I get the sense Elektron likes to shake things up a bit to keep it weird, differentiate from the norm and also from their other products. Maybe a DJ would find this approach useful? Wasn’t that the original stated market?
They’ve got the input volume knob in the amp section and didn’t the ability to assign track level to the scene fader come along in a software update? (Didn’t it?)
I guess what I'm saying is the use evolved from the original intent (like the 303 did as well) and the means seems available.
I solved this problem with scenes and patterns. But it comes down to remembering all the scenes and patterns i have and what they do. Which sometimes brings up a mistake. I would be very happy to see this muting technique implemented.
Nope, it effectively decouples the track from the master transport so you can “launch” the track like you would a clip in ableton. Then conversely, you can stop the track the same way. It can be quantized however you want.
You launch / un-launch tracks using the trig buttons. There’s a video somewhere about using this method for transitions. [/quote]
yeah i find this works well a lot of the time. you’ll probably want it in one2 mode, i think. you don’t even have to set it up beforehand. with the track already running, turn on plays free, tap the corresponding trig, 1-8 to stop the track. later you can use it to reactivate the track and then turn off plays free.
too bad that’s not per part. imo it’d be nice if the specific track you are on would come up when you hit function and edit, instead of starting on the master pattern and having to page through them.
also, you can hold the track buttons and hit play or stop. i guess it depends on what you’re doing. if you have loops going you can pause the transport and they’ll keep going until you manually stop them. this works with one shot trigs too. armed loops will keep going, but if you hit track and stop they won’t come back.
pausing the sequencer and combining that with blank patterns or patterns with one shot trigs works well for transitions. this works with the arranger too if i remember right. with parts you could switch between loops and trigger them by hand and the old ones won’t cut off the new ones until you hit play.
my ears would be dead without w/o track mutes the way they are! but i do a lot of stuff with long reverbs and delay feedback and need to kill the sound. i also find it super useful for quickly auditioning how sounds work together - or not. i can see how other people would use it, but i would turn it off.
Signed. This was another one of the missing features that influenced me when returning my pre-OS 1.0 era Octatrack. Seeing that it has not yet been implemented is adding to my fence sitting.
Nope, it effectively decouples the track from the master transport so you can “launch” the track like you would a clip in ableton. Then conversely, you can stop the track the same way. It can be quantized however you want.
You launch / un-launch tracks using the trig buttons. There’s a video somewhere about using this method for transitions. [/quote]
yeah i find this works well a lot of the time. you’ll probably want it in one2 mode, i think. you don’t even have to set it up beforehand. with the track already running, turn on plays free, tap the corresponding trig, 1-8 to stop the track. later you can use it to reactivate the track and then turn off plays free. [/quote]
Yeah - I was playing with this workaround last night. It is useful - but the main problem I have with it is the lack of led feedback. I wonder why the trig buttons don’t light to let you know which tracks are currently playing? You’re working blind the way it is now…
It would be great if an OT dev would weigh in on this. It seems so obviously important and like an obvious thing to fix… and I really can’t imagine a technical hurdle - but maybe there’s something we’re not considering?
Anyone know of any other workarounds? Best yet is this plays free thing - but working without led feedback is honestly pretty crazy for a box like this…
LED would be better, but there is at least a little play symbol next to the track number on the display.
my only issue with the plays free method is that you have to restart free playing tracks when you switch patterns. would be much more flexible if they could just kept playing until you stop them. more ableton-y.
a function to set default pattern settings would also help.
Any news on this pausing issue? My Octatrack annoyes me everytime I use it because of this behaviour. I can’t use delays and reverb when playing live, cutting off those tails sounds really really bad, even for experimental music.
It would indeed be cool and , i get around this with scenes, i.e. hold down scene button and on each track i want to trail turn amp page vol to 0 and delay rererb etc up a good bit, more feedback, longer time etc
or copy to new sequence and plock all the samples i want to trail away, shorten the sample length and release, increase the delay feedback or reverb time,
i sure plenty have do this anyway, still it would be a cool feature to have
Has this been sorted out yet? I’m on 1.25E, gonna upgrade to 1.25H… I got my octatrack yesterday, played with it for hours already, love it. It’s exactly what I need. Finally feel like I can do with hardware what I used to do on FL studio (to a point). But the muting… Why? I have never wanted or needed muting like this on any device I’ve ever owned. I’m hoping the octatrack will be the centre of my performance kit, but I can’t use it with the mutes this way. Sounds truely unprofessional. Definitely needs sequencer level mutes like the machinedrum has, or I might sadly have to sell it on already.
I have read through all the sugested work arounds and none of them are satisfactory. I have constructed a pattern in which I have reverb on one track, delay on another track, and a really long sample on yet another. It would be nice to be able to mute any one of these at will without either the delay, reverb or the long sample being cut short suddenly. The sample in particular I can’t think how to overcome properly. I need the sample itself to carry on going while no longer re-triggering.
The volume in the AMP page is the one you want to tweak to keep your FX tail.
The Track Level is at the end of the chain, while amp is at the beginning.
For the long sample, it’s not a mute you’re looking for : mute would be for shutting it silent
What you want is probably to have it triggered only once.
You can achieve this by setting a “One shot trig” (Funtion + trig) that you arm by holding the track button and hitting Yes.
Does this answer your need ?
Not really. If you are sending to an effect, like delay or reverb using an aux send return, then muting only the track you will still hear the effect ring out
Yeah, mute doesn’t usually mean mute all sound entire on all the kit I’ve used. It didn’t on the MD either, which was the predecesor. I remember thinking that it did when I first got one (was my first bit of hardware) and I was wondering how the hell that would be any use playing live… but I was pleasantly surprised to find it just stopped it triggering any more and let the synth/sample tails as well as the reverb and delay tails (though they were sends I guess, so not quite the same) carry on going… as is the case with most gear I’ve used.
I have never once wanted to cut the sound completely like that when muting. If I’m producing in a DAW, I don’t silence everything every time I bring an instrument out, I just stop adding more instances of it in. Why does the octatrack not work like that?
I will try the one shot trig thing for the sample, though the sample is triggered repeatedly until I wish to “mute” it, so I would have to remove the final triggering of it and then do the one shot trig thing? Or set up a whole new pattern just for that. Donno, I’ll try it, see what happens, but I really hope it doesn’t distract my hands from doing any of the other millions of things I want to try and do all at once.
As for the delay and reverbs, I can run them into neighbour tracks, I know this, although I’m already doing that with one, and only muting the neighbour track seems to have any effect at all. I’m not really sure why, I was going to read through the manual or google for an answer another time, but while we’re on the subject, why the hell does that happen? It still ultimately means that the whole sound just cuts off when I want to mute. Also, I was hoping to have alot going on all at once in each pattern, so using double the tracks for everything that has reverb or delay (which is most of my tracks!) seems a massive waste of resources when the track mutes could just as easily mute the sequencer.
My experience with elektron instruments is you go to it. I think lots of instruments benefit from this attitude but elektron more than most. Fortunately with elektron, the interfaces are so deep that you can often get where you want but there will always be trade offs.
Since the tracks are not sends, mutes mute. They just do. Try playing with the amp value or the wet/dry on the effect to get what you want. You might hook something to a scene for example. But then you have to keep track of what happens if you disconnect the scene.
Standardizing your parts across all of your songs might simplify things or it might complicate them.
Personally, I never got good at using my OT like ableton. I love using it as a creative on the fly tool but for premeditated music, I prefer my a4.
But the track mutes don’t have to mute, they could just stop the sequencer triggering like on everything else I can think of that has a sequencer. Like the machinedrum for instance… My sample is going to still be cut very short if I use the scenes to cut the amp value before it triggers again. Also, I’m aleady caning through the scenes doing interesting musical stuff, not keen on the idea of using scenes to work around a clearing fault with the device. Surely Elektron should at the very least make this an option? Out of interest, do any of you actually like the way the muting works? Are there actually situations that use it? And if so, do they occur often enough to warrant that being the way it always works?
As a note, I’m looking in the manual, and it tells me that muting a track preceding a neighbour machine has no effect… So, unless my manual is out of date and this has been changed in more recent updates than 1.25E, that’s not a viable work around for the delays and reverbs. Which leaves only the master track option. I’ve not played with a master track yet, but would it be unreasonable to hope that it will allow me to route different tracks into different effects? Otherwise, it’s not going to allow me to use both reverb and delay seperately while not cutting off tails.
Also worth noting is that the octatrack has options for deciding weather the sound from a previous pattern will carry on playing until a trigger from the same track occurs. This is a similar concept.
My memory is that only one of the mutes is relevant in neighbor tracks as you observe. The amp level on that first track would be useful though.
Agree on your preferred way of operating as does I think everyone but elektron. I’m not trying to talk you out of wanting it. Just out if expecting it. However elektron is famously mum on feature releases and full of surprises. Although the hive mind says they’re done updating the OT and have moved on.
Master applies to all of the other 7 voices and anything at the inputs set to pass through. So you can’t use it as a send as far as I know.
i can see how other people would use it, but i would turn it off.