The OT Track muting problem

Try Master track 8.
No routing but you get your tails.

If thatā€™s how it behaved, how would you mute tracks that are playing long samples, or neighbour machines? There would have to be two different kinds of mutes to accommodate that.

In the case of non neighbour machines, you could have the choice right? But Iā€™ve never found that to be a problem with other devices. Itā€™s always been fine for me to let the last triggering of the long sample just play out, but not trigger again when I wish to mute it.

As for neighbour machines, it would make sense if you muted (in one way or the other) the machine feeding the neighbour machine, so you still get the reverb and delay tails, and then you can still just mute the audio altogether by muting the neighbour machine if you so desired. But as it stands, muting the machine thatā€™s feeding a neighbour does nothing (unless thatā€™s been updated recently) which I also find a bit weird. That would offer a much better work around regarding reverb tails and delays.

But Iā€™d guess that only works if you want to use the same reverb and delay on every trackā€¦

I really hope thatā€™s not true. I know I havenā€™t had it long, but I feel this is the only thing theyā€™d need to change to make it the single greatest piece of kit Iā€™m ever likely to own. But without changing the mutes, Iā€™m not sure I can utilise itā€™s potential properly, and Iā€™ll probably never play live with it. Which would be a tremendous shame!

What about a midi controller like the midi fighter twister or button controller to sort it out with the amp page. Itā€™s very lightweight, and then you have dedicated visual feedback and control of all mutes

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Well, itā€™s a nice idea, but currently I canā€™t afford any more gear, and I was hoping to keep my set up small. Infact, I was going to see if I could get away with just the octatrack and a multi-tumbral synth as my full setup. That also doesnā€™t help with longer samples when theyā€™re arranged in complex patterns. Iā€™d like my sample to ring out to the end without it retriggering when the new sequence starts. Iā€™ll consider that option still, but Iā€™d rather the octatrack could just do it with the mutes. You shouldnā€™t really need extra gear to do something as simple as this, lol.

I think I experienced a similar thing in the rytm. In that I think I solved it by setting a trigless lock that set the amp page to zero. Maybe that could help?

Still only helps with the reverb and delay tails, but itā€™s a start. What do you do, just parameter lock the last or first step of the sequence to 0 amp when you need to mute?

Maybe I should start a new petition. Doesnā€™t look like that one got enough support, but that was more than 2 years agoā€¦

Yeah I think thatā€™s what i did. Also A funny idea i had , untested, would be to have a ā€˜silentā€™ sample for instances like this (if the amp level trick doesnā€™t work)

In my case on the rytm, if the sample wasnā€™t the same length as the pattern, I would get the rest of the sample in the next pattern until it was finished. So I chopped that one up a bit to make it fit the pattern. But in another I had trigs reversing the sample, and a trigless lock seemed to fix that one (maybe coz it was playing backwards not sure)

Still it could be different in the OT , not sure

I donā€™t mean this to be rude but making a petition is a waste of time. There are scores of things that the OT could do better, and piles of feature requests that people are absolutely desperate for. But nothing new has been added for over a year and all signs point to development being closed. It is what it is, either find a workaround or let it go.

IMO the tails being cut off are not a big deal. Best workaround is using a midi controller if it really annoys you. Korg fader thing works and is super cheap. Faderfox UC4 is better. Faders are more fun anyway.

Fair enough, Iā€™d say it is a very big deal though. Pretty much a deal breaker. Everything else on the octatrack is just great from my perspective, but this one problem renders the sound I get out of it totally crude and unprofessional. I will have to try and find workarounds for now, but if it makes using the octatrack alot more effort, or uses up too many track/scene/pattern resources, or causes me to have to devote my hands to it during performance when I need to be doing other things, then thatā€™s a big deal

The fact that I made a change.org petition was a dark tongue and cheek joke. I wrote to elektron support as well and it was pretty clear that they didnā€™t care or want it. Obviously a petition wonā€™t change that - but itā€™s a real bummer. Elektron boxes are ok - but if they listened to their users the company would be a lot stronger and more well liked.

Your opinion is very much in the minority on this. Most people Iā€™ve talked to see this as the number one worst thing about the octatrack. Any other feature would be a nice-to-have - but this seriously makes the mutes unusable for most people. If you watch people who actually perform with the octatrack youā€™ll see that no-one uses the mutes. Theyā€™re a joke unless youā€™re either going for a gimicky glitch effect, or if you donā€™t care about sounding like a hack. So instead of arranging with mutes weā€™re forced to pre-plan our shifts in advance. Which is fine - but you lose a lot of spontaneity. You simply canā€™t improvise with mutes on this box without sounding like a hack. It sucks.

Of course my petition was useless. Another petition would also be useless.

I guess for most of the situation Scenes could do it.
The controller idea is brilliant, hadnā€™t thought of it !

As I run everything through my DAW for additional processing anyways, I am exploring options for creating a dual purpose MIDI mapping via my Novation Nocturn and custom software configuration to be able to use the buttons on the Novation as ā€œmuteā€ buttons which turn the AMP parameter to zero when pressed and back to the last value when released. So far it is working as hoped and not cutting off effect tails but by doing this I lose proper functionality of these virtual mutes when scene or parameter locking AMP.
Because the track levels cannot be parameter locked, this is kind of a conundrum. Give up the ability to have step or scene locked AMP value to have FX tails when muting? I did find one workaround which is to use a flat LFO at -128 to control the AMP parameter which overrides the locks, but then an LFO is sacrified. (probably my best option as far as I can tell)
Any other ideas for a workaround? Besides the obviousā€¦ poke-poke @ELEKTRON

Edit: @elektronauts ā€¦ Iā€™m guessing User ā€œELEKTRONā€ has nothing to do with Elektron? I figured tagging that name would make the blinky red alert light go off at central headquarters, haha

I just thought about something else nifty I could do via my controller mutes via AMP parameterā€¦ Set short (or long) fade times so no sounds are abruptly cut off. Hmmā€¦

Edit: Edit:
In case anyone is interested in this approach, I have come to the conclusion that rather than sacrifice an LFO on each track in order to have the desired effect, I am going to stick to mapping my controller to the AMP parameter and then if I need per trig or scene locks for VOL I will assign an LFO for the track with a flat -128 wave assigned to AMP and then lock the depth parameterā€¦ Seems the best option that I can see.

You mean @elektronauts :wink:

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Sequencer-level mutes would b great indeed,

But to say this lacking feature turns the OT into a useless machine for live gigs is total nonsense to meā€¦

A petition for elektron team to get back to OT OS development would be more useful IMO.

Peace :slight_smile:

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What does dataline do?

Agreed. Been seeing a fair few new OT users pop up across forums recently. Life in the old box yet. Would love to see Elektron u-turn on their decision to leave it be but to be fair it feels very complete/deep already and I donā€™t really get any bugs etc.

But if by miracle they could go back to it and add trig conditions, dynamic polyphony across tracks, nail/expand the pickup machines looper aspectā€¦

I heard the main OT developer isnā€™t at Elektron any more though and the cpu/ram etc is maxed out?