Octatrack

[Jonny Stutters]

On 22 November 2010 10:58, K9 Kai Niggemann <kai at kainiggemann.com> wrote:
> Any thoughts on the recently announced Elektron Octatrack?
>
> Is hardware sampling having a renaissance?

As with all Elektron stuff I'm certainly interested although I don't
think they've really managed to explaining what it's for in a
compelling way yet (in fairness this is in a lot of ways a much more
novel product that the Machinedrum and Monomachine so I can understand
that a bit).  I can't really comment on the DJing side of it but for
people using Ableton to play back loops at gigs I can see this being a
compelling replacement.  I can imagine doing quite a nice set using a
drum machine and octatrack to build up layers of the bass and melodic
stuff on the fly without needing to carry and sequence 3 or 4 synths.
Of course, as with the MM and MD, it's frigging expensive - I'd
definitely want a good try on one or to see a few videos making proper
use of it before I dropped around a £1000 (plus, if I was paying that
much I'm not sure I wouldn't find a Monomachine more useful).

I don't think this represents a renaissance in hardware sampling.  The
old A5000 style 3U rack way of doing things is still dead.  Live
looping for guitarists and in effects aimed at DJs never went away and
this is just seems like extending that to a massive degree.

Jonny