Once we get to the 2000s, samplers are no longer really considered creative tools. They’re playback devices for units of music, like loops or stems. Propellerhead Reason (2001) and Native Instruments Kontakt (2002) joined Sonic Foundry Acid and Ableton Live as computer based instruments that leaned heavily on pre-made samples.
The rest of the 2000s seemed obsessed with harnessing the growing processing power of modern computers, and plug-ins exploded. Now you didn’t need any external instruments or processors. Everything from synthesizers to mastering compressors could now be done completely “in-the-box.”
But that didn’t really help electronic musicians who performed live. If you went out to see any electronic acts, there’s a good chance you bounced around while watching some dude in a stupid hat stare at his laptop and noodle with a mixer.
(No offense, Plastikman. Also, you’re not wearing a hat.)
Chances are, they were using something like Ableton Live, and triggering samples from already produced tracks or stems. So after all that, what we end up with is a specialized sampler (running on a laptop) that can tweak and shuffle samples as they’re triggered live.
Then, somewhere in Sweden, someone asks, “Could we do the same thing without the laptop? Some kind of dedicated box that does all those laptoppy, mixery things but without a glowing Apple logo?”
So they gave us this: the Elektron Octatrack.
Like the Fizmo, this one is considered one of the more complicated pieces of gear around. Unlike the Fizmo, this one has a tremendous user base, and hundreds of YouTube video tutorials. It’s also really good at mangling pre-existing material.
This, posted a few months ago, was 4 samples from the Original section loaded into the Octatrack, and tweaked live.
The Octatrack is seeing heavy use in remixing the existing sections. I’ll post a few more snippets soon.