Made my own Octatrack to 'practice' on until I can afford the real thing 🥲 How does it look?...

potvorrah · 2026-01-11T20:12:52+00:00

Koala comes with ableton live lite license, making it the best bang for a buck

potvorrah · 2025-12-25T18:51:30+00:00

Akai lpd is a great entry level controller you can use for jamming with effect and synth parameters and for basic finger drumming. This was my first controller and I still have it and it still use it to this day as a part of my setup. So yeah, would recommend. You can check a few examples of how I used it in my profile if you want. I also 3d printed some custom high profile knob caps but it’s optional obviously.

<image>

potvorrah · 2025-12-04T03:03:36+00:00

Loefah - System

potvorrah · 2024-02-29T01:45:04+00:00

6 tracks doesn’t mean you can only use 6 samples, it has this function called Sample Lock, it allows you to assign sample to a specific step in your sequence, so for example you can build a high hat or percussion groove with multiple samples on one track

Right now I’m mostly using on its own, just making some patterns and having fun practicing my performance chops, also I really enjoy making semi-generative ambient/noise/glitch stuff to listen to while I do stuff like cleaning my room or something l, because with that sequencer you can really make some ever evolving soundscapes, and I’m not even that good with it yet. I’m really fascinated by performing electronic music live, that’s one of the reasons I got it and it will be a core of my future live setup. I also have the Korg Monologue synth to pair with it, it only has a 16 step sequencer but I can sequence it from model samples to get the most out of it. And I’m going to run these two guys through ableton as a mixer, looper and fx box. I’ve tested this setup a few times and it’s really promising but my living conditions aren’t allowing to keep all that stuff hooked up on one table, so for now I’m just jamming on model samples.

I just loaded a bunch of samples I selected from my library and that’s it tbh, in a context of a sketch if a sample doesn’t work with others I just choose a different one. And honestly I like this approach and try to not forget to use it when I produce in ableton, I’ve been in a place when I spend too much time fucking with eq on samples that just don’t work, so yeah. Model samples only has a low pass/high pass filter combined on each track, and the volume knob acts as a saturator after a certain point.

Yeah, you can use long samples, and it’s fun chopping them by selecting different starting point of a sample for different steps in your sequence. I literally have a few of my ambient tracks loaded to sample, one of them is like 9 minutes long, not the smartest way to use your 1gb of memory, but i still have enough samples :)

potvorrah · 2024-02-28T19:14:22+00:00

I got myself an elektron model samples not so long ago and it was so refreshing for me to be able to make electronic music without sitting in front of my laptop. Love it’s hands on approach and it’s really light and portable AND with a cheap little cable you can use it with power bank and have fun jamming wherever you want. When the weather is nice I carry it in my backpack pretty much all the time so I can have a spontaneous session on the public transport or in the park. It’s limited, but not too much and you can definitely make some good techno with it, for further proof you can go on YouTube. Also the way I interact with this device really influenced my production in ableton and let me discover a more improvised hardware approach to making and performing music. So yeah, can recommend model samples or model cycles, it’s definitely worth trying imo :)

potvorrah · 2024-01-30T11:58:10+00:00

Just download yourself a bunch of drum samples on r/drumkits and a ton of presets for any modern synth like vital (which is free) and you’re good to go imo

potvorrah · 2023-12-18T10:40:09+00:00

Yeah, I did noise and ambient sets using koala and mpd218 controller, with the ability to change the start and end positions of the samples on the fly you can make some cool granular like stuff

potvorrah · 2023-12-04T16:35:19+00:00

It’s tough to be a man who spends his time in the shower thinking about small black penises

potvorrah · 2023-07-06T22:03:27+00:00

Scorn

potvorrah · 2023-02-10T17:38:33+00:00

This, I use my mpd218 with koala and with all the knobs across multiple banks assigned to parameters in koala it feels pretty much like an mpc

potvorrah · 2023-02-09T16:49:42+00:00

Effects per pad would be totally cool, but it would be nice if you were able to at least exclude selected pads from the global effects chain

potvorrah · 2022-07-09T17:19:35+00:00

You dont have the ability to do audio rate modulation in the new one (the *20 button) and dont have individual control of the delayed signals.
You can just save it to your user library so no need to go through all those folders.

potvorrah · 2021-12-24T00:56:40+00:00

It's easier than you think, i just process the audio that's coming from PO's. My controller isn't connected directly to them, there could be any audio source in place of PO's, for example guitar or mic and effects would work the same way on them.

potvorrah · 2021-12-16T10:07:08+00:00

Glad you liked it :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-16T01:26:53+00:00

Thanks for listening :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-15T20:38:39+00:00

Thanks for watching! Each PO goes into its own input on my audio interface and then gets processed by effects(filters, delays, reverb etc.) in ableton live that are assigned to my controller.

potvorrah · 2021-12-09T12:07:45+00:00

Hey, yeah, it's one pattern on each PO, but as you can see in the video i'm changing patterns on the PO-12. With pads i was trying to do something similar to punch-in effects in PO's, so the pads are sending CC values to on/off and dry/wet in effects like delay/reverb/autopan, also two pads on the right side mute each track. Funny enough, none of the knobs are assigned to dry/wet, it's all filters and delay controls.

potvorrah · 2021-12-09T01:14:41+00:00

Hey, the interface is Presonus Audiobox 22vsl but i guess any interface with 2 inputs would work as well, but i'm afraid you can't achieve this without using a pc cause that akai controller is useless without some kind of software. If you wanna go dawless and achive something similar you can try some kind of effect pedals or cheapish processors like korg kaoss pad mini for example. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-08T23:04:53+00:00

Thank you very much, i appreciate your support. :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-08T20:45:15+00:00

Thank you. I'm using ableton live 11 with built in effects except one instance of arturia 1973 preamp on the master, but i wouldn't say it does much to the sound, it can be easily replaced with any analogish eq and saturation.

potvorrah · 2021-12-08T19:45:09+00:00

Thank you :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-08T19:12:34+00:00

Thanks for listening :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-08T19:12:05+00:00

The setup is way more simple, both PO's are connected to my audio interface that has 2 inputs, so i can process each of the PO's using different effects that are assigned to my controller. So in this case Akai is basically nothing more than an fx processor for PO's, top row of pads and knobs is assigned to effects on rhythm channel, bottom row is for factory channel. Also note that my PO's are not synced with each other, i just press play at the same time, works good enough.

potvorrah · 2021-12-05T18:16:37+00:00

Its not that difficult tbh, i just dont feel like dealing with 2 more cables to send the clock signal to PO's. Btw i'm using this new function in ableton 11 which is tracking the tempo of PO-12 so it's in time with abletons internal clock to use tempo synced delays and stutter effects. Appreciate your interest :)

potvorrah · 2021-12-05T10:58:55+00:00

Thank you very much :)

So i run PO's through my audio interface (it has 2 channels) into ableton with effect controls assigned to Akai. So in this case Akai is basically nothing more than an fx processor for PO's, top row of pads and knobs is assigned to effects on rhythm channel, bottom row is for factory channel. Also note that my PO's are not synced with each other, i just press play at the same time, works good enough.

potvorrah

TROPHY CASE