Tutorial #11: Using the Octatrack MK2 as "Instant" Chord Generator for your Monosynth 

Whats that lcd with the bigger screen of the octa at the left?

It should be possible to get real-time chords by recording the highest pitch and re-using the record buffer "live" on the other tracks but pitch-shifted down. Pitching the other tracks down makes sure that there are enough samples in the live buffer (pitching up doesn't work, of course, because it will run out of samples).

i pretty much did it that way ;-) so, with pitching it up you mean: the pitched up sample will be shorter then the rest and therefore stops earlier? thats right. but you counter that easily on the Octatrack because it has a Timestretching Engine built in. If you use it, you can pitch to your hearts content and the samples will always stay in the same length. problem solved :)

thank you mate! wish you a merry christmas too!

thanks Mike. Im working on it :)

Thanks Jo. Merry Christmas for you too! Tutorials are not planned at the moment, but maybe i find some time on vacation to do something new. Lets see :-) Cheers

thank you. and - i know ;) but this trig sometimes behaves like a one shot trig in the regular sequencer and it therefore doesnt get reset at times. so you start the sequencer and its not recording if all goes wrong. taking the step in and out does always work - thats why im using it. had my experiences with one shot trigs in the past. im marked, so to say :-D

Yep, thats definitely a way to go. Although i would rather record various chords and use them in a new Project on a single Track with these Scenes. That way you can go back and create new Chords whenever necessary - but you dont "waste" 3 or 4 Tracks in your actual Project. Its a bit messy, yeah - but saving Tracks is a necessity on our Elektron Boxes :-) The OT has also just 8 of them.

yeah, makes sense, i get what you mean :-) it doesnt work with the slider directly. you would end up with pitch shifting sounds as the slider gradually moves through the pitch values. hitting the right spot is very hard. its as if you would try to get the pitch spot-on with a pitchbend that goes up and down an octave. but it could work by programming scenes and switching them on the fly. you can pre-program these chords by p-locking the corresponding pitch-values for each track on one scene until you have the chord you want. now you simply switch to the next scene and repeat the process. by keeping either A or B pressed (depending on where your slider is) you can switch back and forth between these settings and it should legato through - although it would be jumpy, a little at least. but the idea is great! indeed. have to try that out one day :-) cheers

might be nice if it were just major on the left and minor hard right?

Did you get this sorted? Don't use thru machines but try flex instead, playing back live track recorders as they record. Set up your recorder setup pages with function and record buttons for each track with rec triggs on 1st step. Then leave that page back to standard step edit page entering trigs for each tracks flex. Just make sure your trigs are micro timed after the first rec trig (to give it time to process). Everything records and plays back in real time.

should work the same way. except that the Matrixbrute has a Stereo Output. So you can simply turn up the Directional Input in the Mixer and hear the signal already. No need for a Thru Machine then. And in the Recorder Setup, you choose Input A+B instead of A only. And thats it :)

umonox I now have it working :) I had it set up incorrectly! Thank you :)

thanks man. i can give you only one advice: take a vacation once you get the Octatrack! :-) its a steep learning curve, lots of things to consider every here and there. but you are rewarded with the most flexible and powerful hardware sampler i have ever seen! yes, i love it. but its far from perfect of course. nothing can be perfect ;) delay and reverb cannot be used at the same time on one single track for example. artificial limitation imho, because they share the same effect slot. but then again: you put a neighbour machine below the track and instantly solved the problem that way :) there are millions of ways to achieve something on the OT. this makes it so powerful, but the drawback is: its a time killer like nothing else because of this. keep this in mind ;-)

umonox thank you , mmm....definitely something to consider

nope, you just remove the trig again. that way it doesnt retrigger after the pattern cycle is completed. alternatively you can set the recorder to oneshot mode (its ONE2 in that particular case - as far as i remember) and it will trigger it only once after play was pressed. its just personal preference that i do it like i do it :-)