Moving Patterns/Parts/Banks Between Projects?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#4

i think he’s asking about moving stuff between projects not within them. this is considerably more time consuming.

this from butcha compiled from info contained an elektron user’s thread:

Ok mission accomplished. For those of you finding this thread, it is possible using the combined info here. I’ll share my experience if that helps anyone. Took me like 4 hours with me taking my time and also some jamming. I combined banks from 3 projects into 1. N_Rain’s advice in reply #1 helped a lot. I will amend theirs with some other posts and my own. This was in fact a huge PITA and this feature is most needed to protect my future sanity. This time could have been spent making beats!

** Backup everything to your computer in a folder just in case ** (no, really do it.)

  1. Make a new project called “empty” that you can pull empty banks from.

  2. start with a project that has the most banks that you plan on using.

  3. make note of which bank #s you plan on keeping.

connect USB

  1. Copy empty banks from “empty” and write over the banks in the new main project that you dont want to use so that all that remains are the banks you want to go forward with.

back to octatrack

  1. Purge all samples in new main project.

4a COLLECT SAMPLES from project menu. this puts all unpurged samples in the project folder and disconnects the project from the audio folder.

  1. Go to next project. SAVE TO NEW PROJECT in project menu.

USB

  1. again copy empty banks from the “empty” project over ones you dont want in all remaining projects that have banks you want to copy from.

OT

  1. PURGE SAMPLES

  2. COLLECT SAMPLES

(repeat if necessary)

  1. write down a chart of all samples in every part. You do not need to make note of the machine type, the bank file stores this info.

  2. also, “Save Sample Settings” for each sample in the Operations Menu. this creates a file with an .ot extension. I found that you only have to do this with samples that you actually adjusted in some way. either gain, BPM, or changes to timestretch settings. If you miss saving one that you should have, you can copy/paste later.

I should note that I believe this saving of .ot files does not save statrt/end point settings settings. not 100% sure but will figure that out eventually. maybe that’s in the project.work file?

USB

  1. Copy all of these collected samples into the main project.

  2. copy banks into the new main project. you may need to open a third empty window on your desktop like “sandbox” where you can drop bank files and easily change their file names.

OT

  1. jam out and figure out what’s wrong and missing. you wlll find that it is possible to go back to the original banks and copy/paste either sample slots, tracks, parts, etc. yes, this sucks for Sample locks. you gotta go get those manually. different situations called for different copy/paste procedures. good luck.

I should also point out that when you are on a part, and you double tap the track to see what sample is loaded, if it is blank that means if you do place the right sample there, and you use that sample slot in multiple parts, it will do it for all of them. this saved some time when the Kick or something universal was placed luckily on an empty slot. hope that makes sense.

i probably missed something. it’s been a long day in the lab. questions? happy thanksgiving if u live in usa, or anywhere for that matter. if you have an octatrack, give thanks. peace.

butcha

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Setting up the OT to perform live with
#5

OMG!!! and after all you have a looong white beard…

2 Likes
#6

…and this is the part of the thread where I give my personal workflow a huge high-five.

1 Like
#7

allerian, what happens to be your personal workflow? curious how to avoid such a crazy involved process like the one zeropoint just mentioned,

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#8

Yes Please!!

#9

Not trying to pat anyone on the head here with a magic solution, I get the problem at hand and the issues that surround trying to reorganize OT stuff after the fact. The workflow I use isn’t about meshing projects - although I have used sicijk’s file management technique. I simply try to plan and organize work to stay ahead of problems like this. Sometimes that is easy, sometimes not so much.

To bring tracks from disparate projects together for live sets, I’m more than happy to bump entire sections to audio and then just play them back and mix with the OT - 99% of audiences do not care/realize/appreciate that you are twisting knobs live :confused:

#10

i think bouncing tracks to audio and playing them back is actually a pretty good solution. though audiences dont necessarily care about something being “live”, i do :stuck_out_tongue: but i suppose it would just lead to further remixing/reprocessing of that track.
the reason i ask this question is that i received my octatrack perhaps a month ago, and feel my first project will prolly run out of room shortly. there’s some patterns i would like to keep for my live set, but also feel like starting ‘fresh’. most other gear is pretty straightforward in combining disparate projects into one project (at least on the MPC and Machinedrum, it’s not an issue). There’s a lot to the Octatrack I feel like I have yet to find out, so was curious if there was a simple solution I was overlooking.

#11

Over the past few weeks I’ve been preparing my first live set, which will be OT/MD/MnM. Using sysex to load patterns/kits into the MD / MnM in specific pattern slots is straightforward (if somewhat fiddly). The OT is oddball there, but maybe there’s an opportunity for a useful application:

  • Parse sysex files from MnM/MD and allow re-organization : moving patterns, renaming kits, combining ‘songs’ into a set of banks, generating new sysex files that can be uploaded to the devices.

  • The OT has all it’s information available via USB disk mode, so the files should be similarly parseable. Copy/move patterns and banks. Rename/copy/move parts. Rename/move and find references to samples. The application could then write some new files which could then be dropped onto the OT in USB disk mode.

Not that I have enough time to write such an application. :slight_smile: Elektron seems pretty good about documenting their sysex format. Maybe they will document the OT file format?

#12

i also think it’s pretty crucial for elektron to develop a sysex system for the OT that can allow transfer of parts/patterns btwn projects. a “find sample” solution would be useful to deal with the discrepancy of sample placements between projects.

#13

I don’t know that it needs to be sysex, as raw files are accessible via USB disk mode… but yeah, it would really speed up my workflow if there was a companion app that could look at a ‘Set’ directory and let me organize it.

If Elektron were to publish the format of those files, I would consider giving it a try.

#14

i like Allerian’s approach …
shall also mention a personal preference - bump the other projects to be brought in to not just one track for each track, but two or three stems (drums, synths, vox/lead … bass is with the drums or the synths)

just two or three stems makes a creative difference; synths without drums make beautiful fodder for modulation flange fx, and percussive volume envelopes … use different compression on the drum stem while performing live … really brings the Octatrack realtime creativity feel to the forefront.

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#15

This has been my approach as well with the OT from day one, from sheer necessity. The one time I moved files around as described in the E-U thread cited above gave me two impressions: 1) it does work, but 2) it’s quite the timesuck.

With MD and MnM, I can create whenever inspiration strikes on whatever snapshot I happen to be in at the moment, and get organized later with a few minutes on C6. I’m very happy with the OT, but a simple way to transfer data between projects is the one thing I think it lacks.

I hope HQ gets around to creating one someday. If not, I would pay for an app that would streamline the process.

#16

and how to copy scene only ( not entire) bank from one project to another project?

#17

This is all possible with the upcoming OctaEdit!

#18

That sounds like a job for OctaEdit!

Can do that already :wink:

#19

found - leave one blank bank in your project. (num 16 for example). go to your desired bank with scenes. ( num 1 bank in diff project). go offline. copy the num 1 desired bank files when offline bank01.strd and bank01.work to your computer. rename them to bank16.strd and bank16.work. copy them to your desired project directory and overwrite the old (blank bank) files.
go online with OT. now you have your scenes in a desired project. copy paste to desired banks (1-15)

worked for me

#20

That sounds like a job for OctaEdit!

Can do that already ;)[/quote]
Rusty you tease.
Can’t wait to try it out!!!

#21

YEAH!

#22

YEAH![/quote]
I should put a new video up as it has had a bit of a overhaul from a UI and UX point of view… apart from that, it does what it says on the tin.

#23

Hello everybody,

I’ve been looking for the same information (moving patterns/parts/banks between projects, but regarding the Analog Rytm & Analog Four. Is it possible ? If so, is it different from the OT procedure ?

Thank you :slight_smile: