Elektron Octatrack MKII

What the hell is going on with OT prices? The mk 1 is selling for $1100+???

 

What happened to $700?

  On 1/18/2019 at 7:49 PM, sheathe said:

What the hell is going on with OT prices? The mk 1 is selling for $1100+???

 

What happened to $700?

that's the price of a new mk2, without taxes

 

https://www.thomannmusic.com/elektron_octatrack_mkii.htm?ref=intl&shp=eyJjb3VudHJ5IjoidXMiLCJjdXJyZW5jeSI6NywibGFuZ3VhZ2UiOjJ9&reload=1

Edited January 18, 2019 by xox

There are a few of them on US eBay in the $850-$950 range. The only ones over $1000 are new old stock, and those are still a couple hundred less than a MKII (which is around $1400 here). OTOH I don't remember ever seeing one in working condition going for under $800, even when B&H was blowing them out for $800 new. I guess it's a regional thing?

 

 

EDIT: when I was checking prices, I noticed that someone is selling generic mouse wrist rests for $25 as "Digitakt wrist pads."

Edited January 18, 2019 by RSP

I saw a mk2 for $1100 yesterday. Can’t afford but I bet it’s long gone

im so ready to buy an mk2, mentally

...all i need is the money now but ill have that too

Sooooon

 

Edit/p.s.

I gave up of the bam&bim for it. Sorry oto!

Edited January 20, 2019 by xox

hey boys, hey grils, superstar djs, i need yo help!

 

am about to buy the OT but I'm in a slight doubt... I'm not sure about its constraints; how versatile it actually is...

 

can you imagine your self creating some of the most complex tracks that you've been listening to with only OT? to my ears, autechre's rmx of oberman knocks could be made just with the OT. am i right or even close to being right? (im not planning to make such rhythmically complex music but it'd be nice to know it's possible)

Definitely. You just have to learn some tricks. Sound shaping and heavy resampling is basically what it's designed for. Plus, it's capable of subtractive synthesis, basic granular synthesis, physical modeling, even (fairly limited) FM.

  On 2/24/2019 at 2:41 PM, xox said:

hey boys, hey grils, superstar djs, i need yo help!

 

am about to buy the OT but I'm in a slight doubt... I'm not sure about its constraints; how versatile it actually is...

 

can you imagine your self creating some of the most complex tracks that you've been listening to with only OT? to my ears, autechre's rmx of oberman knocks could be made just with the OT. am i right or even close to being right? (im not planning to make such rhythmically complex music but it'd be nice to know it's possible)

It might be technically possible to do something like that on the OT, but there's some limitations that end up making it annoying for constructing full tracks. On its own, it works best with loops. You can slice the everloving fuck out of them, and since I have no restraint, nothing coming out of my OT is ever remotely recognizable from the source. But for melodic stuff (like, tracker style rather than MPC style) it's not great.

Yeah, it's basically like a sound designer's swiss army knife or something. I agree that it's not great for melodic stuff, due to the pitch range being strangely limiting, but there are workarounds for that as well.

 

Here's a great example of what can be done using no input, just a boosted noise floor:

Wow this video! Crazy!

 

Anyway, what’s the problem with making melodies? Afaik it has some kind od “chromatic mode”, right?

  On 2/25/2019 at 7:09 PM, xox said:

Wow this video! Crazy!

 

Anyway, what’s the problem with making melodies? Afaik it has some kind od “chromatic mode”, right?

 

 

Dunno. I have a QuNexus plugged into it, makes good melodies. The arp is fantastic, a bit like the Monomachine.

The pitch range for samples is only +/- 1 octave in chromatic mode. You can go lower if you use the RATE parameter, but going more than an octave up requires resampling.

 

Also the arpeggiator is only for MIDI tracks, unless you use MIDI loopback (ie. cable plugged from out to in) and use a MIDI track to control an audio track.

  On 2/25/2019 at 10:09 PM, modey said:

The pitch range for samples is only +/- 1 octave in chromatic mode. You can go lower if you use the RATE parameter, but going more than an octave up requires resampling.

 

Also the arpeggiator is only for MIDI tracks, unless you use MIDI loopback (ie. cable plugged from out to in) and use a MIDI track to control an audio track.

Aaammm what? That’s terriblol! Faaak! I mean... Couldnt they strech the range to at leeeast +/- 2 octaves?!

 

And no arp on audio tracks?! Wtf elektron?! This is weird. Is the cpu that slow? They had an opportunity to made it stronger and generally much better with the mk2. What a shame

Yeah, from what I can tell the chromatic mode was added later as a kind of hack; at that point it was probably impractical to increase the pitch range just for backwards compatibility with existing projects. It wasn't originally intended to be a chromatic sampler, so it's not so much a case of the CPU not handling it, it just wasn't in scope for the product. They consider it to be feature complete now, so there's no chance of an arp or larger pitch range being added in the future.

 

It sucks, but in the grand scheme of the OT, it's a very minor setback, considering what it's capable of otherwise. It's kinda possible to make automated arpeggios using the LFO designer and applying it to pitch, but it's a bit fiddly. 

 

Don't let it put you off buying it, unless you want something for massive polyphonic chords or wide range lead sounds, in which case you're probably better off with one of the older samplers dedicated to chromatic sampling. Once you get it and mess around a bit, you'll probably quickly forget about what it's missing.

I guess youre right, modey. Still i think i could buy akai mpc live or force cause of that problem with polyphony but im gonna continue to use my computers so i dont need something that can replace my comps and maybe i could make poly melodies in a daw

 

Thnx guyz!

Fair enough. A friend brought over his MPC Live the other day and it was fkn great, really stood up well against the OT. 

aaaaaa fokk it! i've just bought the OT from thomann

 

te-he! 

ha nice, congrats!

Congratulayshons

Phenx guyz! :)

Every video of the octatrack doing INSANE SOUNDS is just someone automating the comb filter.

 

Still love it and miss mine though.

  On 2/28/2019 at 4:47 PM, sheathe said:

Every video of the octatrack doing INSANE SOUNDS is just someone automating the comb filter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2019 by xox

  On 2/25/2019 at 5:03 AM, modey said:

Yeah, it's basically like a sound designer's swiss army knife or something. I agree that it's not great for melodic stuff, due to the pitch range being strangely limiting, but there are workarounds for that as well.

 

Here's a great example of what can be done using no input, just a boosted noise floor:

This is a pretty genius idea

  On 2/28/2019 at 4:47 PM, sheathe said:

Every video of the octatrack doing INSANE SOUNDS is just someone automating the comb filter.

 

Still love it and miss mine though.

Lol. Kinda true. I wonder why there aren't any decent live sampling videos.