I believe, for now, that DT sounds better than OT, being mk1 or 2.
Overdrive, filter, reverb are in my very humble opinion (neither expert nor fact-checked yet) “cleaner” on DT.
This is a real point to me, as I love OT workflow : live sampling, crossfader + scenes, plockable FX are all key points to me.
But DT sound is extremely good, to the point that I want to take the time to compare it with OT with the exact same samples. I have to find what I do in OT that would taint the sound.
I do believe that the pb hides in the way I handle gain staging.
I can only compare the videos available and DT sounds more punchy in your face, excellent for drums!
The OTmk2 has a higher output level than mk1 and maybe thats also an improvement of the sound…
I’d love to hear a compare of the 2 playing the exact same drumsamples, clean and at the same level…
“Immediate” is a word used often for DT and I think it also links to the sort of thing you are describing.
With DT the road map from sampling through to shaping that sample to requirements is more fluid and streamlined. Putting aside teh FX differences, Im convinced I could achieve similar results on both machines but I need to sort of understand what I’m doing “wrong” on the OT. Those lessons start on Monday when it arrives. The filter, for example, is something I found really easy to use on DT but always a pain on OT. Looking forward to understanding wherre I was going wrong with OT.
I suppose the solution is to stop seeing it as some quantitative, but instead qualitative. A flavor, if you will. Like, the DT from what I’ve heard sounds really rich; while the OT sounds crispier and steered to weird stuff(then again, I was a big fan of the OT Lo-Fi distortion- which leads to my belief that it sounds crispy. I loved that. I see the OT as an experimental machine. You can quite whimsically go off into bizarre territories with that.
I will say, a HUGE draw of the DT is it’s rich sound though.
Oh yeah, pb is a widely used shorthand for problem, thought it was international, not just French
You’re right about tone seen as flavor.
I’ll try to take this approach.
But still, I can help but think I overlook something important in OT gain staging…