Okta 3 [now a thing!]

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Loops work too, because one can loop 'em. I have at least one of yours in my "sounds to use" pile.

There are no wrong answers here people. Just accept the fact that you're all doing it right!

[coldbrightsunlight]

Loops are great imo excited to dive in, might have the time tonight or sunday

[cantremember]

Doing this project has really made me realize that I need to learn how to use a DAW. A lot of the clips are to long to chop up and use in my octatrack and so far I haven't had much luck putting something together. I think what I need to do is figure out how to edit them into smaller clips in a DAW then send em back into my ot that way. Anyway, I have the next 4 days off so I plan on trying to spend a good amount of time on this...

I don't really know what the point of me saying any of this was but I'm just over here posting just to post I guess.

[Paul_C]

Doing this project has really made me realize that I need to learn how to use a DAW. A lot of the clips are to long to chop up and use in my octatrack and so far I haven't had much luck putting something together. I think what I need to do is figure out how to edit them into smaller clips in a DAW then send em back into my ot that way. Anyway, I have the next 4 days off so I plan on trying to spend a good amount of time on this...

I don't really know what the point of me saying any of this was but I'm just over here posting just to post I guess.

If you mostly want to do simple things like that, Audacity is easy to use and free.

I make all my music with it, including both my okta tracks, so you can do a lot with it too.

I was considering cutting up clips into tiny bits which I could load onto my Volca Sample, but I decided it was too much hassle this time round.

[cantremember]

Cool! I'll check it out, thanks! I currently have a free version of Ableton that I was going to try but I have heard Audacity is a little easier to use, not sure how true that is but I'll give it a shot.

[MrNovember]

I use Audacity for everything I do as well. I had planned to use it to cut up samples and feed them into my Digitakt on the last two Okta collabs, but ended up using it for the entire track both times.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Reaper is pretty good for something that is more full featured than audacity and with an indefinite trial period. I've been using it ten years for recording/editing. Nowt wrong with audacity though.

Been going through the samples tonight, so far loving the field recordings from moid, the loops from manymanyhaha, some cool weird sounds from the_bright_undead and a fuzzy guitar from OAM. But I've yet to listen to everything just what I'm vibing on so far.

I've got the same dilemma about whether to load everything onto a device/devices (digitakt and morphagene) or to just do the whole thing in my DAW. Not sure yet.

[manymanyhaha]

Thanks for the info and support everyone!

Agree that Audacity is a great free option. I use it often when digitizing analog tapes.

Agree also that Reaper is an awesome cheap option. Been using it for 5 years. Great out the box so to speak, but highly configurable if you desire to go down some rabbit holes.

And surely you could get some great results from the free version of Ableton too.

If anyone is looking for some fun free plugins, I can recommend these http://www.kammerl.de/audio/. As long as the NSFW gui does not offend you, they are a lot of fun and great for getting some glitchyness/loopyness/pitchyness.

Glitchmachines also has some nice VSTs that I've been able to pick up from time to time for less than $10.

A couple more questions:

a) How much headroom is needed? -3db? -6db?

b) There is a bit of a kid in a candy store thing here, what's the sort of track length limit we should be keeping ourselves too, as a maximum?

[moid]

I've just uploaded our track (it's been a crazy week at work to put it mildly) Looking forward to hearing everyone else's creations!

I did make loops out of some of the files you guys made, and for others I just cut the individual notes out I liked, then got my son to adjust the pitch of them to match the other tracks we were using - I cannot do this myself, my hearing just isn't good enough - it amazes me that he just knows how to tweak each note by + or - 10 or 20 percent of a semitone to make them work together with other people's tracks... but for many of the tracks I stretched them and added delays, reverbs and chorus to slightly excessive levels, but it sounds good to me!

@coldbrightsunlight - I'm glad the field recordings came in useful... I often make them when we go out for a walk, but I rarely can work out what to do with them myself. I keep them in case they come in handy (it's a bit like all the odd off-cuts of timber in my garage; I just know they'll be useful.. one day... hmmm some have been there for more than 30 years now!). At least recordings take up less space!

@manymanyhaha
I've no idea about headroom, I usually set my tracks to come out with no peaks above -0.3 dB so I can put them on CDRs and play them in the car... that's probably not professional, but I sadly am not at that level so hopefully one of you who has some recording experience can chip in?

I don't think there was a maximum limit on track length? Ours was just over 4 minutes if that's any help but I'm sure it will be fine if you go longer!

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

a) How much headroom is needed? -3db? -6db?

b) There is a bit of a kid in a candy store thing here, what's the sort of track length limit we should be keeping ourselves too, as a maximum?

That seems like a lot of headroom... when I "master" things for myself I usually boost just a couple notches below 0.

No hard limit for track length... but try to think of how it would fit in an album context. It's ambient music, so we're not talking three-and-a-half minute pop tracks here, but nothing too overwhelming.

I must confess, I got sidetracks from Okta sound-manipulating for the past few days 'cause I had a sudden strong itch to noodel away on the lap steel... I have a couple pieces that I'm working on and I've been plugging away to get a proper recorded take of one of them... it's been an unusually strong urge, so I've been going with it. Should hopefully plug back into Okta-ness soon.

Meanwhile, if folks haven't looked, there is a "completed tracks" folder in the google drive with a sub-folder of your user name where you can... put your finished track. moid helpfully confirmed that it's viewable/works okay.

[manymanyhaha]

Thanks for the info everyone! So my track at 42 minutes is ok then?

I kid.

Ida has kind of messed my time the last couple weeks, may not finish what I had in mind but I have a fallback that I like well enough. I'm looking at anywhere between 4 and 12 or so minutes, depending on what I have time to do.

Also, I thought I saw where someone had "mastered" the last record, that's why I was asking about headroom. Each mastering engineer I've ever worked with had a certain amount of headroom they preferred, though never understood why it mattered. Put a trim plugin on the first stage, turn it down, Mr ME-Extraordinaire!

[the_bright_undead]

I've been totally jammed with work so far this month, and looks like it's gonna be a couple weeks before i get my time back...I'm thinking I'll probably miss the deadline for Part II. I'm very sorry to step out but glad to have at least gotten something in to start with.....Does anybody who couldn't do Part I wanna step in?

Glad the tracks are finding ways to be useful for a few folks' finished pieces. I'll definitely pick up a copy on bandcamp and am looking forward to hearing everything.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

How are other folks doing? I'm puttering along, I must admit.

[cantremember]

Life has been busier than expected but I think I have my sources picked and put together for the most part. I just need to organize and record so I'm hoping to get that wrapped up within the next few weeks.

[manymanyhaha]

Spent a few hours on it the last couple of days and I have something I like but I will hold onto it until the last day, in case I want to tinker a little here and there. Release date is 10/8 correct? When should we have something up?

Still not sure, are we mastering the tracks ourselves? Don't mind, just want to make things easiest on everyone especially our kind cat-herder, Mr. Akimbo.

I took a maximalist approach: Every track everyone submitted is in my piece (except for my own of course, left those out), though they might not be recognizable for some. Fun stuff