Free Beat vs. Octatrack: The Looping Labyrinth Revisited

Let’s not sugar-coat it: the Elektron Octatrack is infamous for chewing up eager users and spitting them out, dazed and clutching their compact flash cards. Free Beat kicks things off by admitting his Mark I unit has seen more owners than a battered rave whistle, and for good reason—this box is as complex as they come. He originally grabbed it for live looping duties, only to bail after a couple of months thanks to classic MIDI gremlins and the Octatrack’s reputation for being, well, a bit of a nightmare.

But like any true gear masochist, Free Beat couldn’t resist a rematch. After a full wipe and a fresh firmware install, he’s back at the controls, determined to see if he can wrangle even the most basic looping tricks out of this notorious groovebox. The plan? Get some audio running through, set up live looping, and try not to lose his mind in the process. If you’ve ever wondered why so many Octatracks end up on the second-hand market, this intro will feel painfully familiar.

With the MIDI issues apparently banished by the firmware gods, Free Beat sets up his signal chain: Octatrack into the interface, Teenage Engineering PO-128 Megaman as the sound source. He’s aiming for a simple goal—play a riff on the PO, loop it in the Octatrack, and avoid the dreaded manual recording faff.

Cue the classic Octatrack learning curve: routing audio, remembering that you need a thru machine just to hear incoming sound, and setting up track eight as the master. There’s a lot of menu-diving, button combos, and the occasional head-scratch, but eventually, sound flows and effects are dialled in. The reverb might be a bit pants, but hey, it’s progress. If you want to see the exact button presses and menu acrobatics, the video’s where the real action is.

Now for the meat of the Octatrack sandwich: record trigs and flex machines. Free Beat swaps static for flex on track one, setting it up to record from the internal RAM—a must for live sampling. He walks through arming the recorder, setting up one-shot trigs, and getting playback triggers in place. It’s a delicate dance, but when it works, the Octatrack’s power is undeniable.

There’s a genuine sense of triumph when the first loop lands and plays back as intended. Effects can be layered, playback is solid, and the workflow starts to make sense—at least until you try to double the pattern length or tweak playback triggers. The Octatrack rewards patience and punishes hesitation, but Free Beat’s persistence pays off. For the full patching chaos and those tiny but crucial steps, you’ll want to watch the video in all its glory.

Just when things seem smooth, the Octatrack throws a spanner in the works. Free Beat runs into the usual suspects: mysterious audio dropouts, triggers behaving badly, and the eternal question—why can’t I hear my pocket operator anymore? There’s a fair bit of troubleshooting, accidental arming of all buffers, and the realisation that undo is not your friend on this box.

It’s a classic Octatrack experience: moments of brilliance followed by head-scratching glitches. Free Beat keeps it real, admitting he’s got a long way to go and openly asking viewers for advice. If you’ve ever felt personally victimised by Elektron’s workflow, you’ll find solidarity here. The struggle is half the fun—or at least half the content.