Mastering the Octatrack: How to Build Incredible DJ Effects

[@ac1dfl3sh]

I can tell you are getting tired of explaining how to set this up, but for what it's worth, I appreciate the constant reminders of the steps and concepts! And big thanks for the effect breakdowns, that's super helpful.

[@EZBOT_]

I guess if anything I wish that this was how the pickup machine worked so I wouldn’t have to set it up in the first place

[@whendoesthisend]

Ditto

[@LorneAshley]

Double this for sure. Appreciate every millisecond of it.

[@dammills]

I really appreciate the fact that you explain “why” you do the things you do instead of just telling us what to do. That way, we can use these tools for other techniques. Thank you!

[@ZigbertD]

Yeah, tutorials for anything where they just go "do this, do that, blahblah" with no explanation are never that useful unless they are explaining a very basic utilitarian concept that can be applied over and over. Anything that's a more specific application, all you learn is how to do that one very specific thing, which is a great way to do exactly what everyone else does and nothing original. Far better when you can learn the underlying principles and how they are applied. I suspect that a lot of those cookie cutter tutorials are made to impress people with how skilled the creator is because they can work so fast, and I suspect that they may have just learned the techniques somewhere else without themselves understanding why they are doing certain things. Sometimes it's obvious when they say something like "That's so that it is...like...more better, otherwise it would be kind of messed up or something."

[@npawelczyk]

I've seen a lot of Octatrack vids, and I think you're the best source of concise, clear, and advanced instruction for this device. Thank you!

[@rspmusic796]

This is probably the greatest Octatrack tutorial. I subscribed to Patreon after watching this.

[@shachar87l]

there is nothing better for an octatrack video then another octatrack on the side as a decoration

[@paulbrady5632]

These vids just show you that the Octatrack is up there with 808, 909, 303, MPC 3000 etc. you get me - legend bit of gear. Thanks to vids like this - you get to control your machine and create. Excellent tutorial.

[@randalb7930]

Thank you! I gotta sign up for that patreon! (would be my first). The first 5 minutes of this cleared up so much of my misunderstandings of the "arm" concept, and the "yes" button. Maybe a trick I've been wanting to see more of, and have unsuccessfully tried, is: To set aside a bank of patterns that do anticipated chopping of live vocals, compositionally prepared rec trigs. So, the tape delay on a scene is great, but alternatively, you could have a track (i keep track 3 for this, my own unexplainable preference) set up to record in hypnotic cycles, to play with an otherwise live vocal. Like, B1- silence, no rec, no playback B2- classic 1/16note chop delay- a rec trig on all 64 steps of a patters, and a playback trig on all 64 steps. B3- same, but with rec trigs and playbacks on every other trig, B4- on every 4 trigs, etc etc. Just loopers, at different note lengths, but then, from the denser ones, you can start to add live automated knob turns, and then save the takes that worked out with compounding playthrough's of the patters, adding more and more live rec'd playback trig locks, as patter B5, B6, and so on. This wont be too useful with summed stereo synth full mixes like you have mastered, but for monophonic material... from a post stage side vocal mic pre, and a line level splitter, a guy can sit beside a singer and do amazing things, if the octatrack is the master clock source, out to a BOSS DB-90. Take a long melisma phrase of a singer from traditional India, doing ragas to a drummers listening to the click of the octatrack master clock... , or send a similar track out of your DAW with the octa slaved to the project BPM, and as send/return side sound, divert a moment of the octatrack's duties to just this. Your tutorials pushed me past the barriers that prevented me from integrating the octatrack into my studio. Now I have a few patterns with artistically crafted rec trig rytms, and corresponding playback trigs, like a sort of custom looper. I've never seen a tutorial on using a series of patterns to store rec trigs+playback trigs together to form a single cohesive flow of delays, for the purpose of live recording automation-style trig locks. When I do this live, I like to then put it in live rec mode to manually ramp the playback speeds, or other fun lve rec'd automation. The 1/16 step resolution of the automation steps unfortunately can prevent smooth pitch ramping. I've never used YES successfully or used a trigless trig, or a rec armed pattern. I can't find out how to stop the sampling, so i have to just move to a pattern with no rec trigs, as a work around. Your video cleared up 3 years of a key blockage. Today is day one with trying to arm record trigs with YES. been using a foot pedal with QREC for two years now. Props to the LFO ramp on the speed idea. End transmission.

[@EZBOT_]

"End Transmission" I love it. Thank you for that brilliant response :)

[@zpurpz]

Thanks for breakin it down for slow but sure learners like me , quick and clear !

[@davegibbon]

I sometimes struggle with getting volumes to line up with recording buffers so it was great to see you step through that process. Thanks for another brilliant video.

[@musicbyethan]

You are a good teacher EZBot. Thanks again for taking the time to explain all of this in a focused way. Sometimes hearing the same thing said in different context throughout your various lessons makes things click for me and I catch subtle added explanations anytime you repeat things. Can’t speak for anyone else but it sure helps a student like me. Man I do have to say that my experience with the Octatrack has been a positive learning experience largely due to your patience in explaining the details. You are appreciated.

[@HansTwite]

Your filming chops just keep growing man! Great vid as always.

[@EZBOT_]

Thank you!

[@grandmasterjo1]

You paint the scenery in the Octatrack that would put Micheal Angelo to shame 😜🤪 Thank you it takes live recording to new dimensions 👌👌

[@EZBOT_]

Haha, you always flatter me :)

[@distantlore]

Your videos are always such fantastic resources for inspiration. Thank you 🙏🏼

[@stephaneangibeaud2725]

Super cool vid, packed with information and at good pace. Already got started with the template, this helps getting familiar with it, now customising the scenes for my own setup, Thank you for the comprehensive and practical examples.

[@raevon6845]

Ez is awesome, thanks for your awesome videos and knowledge. Now I need to join ur patreon. Cheers

[@systemno3]

Thanks for the tips, very useful! :)

[@caleblaughlin8351]

Your videos are so helpful. Very straight forward and clear.

[@ekkodrm3540]

“Who knows, who cares.” :D All your videos is an absolute delight. Thank you so much Matthew, as a new OT owner, I've found your tutorials and jams the single most important resource, and after two weeks I already feel somewhat comfortable with the elektron flow. Just wanted to say thanks and have a great day

[@ekkodrm3540]

Also, why so few songs on spotify?, oh and i saw you doing vocals on a performer ve. (it was great) Could be awesome to hear more about doing vocals. loops and lives (if you haven't)

[@EZBOT_]

@@ekkodrm3540 thank you so much! I hear you and you are right. I will record more!

[@Kuronoichig01]

So amazing. Soaking up as much as I can! Thank you so much EZ!!

[@Robert_Babicz]

cool

[@EZBOT_]

[@mashgordon8436]

Deep you go, Master. A lot of learning I have to do, still! ;) Thx👏

[@minimal.camera]

Excellent video! Obviously it's a different beast without the sampling aspect, but I've been enjoying designing effects on the Syntakt, I would love to see your take on that too!

[@Kernel_42]

Love your videos. Thanks, bro, you gave us so many ideas

[@EZBOT_]

Happy to hear that!

[@MichaalHell]

Great tutorial! Visiting some avenues I haven’t really visited!

[@EdCosico]

Awesome thank you! I’ve been watching your vids for a couple years now. When using the reverse effect, have you ever lost the sample during playback and have to wait for the 4 bars repeat to have the sample back? It seems that to avoid that from happening, you have to time the slider position during the reverse. Or is this a glitch in my Octatrack?

[@Bobo]

Man i love these videos… extremely helpful! I bought an Octatrack mkII a couple of weeks ago (second hand)but have only Done a factory reset and reinstalled the samples on the memory card. But only thing I’m missing is some recommendations about the actual first start up… like if I whorls just use the factory default “set” or create a new one for user stuff? I figured it’s best to use the factory default set so that I can get all the audio etc…. But I don’t know if that’s the best. Just trying to make sure I don’t have to redo and reorganise everything once i understand how this works… can’t find the advice in the manual 😆

[@EZBOT_]

I am going to do a getting started video for the OT :)

[@Bobo]

@@EZBOT_ Omg I can't wait!! :D

[@ronsone8373]

You Just made me want my OT back.... Yet again 😅

[@chetplease]

love this video. great explanations. you = samaritan

[@EZBOT_]

Super Saiyan :)

[@andrij.demianczuk]

The tape stop effect is what everyone comes for - but honestly the idea of using the resample flex machine is cool. I like applying a comb filter to it to add a lo fi effect before I morph into a delay. I have had some issues though recording my master track this way when I have other ‘always on’ effects - causes weird behaviour and almost a late tracking effect that seems out of place.

[@thanqol]

Hi Matthew, did you try to make a gater effect on the OT? It's a bit cheesy, but quite fun. Simply design a downward exponential wave, target the amp vol, set mult to 8x, trig to one, speed almost at max, and then play around with depth. Set trigless trigs on the off beat, for example. Sounds best combined with a high pass filter.

[@personnealienee]

what was the point of using amp vol automation on track 7 instead of track level min/max?

[@EZBOT_]

I have had some inconsistency with track level

[@chambre466]

yep

[@jjask05]

Thanks for the awesome video. Used all of these and it worked out great. Only problem is I turned on the Octatrack the next day and now I get no audio coming out of the thru track. What would cause my thru track to stop audio from coming in? Any ideas?

[@EZBOT_]

Playback trig, amp volume, track volume- I’d stay there

[@GTChris]

Gotta love how complicated the Octotrack is, can do this so simple on my Akai Force. Elektron users are probably all into sadomasochisme, because these machines are basically torture.

[@EZBOT_]

lmao comment of the year

[@maikrobin]

Thanks man, you´re the best!!!

[@ribon3000]

hey there, i was wondering how you get your resampled loops to be seamless. there's always a little click/pop on mine when it wraps around, which is kind of annoying 😕 i've tried the latency compensation setting in the "input" section of the project settings, but that didn't help either

[@EZBOT_]

REC Setup 2 give it the shortest fade available

[@chambre466]

actually I m new in OT I got it 2 weeks ago, I also have a model samples so it wasn't t difficult to get started with the master OT, but what I want to see more is how to construct a song,. I see you make a song per bank, that means you have 16 patterns per song and each part is a bank if I m not wrong, so you have 4 banks each bank with its own samples, but where it gets messy for me is working with parts and assigning them to patterns. It gets that messy that even my question is not well formulated. thanks and keep up with good work

[@AnalogKitchen]

Nice one!

[@briansanders3860]

For me, there is a volume dip at the middle of the crossfader. Any reason why this would be?

[@EZBOT_]

That’s just how the Octatrack works, it’s unavoidable

[@EZBOT_]

***I recommend you select Track 8 when choosing which track to sample in the REC menu on Track 7. It's best practice to sample the master track. Join the discord! discord.gg/KUSBH9h My website: ezbot.live

[@julianfrank2461]

set a delay fx with following settings: DIRECT=0 / TIME=1 / FEEDBACK=0 / SEND=127 - then on scene B set TIME=128 - if you get your timing right it wobbles out of whack and then clocks right back in. Works best on a thru track with part of the drums (while the rest of the drums remain locked to tempo) and good for beats where kick and snare have some distance so you can play with the fader in between. The disadvantage is that by listening to the delay send as if it was incoming audio means it has a slightly inherent delay but negligible in most cases..

[@EZBOT_]

Cool, thank you for sharing!

[@maarzt]

why explicitly assign buffer 7 if it is already assigned to that track in the background

[@EZBOT_]

Flex tracks must be assigned buffers. They can use any buffer is why

[@maarzt]

@@EZBOT_ if 7 were some other type of track would it use buffer 7 by default ?

[@oscarlinusericsson]

@@maarzt the recording buffers are really a separate part of the machine - every track (no matter the machine on that track) can record into the recording buffers, but only flex machines can play back the sound stored in the recording buffers.

[@randalb7930]

@@oscarlinusericsson a little explored corner of the mysterious inner working of the the octatrack's buffers, will reveal that the ram one can set aside for dedicated memory, to increase sampling time, finds a preference leaning toward the tracks ascending from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on. So, because I like to record in 24bit and long passages, I have the memory setting to only reserve the first 4 tracks for longer sampling time, and therefore I use tracks 1, 2, 3, and 4 as my flex tracks, with their corresponding buffers beneath them for reduced mental CPU, and use 5-8 for non-recording activities.

[@earlsfield]

EZ, good work. QQ - what cables do you use, these multicoloured ones?

[@EZBOT_]

I honestly can't remember. They are balanced 1/4 patch cables

[@edwardlee8273]

Octa goat

[@cray56]

love your vids thanks. Just wondering if you cam record your freeze delays your fader slides?

[@EZBOT_]

You can if you target the master track instead of the THRU track which is way I meant to do in the video

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

Thanks again, Matt!

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

i have a scene setup with 8 as the TIME amount, makes it sound like a "ratchet"

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

i think the only part i'm still struggle with a bit is the LFO assignments and knowing exactly how to use them.

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

Next we gotta tackle PART and how to reseq the sample buffer, live, like master CENK...

[@EZBOT_]

@@isaacanthonydj4124 It's actually very similar to what we are doing here and I have covered that on a few other vids :)

[@isaacanthonydj4124]

@@EZBOT_ i missed that, will have a look, appreciate!

[@fishylad8523]

i've run into a problem :'' when i switch to the recording it plays a little early (10ish ms). can't find a cause running audio directly into it and then syncing the octa to the beat, metronome fits perfectly. recording plays a little earlier then the metronome an the other track 😓

[@EZBOT_]

Shouldn’t be the case, check your rate, pitch, and LFO settings

[@fishylad8523]

​@@EZBOT_ rate 63 on tstr, pitch 0.0 with loop on auto. lfo 1: trig: trig, spd: 16, dep: 0, mult: x1, wave: rmp, pmtr src: ptch it plays almost like a 16th note too early in all my attempts. loops perfectly though. it's almost as if the octatrack has a latency between thru and the flextrack picking it up

[@postsolarpunk]

unintentional, but I got like 6 new ideas to try on the deluge

[@k0v4l]

So, I have this scenes setup on my Octatrack, but does it mean I have to activate recording track every 4 bars loop ? What is happening now, I have Syntakt connected to my OT, and everything works fine until I'll change pattern on Syntakt, then when I'm trying to play with scenes I can hear loop from recording buffer from previous pattern. I though that once recording track is armed it will keep recording from incoming audio. When I'm looking into OT editor I can see it is recording but when I move crossfader to scene B position what I hear is a previous pattern from Syntakt, not currently playing one.

[@EZBOT_]

It's a complex setup and to properly diagnose what is happening on your setup is not something I can really do over KZbin messages. Perhaps join the discord and pop that question into the Octatrack channel :)

[@k0v4l]

@@EZBOT_ Probably I’ll do, I’m trying to investigate myself for now. From what I learned atm is, if I’m changing pattern on my Syntakt, before pattern will change I have to activate again recording trig by pressing YES, wait for 4 bar’s until it will get recorded into buffer and I can start playing with scenes. I was just expecting it to records non stop.

[@sadhedonism7125]

Very inspiring!

[@LoremIpsum1-m6l]

would this also work on the mk1?

[@EZBOT_]

Yep ❤

[@riotghandi]

Using 64 slices on each step shoulda improve the timing a lot

[@jwhomst]

Nice!

[@starsunderer]

100 button pushes later...So intuitive. I feel like they need 3x the number of buttons for the next octratrack. And lots of sliders. Or at least move alot of this interface to an iPad.

[@EZBOT_]

I take it you don’t have an Octatrack?

[@agu__gonzalez]

I would love to see Octatrack transitions between songs. I made lofi hip hop and always I squeeze my head cuz I would love to create new transitions

[@EZBOT_]

Watch my performance mixer video, it’s exactly that

[@coolquentin]

Thank you 🙏🏻

[@LimGiong]

Thanks.

[@patrikkonat3085]

When you finally discover the final boss of Octatrack on the Internet and his name is "EZBOT".

[@Rollur1234]

How much?

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

Man, the Octatrack sounds exhausting 😅

[@EZBOT_]

lol yeah

[@eento06]

Up

[@Rollur1234]

Here

[@williamwallace6508]

old technology

[@EZBOT_]

Some things can stand the test of time my friend

[@williamwallace6508]

@@EZBOT_ the crossfader is nice, i agree.

[@marcosrotllan]

The best and worst sampler. Nobody gonna be using it in years.

[@EZBOT_]

I hope something comes in the next few years that can compete with it