Progress slow. Did some polyrhythm stuff but it doesn’t fit with the sample I have.
Speaking of, gonna do more sampling. Kinda don’t have a lot of them in there.
Getting a little frustrated with my own ineptitude but what can ya do?
Go fetch some cool sounds on freesounds…
Try some ambient with octave pitch down…
Lock the hell out of it : FX, slight rate for destine effect…
Plug a synth behind…
I just got one too,
i’ve been doing tutorials getting up to speed,
If I had to bet, I would say I don’t think I’ll be owning it for very long
I have enough of the basics down that I can sample and make some loops, crossfade scenes P-locks ect.
But I just don’t see how something so restrictive ends up being fun? or productive! what’s the end game here?
Maybe if you make straight experimental techno, this works, but I write songs with choruses versus beginnings and endings, I’m not looking to jam out on loops. I usually know where I want to go and the tone of my tracks is lyrics and melody first everything else justs serves those masters.
Is this really a techno jam box and unsuited for tradition songs? Or commercial releases for that matter? The OP1 has started to appear all over the place playing a role in successful productions that exist to make money. the octatrack? Not so much that I’m aware of
I had envisioned sampling verses and choruses in, guitars synths beats, arranging them into their proper sequence and then proceeding to mess with the audio from there, also had thought I could do remixes in the same way, import the vocal and arrange it and my new track elements underneath it,
But it’s looking like the box is the ultimate GAS trap time waster, that getting good at it means I can make glitchy stuff for myself at home and talk about how great it is but not make one DIME off of what I produce with it,
That’s the thing, I DO make my living in music and I am getting concerned by the time this thing is consuming and also the suspicious lack of successful released tracks that whose success was facilitated by the octatrack
I can’t seem to find one truly successful songwriter/producer/artist who vouches for this thing, I’m not talking about people having fun screwing around on it, I mean using it for commercial releases
Does anybody here make money with their octatrack? Or know anyone who does?
There is always a lot of talk about what COULD be done with this thing, but very few concrete examples of what it HAS been accomplished
Any feedback would be apreciated? Anyone further dsown the road who can encourage me or tell me it’s not worth it?
@<a href=“https://www.operator-1.com/index.php?p=/profile/2223/donallfinn” class=“Username” style=“font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(66, 157, 168); background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>donallfinn<span style=“font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(37, 38, 30); background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”> it took me a whole year to get comfortable with this machine.
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>Is capable of much, but you definitely have to get to know it.
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>Resell it if you need something fast.
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>For me, the p-locking sequencer has been a great change in my production, I miss it on other machines.
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>
<span style=“color: rgb(37, 38, 30); font-family: “lucida grande”, “Lucida Sans Unicode”, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(252, 252, 255);”>AR and AK are used by people like Thom Yorke, not precisely playing techno 
OT is sample based so IMO even more open.
But you first got to know it, piece by piece, and let it grow on you.
Go fetch some cool sounds on freesounds... Try some ambient with octave pitch down... Lock the hell out of it : FX, slight rate for destine effect... Plug a synth behind...
This is what I’m gonna do, thanks for the encouragement 
Gotta get some more interesting drum sounds, for one. Glitchy ones! Whack ones! Outta sight drums!
And even though it might seem like you’re not getting ‘anywhere’ by doing it, I’d encourage just fiddling about – for instance, see how you can utilize all the LFO’s on a flex & neighbor track. Try different cross-modulations, set crazy retrigs to conditional trigs, etc…
In other words, waste time just by going crazy – sometimes the best things are found that way 
Don’t worry about making a song, every once in a while.
@donallfinn tons of high profile artists are using the OT. It’s the closest thing there is right now to a universal standard in samplers for live electronic sets. Folks have mentioned how easy it is to borrow one if theirs breaks down in a random city during a tour. Notable names: Panda Bear, MGMT, Jacques Greene, Andy Stott, Matthew Dear, Haxan Cloak…
Check this thread: https://www.elektronauts.com/t/high-profile-ot-users/15652/27
Yes it’s complex and has its limitations, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make great music with it, or a shitload of cash if that’s your goal.
Linear stuff like what you describe is not really it’s strong point but it can still be done. Individual track lengths and the arranger help here. Give it more time before disparaging.
And to nail it : a guitar is full of limitations, you cannot get a decent kick out of it. Yet…
This very forum contains tons of proofs that limitations can help creativity.
Now I can’t say “limitations” is the word that comes to mind when talking about OT. “Limitless sound crafting possibilities” is rather what I would say.
Yeah, it’s not a DAW and shouldn’t be treated as such.
Also, can I just point out how silly the words “trigless trigs” are even if it is a cool tool for the sequencer
Totally agree on this. Terminology is most definitely one of the weakest point in Elektron universe.
The fact that they don’t even use the same language from a machine to another is a big flaw IMO.
Give the OT time. Even when it’s getting the better of you and you’re in a rage with it, just give it time. It’s a hugely frustrating device but very rewarding too. In truth, I still dunno if I will keep mine but I do remember selling one some time ago and regretting it pretty much immediately! There is just something a little special with the Octatrack.
I too tend to write with choruses/verses/bridges in mind and I do appreciate that the OT feels counter intuitive in achieving that. But having said that I do tend to write my songs using loops (once Ableton clicked with me I havent looked back) so maybe a little easier for me to get in to.
I’m in a bit of a rut myself with the OT though but I’m keen to keep plugging away. Going to sit down this evening with “just” my OT and OP-1 and see how it goes. If the magic happens then great, if not, I’ll give it a few more tries or will try a different tact then will sit back and have a think about what it is I’m trying to do here! Without a doubt I am heaps more productive on laptop and with Push so maybe an Elektron’s Rytm to go with the Keys I already own would be a wiser, more productive set up (via overbridge). Anyway, I completely digress there!!!
Did some dicking around today, found some interesting samples and did some okay things with them.
I’m pretty new to sampling so things aren’t looping amazingly well yet but I’ll get there. Trying to make basic hip-hop beats under weird noises and also making a standard thing with a loop from something exotic.
@J0n35y I don’t really write songs at all, just sort of assemble them. One day I’ll sit down with my Jazzmaster and work out something with a structure. Wish I could write verse/chorus/verse!
Also, is an iConnect MIDI worth getting? Asking cuz eventually (in the far future) I wanna sync up the OP-1 and OT and it seems to fit the bill.
IConnectMidi is very interesting. I think the non iPad case mpatible is cheaper, you might consider it rather than iCM4+
The fact that you can sync like 20 piece of gear makes it very powerful, the kind that you won’t have to invest in this department anymore 
Avoid the iCM2 as it’s not a USB host iirc
@donalfinn OT can do the verse/bridge/Chorus thing but it’s probably not the best tool for it for traditional linear ‘songs’. As others have said, people like Panda Bear, Mgmt etc use OT so that kind of shows what it can do within more ‘pop’ kind of areas. I see it more as an instrument than a daw replacement personally. Sometimes it spits out fully formed song ideas but often I’ll just get a song ‘section’ or a rough idea from it that I’ll take to daw. And other times it might just be some weird percussive patterns or a weird sounding melodic part that I’ll layer in to an existing daw project. OT ‘can’ do pretty much everything but isn’t necessarily the best tool for some of those things. Give it some more time and see where/if it fits in with your music. If not then sell and move on.
It’s value can sometimes be something that reveals itself slowly though. Like for 3 months I didn’t really think I was doing much that was truly useful on it except for messing around and learning it. Then I listened back through all my projects and realised I had the bones for about 40 songs or ideas… And all of them were stuff that I doubt I would have arrived at on other machines or daw and hadn’t really taken any effort to produce…
Its a keeper here but a lot of people do buy and sell pretty quick. Tho it seems half of those buy again wishing they’d given it more time/less preconceptions the first time
Edit - basically, think of it as a sampler/step sequencer and you’ll feel like ‘dang, this is ridiculously feature rich compared to anything else out there. Fun times’. Or think of it as a DAW and you’ll often feel like ‘ugh. This is kind of a PITA’.
Have a few projects on the go. Focusing on creating basic backing beats to learn how they work before mangling them. Gotta learn the boom-bap. You’d think it’d be easy but:
A) I’m a total noob (in the parlance of our times) and the real basic sequencing stuff is still new to me.
B) I’m very hyper-critical of everything I do and tend to throw out stuff that isn’t “perfect”, even though nothing ever is
I’ve been trying to avoid copyrighted samples and stuff that’s just loops except in one case.
Oh, and speaking of loops, what’s the best way to avoid pops/clicks when trimming looping samples?
Zero crossings. Press down func when trimming and the Octa will snap to them.
Same when slicing : always use the Fn button while moving the cursor with the knobs.
I absolutely love infringing copyright ,specially make something pooh into something really good.
Being a DJ ,reappropriating others music is artistic licence ,but each to their own
Infact I have a problem with using pre made samples/loops made by others- which is odd.
(OTs good for making our own samps & loops mind.).
Keep workin away and your enthusiasm Beginners mind is always the “best”.
And to nail it : a guitar is full of limitations, you cannot get a decent kick out of it. Yet...This very forum contains tons of proofs that limitations can help creativity.Now I can't say "limitations" is the word that comes to mind when talking about OT. "Limitless sound crafting possibilities" is rather what I would say.
Nailed Perfectly. I doff my cap.