James is the reason I now have an Optomix, DPO, Tempi, and René. I’m starting to see a Shared System, being assembled module by module, in the not so distant future.
Love it. Both what you did, the sound, the acid pink patch cables and the 'Don Buchla For President' sticker. Now he would've built a wall I could have supported, one constructed entirely of modules!
I really enjoyed that. It's nice to see someone using it for sound design and making every instrument with it. I have watched so many videos where the 0-COAST just seems to be used for bass or more percussive sounds but it is more versatile.
Great music, i hear a lot of modular noodling but this sounds like a real track. Enjoyed it. Is it possible to press play, and design the kick, then record it in with out stopping and move on to snare, record that, and keep going without stopping?
Thanks! It is possible. Requires a little more prep, but totally possibly with the OT. I just prefer the "stop and sample" when I'm doing sound-design-ish stuff. Gives me time to name, trim, etc for use later.
Sick vid! 5 years later and Im getting the OT. Alrdy have the 0 Coast. Question: are you connecting the headphone out from the 0coast into the AB or CD input of the OT to sample it that way thru flex? Ok thanks!
Hey James, I keep coming back to this vid! How do you record the different sounds on each track with the 0-Coast? For example--I'll play a bass on track 1 and hit play + record but when I go to track 2 and play a different sound from the 0-oast -- the bass track plays that new sound that I modulated instead of playing the bass. Get what I mean?
You have to sample them into one of the flex buffers and assign that to one of the audio tracks (then mute the midi track). Not something that’s easily done on the fly, but it’s possible with planning.
What MIDI channel did you set on the Octatrack to use with the 0-coast and did you use it on a THRU machine on one of the tracks for the OT with the 0-coast? I can hear my 0-coast but cannot control it via the OT keyboard. It works fine on my Analog 4 via CV out but I wanted to figure out how to do this over MIDI to my OT and 0-coast.
I believe I used CH1, but any channel, so long as the 0-Coast is set to listen on that channel (I think it's set to all/omni by default). Yes, using the a THRU machine, just remember you need to trigger a THRU machine at least once for audio to pass through. The other goofy thing to remember is when you select a MIDI channel on the OT, you need to press the encoder in to "set" it. Otherwise if you leave the MIDI settings and come back, the channel was never actually selected.
Love your videos. You are an inspiration etc etc. You've helped me out of states of confusion and helped me spend lots of money :) Now that I have a Shared System plus EV and Tempi (and more MN) I am thinking of buying an Octatrack. Just curious. How long did it take you to get proficient. It looks like learning a whole new language. Is there any instant gratification at all, or should I expect drudgery for a few weeks?
Thank you! I'd actually be hard pressed to call myself proficient at the Octatrack, and I've spent many hours with it. It's also my second time owning one (I had one for a few months after it's initial release). There definitely is some instant gratification, usually followed by some stagnation, then frustration, then irritation, but if you keep at it, you'll usually find a break through. The fact that it's so flexible and can do so many things is also what makes it complicated and at some times cumbersome. And it takes a lot of "pre-thought" and planning. I can't really improvise with it unless I have spent significant time preparing the setup with which to improvise. But, for what it can do, I find it quite inspiring and the time spent cursing it has paid off. If you just bought a modular, I'd say put the hours of learning into that first.
I'm impressed and what a good vid... Just one question about OT midi sequence, do you use a special converter cable of does have the 0-coast a original midi input ?
quick question...are you triggering different patches from the 0-coast with the Octatrack (is that possible to do?) ? Or are you resampling each patch then sequence it ?
Hey James I was after some help. I have just got a Make Noise O Coast and I am trying to connect it through CV on my Analog 4 I currently run my SH-101 with the step sequencer on the analog 4 through CV and I would like to do this with the make noise o coast also but cant get it to work... Any help would be great!
I don't have any experience with the A4, but, you should be able to just take the Pitch CV out into the "1v/Oct" input on the 0-Coast (bottom of oscillator section) and the Gate CV out into the "Gate" and/or "Trig" inputs on the 0-Coast (bottom of slope/contour sections). The key thing is the "CV ->" and "Gate ->" jacks on the lower left of the 0-Coast are outputs - not inputs. They're the CV outputs for MIDI B. So if you're not using MIDI at all, ignore those.
amazing sounds. Is this pretty easy to use for someone with no modular experience? Is it difficult to get melodies out of it since there is no keyboard? Midi is just for triggering on/off?
Thanks! I think so, yes. The layout and signal flow is very similar to a traditional mono synth, and it doesn't require any patching for the full single voice to operate. You can dive in as deep as you care too. The MIDI support includes pitch (the bassline/leads were done via MIDI pitch sequencing on the octatrack), as well as Mod Wheel, Aftertouch, Pitch Bend. There's even an Arpeggiator built in as well as MIDI clock division - it's quite a full featured MIDI support implementation.
Great jam! Love to see what these combo gears are capable of. That said, my biggest complaint with all this gear is how bloody EXPENSIVE it really is. Consider I can make same music with Ableton and a cheap laptop for 1/3 the price. Are musicians that wealthy?
Thanks! I don't think it's necessarily that musician's are wealthy - by and large, they're not. However, I think for a lot of artists their instruments or tools hold a lot of value for them. The sound of a Gibson Les Paul for example can be emulated in many ways with cheaper guitars or virtual instruments - but neither of those compare to the feel a guitar player has with his particular Les Paul (or some other high end instrument). If ultimately the only thing that matters is the finished product (a recorded/captured piece of audio), then ultimately the tools used to create it really don't matter. However, I believe for most musicians (certainly for myself) the thing that matters most is the creation and/or performance of music - thus the tools, and more importantly, how the musician interfaces with the tools, are incredibly important. And a high quality, and possibly boutique piece of equipment is rarely a cheap item.
Thanks! I don't have the Murmux, so I can't make a real comparison. I think I might still go with the 0-Coast. Even though the Murmux has more of each basic element, I like the combination of simplicity that can operate in a complex way. I find it also challenges me more to push beyond what will come easily, patching wise. Everyone's milage varies though. I would pick whichever one seems to inspire you, almost at a gut feeling level. Sometimes you have to try a bunch of stuff to find what you connect with the most.
Hi. Sorry for disturbing :). I just got my 0-Coast and it's an amazing synth. I'm reading the manual but It's not easy to understand how to set up the MIDI channel. For now, by default, it's on " all ". But what if I want to choose another MIDI channel to be able to play it with my Octatrack ? If I understood : Press and Hold PGM A, then push twice on PGM A to enter to the page 3 (Midi), then I put the channel I want on my Octatrack, and I press a note from the keyboard on my OT while I hold PGM B on my Make Noise to learn the channel ? :) Cheers for the help !
No problem, but my 0-Coast is with a friend at the moment so I can't confirm, but I'm *pretty* sure what you wrote is correct. Just remember the OT has a weird way of confirming the MIDI channel setting - you need to turn the encoder and then press it in to "confirm" that's the channel you want, otherwise it does not actually set it.
While i don't own any proper modular gear, I could see how some of this could translate to an application like reason. I haven't dug into that in a while but your idea to put velocity against decay was brilliant and i love the resulting sounds.
Any reverb on the drum sounds and "pad" would be the "Dark Reverb" in the Octatrack. On main lead sound I think I had a Strymon El Capistan Delay and Eventide Space. Although I will say, the Dark Reverb algo on the Octatrack sounds as good as similar algos on the Space. The Spring and Plate aglos are pretty decent as well, they just take a little careful tuning of the parameters.
The Octatrack. In fact I'm parameter locking the delay send so that only certain notes get sent to the delay - dub style. The Dark Reverb algo on the OT is very nice, and the delay is very usable.
Each track of the OT is monophonic, so just one sample 'voice' can play at a time, but any sample can be parameter locked to any step - they just can't overlap in playback. In other words, you could use one track and parameter lock each sample at each step, but you couldn't have a kick and a snare or kick and hi hat play at the same time on one track. So I personally prefer to just use one track per sound even if it seems wasteful. I suppose I could have put the hi hats together on a single track since it would be rare that the closed and open would overlap.
Why would you buy this over the Ants! by planton electronics? I'm very interested in buying one but i'm not sure witch one i should go for. Both look like tons of fun to play with and i wonder if it works well with a Arturia Micro Brute.
You'd have to record the samples via computer and upload to the RYTM. I'm not sure if the RYTM has a dedicated MIDI sequencer track or tracks, so it might be a little limiting in that way as well. At the heart of it, this tutorial is MIDI control + sampling of the 0-Coast, and I just happened to use an Octatrack to do that.
Why they've didn't just made a noise generator inside? it's a pain in ass to create a classic noise as I see... The same with "resonant filter" sounds...
you wont see many resonant filters on west coast style modules , well yeah this is Nocoast ..but it still is about adding overtones instead of filtering ..low pass gate being the exception .
Love the track, and high appreciation for the well explained setting it up. But to me that ticking hi-hat (far right in stereo field) sounds strangely off beat and unnecessary.
quick question...are you triggering different patches from the 0-coast with the Octatrack (is that possible to do?) ? Or are you resampling each patch then sequence it ?
