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Octatrack or MPC Live as a sampler to fill with iOS food?
It's in the title. In a month or two I'm going to get a hardware sampler, but I'm in two minds as to which one. The main attraction with the MPC Live is latency-free finger drumming - love it, got a Nord Drum 2 and Pad and it's my favourite piece of gear - and the main hook with the Octatrack is a personal proclivity for tweaking, sound design and loop mangling.
Thoughts on matching either of these pieces with an iOS setup?
Anyone with experience with either of these machines, how do you use them?
Comments
This is mainly how I use the OT with iOS apps, at least in terms of capturing them. Performance is another video.
For me the OT would be something to get if you're more focused on the performance aspects of making music. Doesn't have to be on stage, but more hands on sculpting of things in realtime as you record perhaps. The MPC seems to be more focused on creating whole songs or grooves from a large library, versus the loop mangling performance instrument of the OT.
This is me right now. Same exact dilemma. And for as much as the Octatrack can do to my samples and the depth of mangling and whatnot, I'm leaning towards the MPC Live.
Here's how I see it, and I'll limit to my top three for each... except the MPC Live Pros...
OT Pros:
Depth of mangling with Parameter Locks.
Depth of programming, including polyrhythms and crossfading between ideas.
Quality of OS seems to inspire happy little accidents that will sometimes make a song a work of art.
OT Cons:
Menu diving and scrolling, finite tuning in every single slice of sample will lead to frustration.
Memorizing and learning the language of the machine might lead to insanity.
Lack of velocity sensitive pads.
Live Pros:
Velocity sensitive pads (16 x 8 banks) with a touch screen.
Expandable sample memory, potential of Terabytes on a SSD.
Programming will be straightforward with lots of layers to each sound.
Layout and overall depth of machine.
Sample slicing and auto arrangement on pads will lead to faster workflow.
Potential for Ableton Link in a future update.
Potential for Polyrhythms in a future update.
Battery powered.
Live Cons:
No polyrhtyms. (But cycling/randomizing through three or four sounds on a pad will lead to something similar.)
No Parameter Locks.
Lacks the depth of the OT's happy accident factor.
This is how I am currently weighing the options. I think the MPC Live is it for me. I want to have something the iPad isn't for me, which is a backbone. Samplr is my #1 instrument on the iPad, so having a place to pound in beats and potentially flex my sample library is going to marry nicely with that.
Plus Ableton Link seems like an eventuality with the Live.
My two cents.
Thanks for the reply Tarekith. I've seen a few of your videos before, including this one actually - inspiring stuff. When I first watched it a few months ago it was all pretty foreign, but after a bit of research on the OT, I can follow pretty easily now. I imagine the workflow's even quicker with midi sync. Had another try of the OT at a shop here in Berlin today, realise it will definitely take time and practice to use well, and damn, gotta try to see reason as I'm pretty attracted to the MkII design but don't know if I can justify the cost (1400€).
Looks like we share a lot of the same considerations. I'd add looping and LFOs as positives for the OT, but limited tracks and polyphony as negatives.
Tried the MPC Live in the shop again today, and damn I love playing those pads, but aside from that the OS doesn't feel particularly inspiring or like there's much room for experimentation. I have a few decent outboard FX boxes and I'm hoping that will feel like "enough" for the mangling happy accident side as you describe it, but it's ultimately a huge financial outlay to - dare I say it - shave a few milliseconds off the latency I experience when using Push, and yes, standalone, but something about the product itself feels a bit off, and Akai themselves seem a bit shady and dishonest.
Dream machine: The brain, beauty and plocks of the new Octatrack, the polyphony and pads of the MPC Live, Link, Overbridge and the Digitakt's reverb... I'd be all over that in a flash.
I feel at a minimum the octa and the mpc are equal when it comes to sample mangling.
the octa plays more of a lead role in the process where the mpc lets the user play more of the lead role and the results from both can be quite amazing.... I'd get both. btw the mpc has individual track lengths as well.
I didn't realize the Live didn't allow for polymetric stuff. Seems a big omission these days.
definitely, but you can finagle it combining the pad link + the cycling feature + individual track lengths within a sequence+automate hahaha
one of my fav elektronauts besides cuckoo
hey you digitakt dudes, don't know how I missed this but is it true that the digitakt doesn't have round robin, I know it has p.lock sample triggering but what about round robin?
I wish someone would make a new version of OT that is more user friendly.
I hated the workflow and limitations - it had to go.....
I'm using reaper, protools, hardware synths, VST's, Maschine, Reaktor, music toys like Omnichords etc, and a whole bunch of acoustic instruments - all feeding into IOS for further manipulation
The way to get round robin effects in the Digitakt is the use the LFO on (for example) the sample tuning, attack or sample start point. There's always recording in the automation live too, which would free up the LFO for other uses. You could also load up 5 snare sounds and cycle through them using the LFO too.
hm, I see.
@mayo there is definitely a space between the digitakt and the octa for something more powerful than the digi but more accessible and user friendly than the octa!!
Yes there is a huge space for something new.
I'm hoping that whatever is coming = it's not made by Elektron
Better still - it is on IOS
Parameter locks on IOS is only a matter of time....
we can't even get proper in/out of midi on iOS I'm not holding my breath for proper p.locks
Have to say I'm surprised plocks aren't anywhere to be seen on iOS as far as I know.
I'm still very torn with this decision... The finger drummer and the loop mangler, oh how you scratch different itches!
Just a bummer because I can afford one, but due to my circumstances it will probably be a veeeeery long time until I can even think about getting the other...
The Digitakt is the bees knees. It’s prettying darn powerful for being such a streamlined quick machine.
yep yep, after using one , really want some of those features on the mpc L
ToRaiz and Djs1000 are beautiful for loops but more limited to everything else... funny it has parameter triggers
After a lot of going back and forth I'm currently using the Digitakt as a MIDI clock source, Gadget and GR-16 (and sometimes iSpark and Egoist) on two iPads, all as MIDI clock destinations, so everything runs in reliable sync in the first place.
Digitakt does the live sampling (which goes a lot faster than in the OT video above) from microphone or from the second iPad, Gadget does everything synthesis-based and breakbeats from Stockholm and the internal drum apps, and GR-16 does mainly sampled and synth fx with its quick, accessible synth engine. Because it's on the second iPad, I have another audio input free for attaching a Mic or CD player or whatever to sample from, using TwistedWave for superfast editing, then open in GR-16 and tweak.
If I wanted to record vocals, I'd use Rosario in Gadget
I think you might easily go beyond OT’s sample mangling, in-the-moment creative workflow by supplementing MPC with the power of iOS. I was so close to going with OT just now, but 10 years in tech is an eternity.
OT will always be great for what it does to those who invest the large amount of time to learn its idiosyncrasies, but utilizing modern soft/HW tech can get you so much further - especially with the recent and upcoming iOS modular tools like Mirack, Drambo and all the other great sample mangling tools and effects on the platform.
I may get an iPad Mini to dedicate solely to my newly ordered MPC, mounting both in a case together, as it seems an ideal fusion..rock solid stability of dedicated HW, with the ever expanding power in the app/AU world.
I've had both. To be completely honest, the electribe esx was my more fun and intuitive. The Octratrack is a drag to program, and the MPC flow was more like a daw, which was not what I was looking for. Liked that it had Ableton Link though. My two cents. As a former only hardware guy, the iPad kills them: Sapmpr & Sector and Patterning, oh my. With a nice controller, it really has it all... With Drambo, could be even more fun.
I say get the Akai Force over the mpclive!
And if you really want a sample mangling machine, there are only 4 i know that really do some Amazing sample mangling:
When trying the OT, i found out its not really the sample engine itself...its per step trigs/probability and effects doing all the cool stuff. The 4 i listed actually mangle completely!
the mini is perfect for the job
I have been going through a similar dilemma.
I tried a Digitakt, didn't like the lack of stereo sampling, so sold it.
Then I bought the MPC Live, but the auto sampling feature that I was excited to use with my iPad synths didn't really work as the auto-trimming and iPad latency caused issues and just didn't play right. For what I was using it for, I thought that the iPad version of MPC Pro2 or BeatMaker would suffice.
Then I thought, I can't afford an Octotrack, so I bought another Digitakt, and again, realized that most of what I was doing with it could be done with patterning 2 (I wasn't pushing the DT, I am sure).
Now I am trying to decide if an OT makes sense. I feel it is the only hardware box that offers more than an iPad with some quality apps... but then, at the end of the day, maybe the iPad has everything I need. But GAS!!
I am certainly spoiled with choices.
Is there any app which enables playback of 8 audio tracks at once and changing up to 96 parameters simultaneously and morphing between 16 sets of 96 parameters with a single controller?
if there was I would gladly pay for it.