Things have been pretty turbulent for me over the past few weeks. Not only was I confined to bed for a few days, I also had some scoring project to finish and a lot of work in my company. And then there was the Octatrack, which I couldn't deal with as much as I wanted to until now because I simply had no time.
At the beginning, I reset my rig and cleaned it up. I had a lot of respect for the Octatrack! Almost a little afraid as it seemed like I had to start once more at Zero. But after the first few tries and Tutorials,, that has already evaporated and I got a first impression of the immense capabilities that the machine offers.
Finally, a first Jam with the new Elektron Octatrack
So, after I spent some hours now, I can finally show you a first video with my new setup today! For now, the Octatrack plays a rather subordinate role. This is simply because I don't know it well and I still require quite a lot of training time to get into more complex pattern creation.
But I wanted to start somewhere and so I set myself a first small goal, and that was to first of all connect the existing devices with the OT, get the routing right and somehow get a first jam going. That's why the Octatrack acts mainly as a mixer in this video for now.
Setup, machines and audio routing
Digitakt (percussion, texture - with 1.30 software), Digitone (Arp, Pad, Bass), Peak (Lead Pad), TB-03 (Accents), Big Sky Reverb, and the Octatrack (Sequences Peak and TB-03) are playing. A rather complex setting for 59 Perlen, but thinking towards my goal, it was important to understand how I can play my instruments together.
That's why I also re-configured the rig again and placed the Elektron Machines very close together, so I can reach their knobs faster.
Digitakt, Digitone, Peak, and TB-03 are routed into my mixer, the Big Sky sits on the send channel, and the mixer's sum runs into the Octatrack. Sounds quite simple, but the many key combinations that you have to remember, are sometimes so confusing that I'm already super happy that I got Midi and Audio managed to play something haha :)
The video I took is quick and dirty - Octatrack main output went into my mobile interface (a Roland Mixer Go), which then recorded directly to the iPhone video. Therefore, the track was neither post-processed, nor mixed. Since the Octatrack unfortunately does not work with Overbridge, I will (have to) think of a new workflow for future tracks, depending on the setup. Also the structure of my tracks might change.
By the way, I don't really make use of the 1.30 features of the Digitakt in this jam yet, but of course I played around.It's a HUGE update!
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