Elektron Octatrack MKII

Two great news for me today:

1. UPS just dropped my new speakers!  

2. and the major update for Octatrack!!!

I wasn't expecting another Octatrack update ever.

The anniversary edition is sold out at Elektron store but a retailer near mine has one

Perfect timing as I was looking to get one this month, but I actually do prefer the grey version. Black is boring and every other grooveboxes are in black 

This OT update is fucking huge. MIDI slice triggering in particular is a long-standing, obnoxious problem and them finally fucking fixing it makes me pretty happy I hung onto my OT.

https://www.elektronauts.com/t/triggering-slices-with-midi-notes/433

No, the OT doesn't allow program changes to be parameter locked, for some reason. That's been a big request for years, and something I find confusing, since the Monomachine has it, as well as the Digi boxes..

  On 12/4/2020 at 4:01 AM, modey said:

No, the OT doesn't allow program changes to be parameter locked, for some reason. That's been a big request for years, and something I find confusing, since the Monomachine has it, as well as the Digi boxes..

I'm working on a norns app that could help with this kind of MIDI plumbing. If you have a norns/shield and would like to help out with it (and hopefully solve some of your own MIDI problems), PM me!

Yeah, this update is huge. nice work, Elektron!   !!!TEMPO PER PATTERN!!! :

Sounds like there are some new bugs, but nothing that's reported so far comes close to outweighing the improvements. 

Finally being able to edit, copy and paste multiple trigs makes me so happy.

I'm also probably going to have to update my main footswitch preset to add single-button randomize/revert for the selected track once they get the bug that makes reverting randomized parameters reset your effects to the new project defaults under some circumstances.

the multiple trig thing is a HUGE workflow improvement holy fuck. For some reason I assumed that could never happen. Figured it was a hardware thing. But now that I think about it, it makes sense that it's possible in software I'm just stupid. I use it all the time on the A4. Hold down like 4 trigs, change the sample length. Get the slices just right on like 3 trigs and then copy paste that. This is going to make beat-chopping stuff way more fun I used to have to copy paste individual hits and it made me sad.

I'm still a couple years behind on updates, I don't have the other latest update with trig conditions because I didn't care about those.

This will make break programming 10 times better, not just from the multi-trig thing, but also because you can use a midi keyboard to preview slices and input notes of those slices!!!! It used to be a hunt + peck thing, or a play live on machine thing, or just hope for something random that sounds good, or use insert slice grid and then mangle further. All of those workflows sucked ass, like really ass. This workflow will be amazing... 

Also the tempo thing seems sick. I never bothered with tempo changes because it was awkward and you had to use the arranger which I almost never used until the very end if I had a string together a lot of pattern changes that jump between banks a lot.

You should try trig conditions, they're really useful.  If nothing else you can use them to spread your 64 steps/pattern out so that a single pattern can be as long as 32 bars instead of 4. You still only get 64 steps but the maximum pattern length is effectively 8x as long as it was before trig conditions (or 256 bars per pattern if you use trig conditions AND change the multiplier to 1/8, but they'd have to be really miimal patterns in that case).

There are a ton of other, more sophisticated uses for them, but packing multiple bar patterns into a single bar is what I usually use them for.

The thing about the OT is any improvement to one particular feature becomes an improvement to like 3 things at one time, because everything can be combined. For example, with trig conditions, the multi-step edit thing means you can set trig conditions for 4 steps at once instead of setting up one and then copying it and tweaking the copies accordingly.

so glad I didn't scratch that MPC itch, the slice MIDI triggering is well overdue but grateful it even came! Also the per-pattern BPM thing, I was so confused when I found it didn't do that when i first got it thanks to the Digi, looking forward to try expand my octa brain again
 

talking about the new update here

  On 12/6/2020 at 4:37 PM, TRiP said:

so glad I didn't scratch that MPC itch, the slice MIDI triggering is well overdue but grateful it even came! Also the per-pattern BPM thing, I was so confused when I found it didn't do that when i first got it thanks to the Digi, looking forward to try expand my octa brain again
 

 

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looks like ^that was the last of Cenk's contribution to the company....he's leaving Elektron after 10 years there. Ess also left a few months or so ago, he was the main one behind the Digitone iirc. Cenk posted something to IG and Elektronauts: https://www.elektronauts.com/t/goodbye-elektron-a-new-chapter/153089

note of course what Cenk mentions with:

  Quote

 ....things took a recent sharp turn and I decided to part ways.... ....most of my Elektron colleagues whom I started with and looked up to have already left Elektron, which makes me incredibly happy to be joining the ex-elektron crew of legends!

not a good sign for the future of Elektron imo, but obv that's some amount of speculation on my part.

  On 5/1/2021 at 9:27 PM, auxien said:

 “....things took a recent sharp turn and I decided to part ways....”

Troberg and Ess left too!

I wonder what happened! What sharp turn? Doesn’t sound good

  On 5/2/2021 at 12:41 AM, xox said:

Troberg and Ess left too!

I wonder what happened! What sharp turn? Doesn’t sound good

yeah....Troberg was a couple years ago, Ess last year....and someone who'd been there since the beginning had left before Troberg. i think all that started not long after they were bought out by some bigger investment company or something (or sold a 'majority stake in the company' to an investment firm, idk the details but whatever). 

Yeah something bad is happening. Ess has been doing cool stuff with Fors.fm

Apparently this is the new ceo. This is funny.

Analog CDs. 

no hope

  On 5/2/2021 at 4:44 PM, sheatheman said:

Apparently this is the new ceo. This is funny.

 

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people talking about the business of music like this is so gross, just absolutely disgusting. couldn't get more than a few minutes into it.

  On 5/3/2021 at 3:54 AM, Stickfigger said:

I can't wait until Elektron moves towards a subscription service for their firmware so if you don't pay one month you can't use your equipment anymore. 

or it auto fills your patterns w/samples of john candy speaking swedish

  On 5/3/2021 at 3:54 AM, Stickfigger said:

I can't wait until Elektron moves towards a subscription service for their firmware so if you don't pay one month you can't use your equipment anymore. 

They build a timebomb into the firmware that bricks your OT if you cancel your subscription.

New feature on all new boxes: direct to Spotify premium pattern export. No song mode though. 

Makes me feel like getting one more instrument from them and call it a day.

I own a Digitone. If you could pair that with only one other piece of Elektron gear, what would it be?

  On 5/4/2021 at 5:57 AM, Braintree said:

Makes me feel like getting one more instrument from them and call it a day.

I own a Digitone. If you could pair that with only one other piece of Elektron gear, what would it be?

For flexibility you'd need one of their drum boxes. I'd say the Rytm for analog sounds (does nice mono synth sounds too) or the Octatrack/Digitakt if you wanna sample.