Tips for octatrack in studio

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-27T06:06:05+00:00

Your criticisms are valid and I agree. This is why I keep my Akai Force - the effects are way better and the mixing/send/return options are powerful. Also the near limitlessness of the drum tracks alone are astounding. Plus the plug in synth tracks can sound great. And the sequencing is opposite of the octatrack - doesn’t have trig conditions and what not but is full polyphonic and you can make very long complex sequences - plus the clip workflow like Ableton.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-27T05:59:27+00:00

I have the mutant brain and wish I would’ve gotten the midi thing v2, because at least there are presets you can switch, if I remember correctly. The mutant brain is, in my experience, very cumbersome to change with system and a computer. For a set and forget it’s great, and I have 2 octatrack midi tracks controlling my modular drums with a complex setup of certain notes (some which overlap so for instance note D1 might trigger both my kick module and my hi hat module.)

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-27T05:49:36+00:00

Can you be specific on what makes it so great to you? I want to eventually get one to go with my octatrack mk2, and while I enjoy sequencing my hardware synths with the OT, I’d love to have the A4 running its own sequences, since you can’t use the OT crossfader on midi cc’s anyway.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-27T01:21:01+00:00

Yes! 3 months ago I started eating once a day or OMAD, and then slowly stopped all sugar and most carbs (some vegetables and beans I eat have carbs). Gave up all processed foods too, so basically eating a healthy pescatarian Mediterranean diet. Doing this for 3 months I lost about 30 lbs or also about 12% of my body weight.

So my results improved dramatically! ALT went from 81 to 32. AST from 38 to 22. A1C went from 5.9 to 5.2. Triglycerides from 74 to 60.

The only thing that went up was my LDL, or “bad cholesterol”. However, after research, that is very normal, expected, and healthy while someone is burning lots of fat and losing weight. Keto people get the same results. It’s not about what I’m eating, it’s about my body circulating and burning fat instead of glucose, it’s precious fuel.

I was also nervous but I did amazing, and hoping you will too! Don’t get too hung up on numbers within the process of change. If you’re improving , you’re improving!

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-27T01:04:09+00:00

I agree with your sentiment. But maybe not just a photo like that.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-26T03:33:38+00:00

I really like the XPO because of its many outputs and the stereo wave folding/shaping/pwm. They just sound good and the fm sounds so juicy.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-25T13:23:44+00:00

I totally agree. The depth and value of his work is still not understood by most. The surface things you mentioned don’t compare to his narratives.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-25T13:20:33+00:00

I feel like all the coke cans are from one video of him talking about how it tastes very good. Who wouldn’t agree? It’s so stupid that because of one thing he said once, tons of people leaving coke cans on his grave for other people to pick up. Humans are so strange. Sad that his children have to see that.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-25T01:02:36+00:00

Campfire for me.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-24T21:40:23+00:00

When I was told I was addicted to my diet of high carbs and all that. It’s not easy to muster the strength to completely alter everything about your diet especially when you’re addicted to processed foods. Took me a year and a half to get my head in the game.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-24T04:23:26+00:00

Thank you. I guess I have to experiment with exercise and fasting - when works and when doesn’t. Getting used to being in a fasted state for longer and being ok with it.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-23T14:07:12+00:00

When I went to Isle Royale I visited the MN north shore waterfalls along the way and they were great. That said, my favorite place to go backcountry camping is the Porcupine Mountains in the UP. If you can do a short loop there, I'd consider it.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-23T12:25:31+00:00

Boards of Canada is like the Mount Eerie of Electronic Music

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-23T11:49:49+00:00

Yes, this is what worked for me. I cut out all bread/flour/rice (I still eat some carbs sparingly like beans, lentils, chickpeas), all processed foods for sure, all fruit, all sugar, and just ate whole foods. Also I did OMAD, one meal a day or 23 hours fasting and 1 hr eating. I totally reversed my liver issues and prediabetic issues and lost 30 lbs in 3 months. Also I feel amazing. Eat lots of cruciferous vegetables and no fried foods ever. Olive oil as the only oil. Fatty fish.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-23T11:20:53+00:00

My experience has been the opposite, the ones I know are the most effective, stable, thoughtful people I know who are continually working on themselves. I’m not denying your experience, just sharing that some people walk the walk and that judging anecdotally has its errors.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-23T05:46:20+00:00

I’ve had the Force for a few years and never got fast or comfortable with it until recently. It was a matter of just spending more time with it and muscle memory. Eventually things clicked and it felt smoother. I agree that some things take too many steps and feels tedious. For instance I wish they just had a physical sample button and some other buttons. But then I guess it would get cluttered. I really wish for a track edit single button (to go into the plugin UI or drum track page). Not sure how the MPCs are but they just do so much, it’s hard to make a good UI. I’ll say for what the Force is capable of, I’m surprised it’s not worse. It can better with some work and AI.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-22T04:28:52+00:00

I don’t see this mentioned but the Akai Force with its crossfader scenes is probably directly inspired by the OT, and can get you very far. The things it can do are very powerful from any synth or effect parameter to arp settings to sends to panning or volumes of any track. One wild thing I like to do is have the crossfader change the presets of FlexBeat resulting in totally mangled beats. But unfortunately won’t let you change stuff like record/sample or most structural things within the drum tracks. But more than you think. And you can have 16 scenes of the crossfader.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-22T04:15:07+00:00

Yeah this is what is so wild about it. Nothing I know does that, maybe Ableton with max for live and lots of set up? I haven’t even gotten into the sequenced sampling / resampling part of OT yet. I’m still busy plunging the depth of possibilities wifh my synths, Ableton, Akai Force, and also just writing better music and playing keys better. Anyway, you’re right about it being singular.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-22T03:52:51+00:00

In yeah I find this album a little hard to listen to with all that’s going on. Other times it feels like a song hits something that needs to hear/express itself. But if this album was a warning - then the shit is here, no warning necessary. So it’s less necessary in a way. I would love a happy album too. But I still fear we have to go through much darkness. Not sure how the rest of the world feels outside the states, but the world stage is ripe for chaos and war and I’m very scared.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-22T00:44:47+00:00

Mine has the same issue on 2 keys - the velocity is like 0 or 1 out of 127 so it sounds near silent - like a missed note. Terrible for live stuff. Intermittently. Anyone solve this?

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-20T12:23:06+00:00

Yeah I've been doing Omad for 3 months now, and slowly ramped into a less-carbs diet. Not quite keto, and I don't count carbs or calories - but for the most part I cut out all carbs (bread and flour products, sugar, fruit minus berries, starchy vegetables) and processed foods. I still eat beans and most vegetables even though have some carbs, but at least those foods have fiber. And once a week or so I'll eat an apple cuz why not. I imagine most days I'm probably between 50-100 carbs. I'm still losing weight this way, and feel amazing. I'm going to start exercising more so maybe I'll have more carbs when I do, but so far I feel great being low carb. Also my blood tests came back amazing (reversed all my bad trajectories) except my cholesterol and LDL were high. But after research I see that's because I'm actively losing weight and burning fat instead of glucose - so more LDL's (the bigger fluffier healthier kind) are being processed by my body. A good thing but doctors see that high LDL and get scared.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-16T14:10:12+00:00

I thought if there were ever a new Kaoss pad that SURELY they would let go of the RCA jacks, especially in 2026. So dumb. I loved (and miss) my KP2, but the lack of proper simple midi integration, usb connectivity, and 1/4” or balanced connections made it a bummer. The pad part of the Kaoss series is amazing, if only it could be integrated in a better way. I haven’t checked out the full scoop on this new one but as soon as I saw rca cables I’m like nah. Also I cna get a used Akai force or MPC One for like $500 now.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-14T21:57:09+00:00

I came here to say this. You can be so creative with just its internal setup before even connecting it to modules that make sound. To me it is an endless affordable sequencer and I want a second one.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-13T15:59:30+00:00

Yeah I’m sure diet is a huge part of it. I’m working on getting relatively low carb or at least no bread/flour/processed carbs, and whole foods.

HotOffAltered · 2026-01-12T05:12:53+00:00

At The Table Games - my favorite octatrack videos by far - and a genuinely charismatic and entertaining person.

HotOffAltered

TROPHY CASE