For the OT users, I have a few Q’s fo ya! I’m trying to work out if the OT can kind-of function as a replacement (of sorts, obvs very different) for Maschine/MPC, which I mainly just use to finger-drum loops. I would use it alongside the OP1.
-
Can the OT easily loop input audio like the OP1? Eg say i am bashing away on an MPC’s pads to make a drum loop, into the OT. can I hit “REC”, live play some drums, hit “PLAY”, and have the OT immediately play the loop?
-
Can I record in a loop of something and then trim/slice this loop up like the OP1 drum sampler?
-
Although each of the 8 tracks is monophonic, could I hook in a midi controller (say an MPD), assign 7 tracks to different pads, then live-play some drums on the pads and record them to the 8th track?
-
Will it make me a better lover?
I originally bought the OT with similar intentions. I’ve since explored it a lot and found A LOT of different uses for it.
In
this video you can see audio being tapped out on an MPC and looped up on the OT. The MPC could easily be replaced by an OP-1 here.
I must say that this process required using the metronome on headphones to do it accurately and well… the ‘pick-up machines’ on the OT (which are designed to function more like ‘standard’ loopers - i.e. press loop, play stuff, press loop again and stuff loops) are… well, they’re tricky.
Do some research on
elektronauts.com and see what you can discover. there are MANY people using them to do things like this and a wealth of knowledge in that community.
@rudolphrapid ayyyyyyyyy thanks for the direct answers m8!
@speckdrum that vid is pretty much exactly what I intend on doing!
Follow up question: can you easily solo/mute active tracks in a performance-type way, like on the OP1? I use this alot with my OP1 tracks.
You guys might be getting the gist that I’m essentially looking at the OT as an almost “Pro OP1” in a way (albeit without all the fun OP1 stuff thrown in - that’s why I would be pairing them together!)
Yes, the basic looping function of the Octatrack’s Pickup Machine is easy to use. Read this classic writeup by Merlin regarding the recording time and memory:
https://www.elektronauts.com/t/a-polished-version-of-merlins-ot-guide-here/42860
Sure, you can save your loop to an audio file onboard the CF card, then edit the file.
If you want to trigger a sample on the OT from a pad controller, there are a number of trig modes you could try. You don’t need to trig a whole track.
BTW, the Octatrack’s 8 tracks are stereo, not mono…
there’s a page on the OT for quick muting.
as governor silver said, you can trigger multiple samples from the same track but it’s NOT simple and you need some midi processing to occur. search ‘triggering slices via midi’ on elektronauts for more on that.
You could also trigger a sample in Chromatic Mode. The MiDI implementation chart in Appendix C of the manual mentions the MIDI mappings.
Download the latest manual and check out Appendix C, and see if the MIDI functionality is there for what you have in mind. Unfortunately, there is no direct support for triggering a slice over MIDI, as speckdrum mentioned. You’d have to use an external MIDI processor or create new sample files (one per slice).
The Octatrack concept of “slice” might not be the same as the MPC concept. When you “slice” an audio file in Octatrack, the sample does not actually get cut up into smaller files - the Octatrack just stores where the start and stop point of the audio file is - that’s what it thinks is a “slice”.
So, yes, you can record immediately, you can record aligned to the start of the pattern, or the start of the next 16 steps. And if you place a trig on the sequencer using the appropriate recorder buffer, you can play the recorded stuff back in the very next run.