OT - sound quality

[Schnork]

@NoiseLab

I really like dynamics, are you saying the OT has limited headroom to work with?

Sure. Even paramount headroom can be exceeded and on the OT you really have to pay attention.
Leave headroom (track levels and volume settings), insert effects can degrade the sound if overdubbed again and again and again…(easy test to check and can also be expoited in creative ways) most notably the filter and lofi - even at neutral settings.
The effect might be subtle, but the it´s there.
If you don´t use them on a track get rid of them. Input meters mostly yellow-orange-y, red at peaks is ok.

Here are a few links that deal with gainstaging and levels:

Gain aGain

This is a follow up post which perhaps questions a few of the assumptions made in a thread from a few years back … some of the statements have been taken to be a statement of fact (not least because of what is stated in the manual and in terms of how evaluations were thought through originally) I’ve revisited this afresh in a new thread in light of the general frustration with managing levels throughout the OT, particularly for capturing Live (and especially now we know the inputs are easily pu…

Gain Pain

Tell me this is wrong … Please ! [Edit, yes, it probably is] The Octatrack takes your decent ‘hot’ signal It drops the level at the inputs by ~12dB It then adds 12dB of gain to the recording to get you back to the original level i’m not sure that sounds like a good plan, can anyone convince me it is ! ? It’s helping me understand why my levels are all over the place with pickup machines, but i can now see it’s the same with flex and tellingly with Thru When you put a decent signal throug…

Octatrack Input Level Optimisation

So, I have read, and experienced myself that the OT doesn’t really distort recorded samples even though the meters are showing red. In a live situation, when mixing live-sampled audio with normalised pre recorded stuff, I often notice that the live-sampled stuff is just way too low in recorded volume. How do I work around this? Is it best practise just to lower the volume in my whole set-up? I was thinking about getting a stereo level meter in front of my OT Inputs to show optimal level (the lev…

Signal flow/gain staging diagram for Octatrack MKII

Is there a signal flow or block diagram for the Octatrack MKII? I found lots of text but no diagrams, so here’s my attempt trying to visualise the level & volume controls if it’s any use. The lines show possible connections; they’re not all active at the same time. Am new to the machine so just feeling my way here