This project was a 9-month exploration into the world of electronics and general makery, as I attempted to build a custom studio in a box, which works in a very specific way, tailored to my needs. It consists of an Elektron Octatrack, Access Virus TI Snow, and an Intel NUC mini PC, all in one box, with a touch screen, running Bitwig and a custom controller script I wrote to augment the functionality of the Octatrack via Bitwig's modulators. It runs on battery power from a custom lithium-ion battery pack, using 12 cells to run everything for about 3h at a time.
The Octatrack is the main brain - it sequences both the virus and virtual instruments in Bitwig. Bitwig processes the incoming audio signal through four inputs, so I have separate stereo channels for the Octatrack and Virus. This is important because it means I can have my kick on an instrument track in Bitwig, for example, and then sidechain that to the low end of the Virus audio channel which is running the bass line. The Virus can run four patches simultaneously and the Octatrack, with 8 sampler tracks and 8 MIDI tracks, can sequence all four virus parts and still have four left over for sequencing Bitwig instruments. There are some other cool bells and whistles, but that's the fundamental structure of it all.
Check out the video for a full run down!
TinkerCAD design: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/dGGS...
Build log (kind of): https://www.elektronauts.com/t/im-bui...
Hear the full track used in the video: https://youtu.be/mZ128O5idPw
Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/traintracsldn