Shamania was a great party and the gig went well.

Cirklon behaved wonderfully, I still seem to be having to work too hard to make Octatrack slot in easily. Actually missing the Korg ESX for its simplicity and tweakability where all the Octatrack can do is play back long, complete tracks. Can't emphasise enough how important it is being able to name tracks, scenes and so on: I can tell what Cirklon is going to do at any point but Octatrack, hardly ever.

People with laptops have it sooooo easy. And it's so much less backache!

Here's my post to Elektron users about the continuing musing about "should I stick with the Octatrack or sell it". I have to be honest, if there were something else that let me do the synced static tracks then I'd be seriously into swapping. Why do I keep fighting the laptop route? Seems so self-destructive sometimes. I am still sticking with Octatrack though, but I have yet to find a role it fills neatly and comfortably with no awkward bits sticking out and poking me in the eye.

I'm an old dog can't deny. Having had my Octatrack for a long time I finally did my first gig with it at the weekend. There's good and bad stuff still, for me, the good being that you can prepare entire tracks ready to kick off in sync with loops, live sequences, MIDI-synced arpeggios etc. That worked nicely, all the long tracks triggered from Cirklon, starting scenes and tempo also. The bad is always its inscrutability, little multi-function buttons and lack of easily-accessed info. For example, I had 20+ songs ready to go, each with about 12-16 scenes. Although I try to be fairly consistent in the usage of tracks and scenes, in the heat of a gig I have no idea what any scene is really going to do until I select it. Sometimes the result isn't what I would have wanted at that point. 
The lack of any kind of naming/visibility means, for me, I have to restrict what I do, try to make it consistent and never deviate from whatever formula I decide on. The trouble is I constantly change my mind about how to use it, what goes on each track, what the scene progression should be because each track is different and has different needs. 

I guess in giving us an instrument with great power, we also get the great responsibility to bend it to our will. Sometimes that's just too much for me. So Octatrack is occasionally brilliant and wonderful but to be honest I think I found it more pleasurable and natural using my old combination of sequencer/korg electribe, even though I could not do the structured/prepared/mixed tracks that way. We're all different though and it could be what I want to do isn't what Elektron had in mind.