I’ve run into an issue and would appreciate your thoughts, advice.
I’m working on a Project and have the Prophet 6 on T1 as Thru, and Analog Rhythm on T5 as Thru. I might start another project and want Digitakt on T1 as Thru, Analog Rytm on T5 as Thru, and Minitaur on T6 as Thru. My issue arrises when I open an older project to work on, and I have no clue what hardware I was using on each Thru track. I guess this applies to MIDI tracks also.
If I always kept the same hardware setup it wouldn’t be an issue, I could put masking tape on the Octatrack face and write out what’s on each track. But I have a couple devices that I like to switch out and play with.
I bought a little ring-bound notepad to sit on the music desk recently because I realised that I’d definitely need a way to keep track of where something is in the banks/patterns and the context of what it’s for. Being able to name tracks on the device would be a nice feature to have as well though.
It would be great if you could name/label Thru tracks, in the space where Flex/Static tracks have the sample name. Was going to throw it into the feature request post, but wasn’t sure if I was missing something as a newer user.
…ot is such a flexible and complex sonic tool, u better define some basic rules u always apply to…
and safe a blank project that has such a certain basic layout, u always take as a starting point…
only this way, even if ur input pairs might get feed from various different gear setups, u always know what’s the deal…
and apart from handwritten notes or stickers on the machine, the arranger is the only option to leave individual defined notes per project, i’m afraid…
Maybe it’s a good time to check it out! You could even just use the remark function and then simply don’t enable the arranger if you’re not using it. I really like this idea of using the arranger for notes. I might start using this
I went ahead and created templates for my two hardware setups, and have them labeled to reflect the thru tracks (ex. TEMP_T1P6_T5MOOG). I’ll open those, add a distinctive name, and save as new. Hopefully that keeps me organized before I get too many projects started.
I’m almost there, and will definitely use it. Mostly just working out sketches of ideas at this point. Hadn’t considered using remarks in this way, but that would be a great use of them.
Depending on how much gear you have, you could also dedicate a track per piece of hardware.
Eg if the THRU machine is on track 1 that’ll always be your Digitakt, if the THRU machine is on track 2 that’ll always be your A4, and so on and so on.
Obviously here you’d be limited to max 8 pieces of hardware due to the OT’s 8 tracks, but it would allow you to instantly see which devices are involved (based on the track numbers that hold thru machines) when you load a project without having to apply long convoluted naming conventions
Another idea that might be helpful is to make some kind of simple template diagram of the OT and print out a bunch of them, then you can quickly fill in the necessary details for a particular jam or project.
Naming files and stuff is always a good idea, but I feel like good old pen and paper might be the most immediate and flexible option for organisation while keeping moving and grooving on the device.
I guess I could do this, and always use the same track for each device. And if I don’t use every device in a project, then just swap those unused Thrus for Flex tracks. This might solve the MIDI track issue also.
