Octachainer is a small, free Windows and Mac application for creating sample chains for the Octatrack and other samplers. This long overdue update fixes some bugs and implements some minor new features suggested by users to improve the workflow.
New features
- Drag&drop of folders.
- Allows more than 64 octatrack slices. Instead, it will now give a warning that more than one .wav file will be created.
- Support for high DPI screens.
- Multiselect in the sample lists.
Bugs
- Megabreak mode wasn’t working properly. Fixed.
- Drag&drop wasn’t working on mac version. Fixed.
- Some hotkeys didn’t work. Fixed.
- A combination of space and bracket in sample filenames could in theory cause issues. Not sure if this actually caused problems for anyone, but fixed just in case.
- Sample playback did not work for some users. I have not been able to reproduce the issue, but have made some changes. Audio works on all computers I have tried on, so possibly fixed.
- Generating the .wavs did not work for a few users. I haven’t been able to reproduce the issue, so not sure what the reason could be. I’m hoping it is fixed, but might still be an issue.
NB: One request I often receive is for “clear all” functionality. This is already implemented. File -> New or (Ctrl+N / Command+N). No need to quit and restart the application! All hotkeys:
- Space – toggle play/stop of selected sample
- Alt+P/Option+P – Play
- Alt+S/Option+S – Stop
- Alt+A/Option+A – Add file(s) to list
- Alt+R/Option+R – Remove file(s) from list
- Alt+C/Option+C – Create output file(s)
- Ctrl+N/Command+N – New project
- Ctrl+O/Command+O – Open project
- Ctrl+S/Command+S – Save project
For an explanation of the various modes, see the blog post for the previous v1.3 version.
Download links
OctaChainer_v1_3_1_Windows.zip
Thanks for the feedback, pull requests, bug reports and ideas for improvements. This tool is free and I’m not accepting any form of payment (thanks for the kind offers, though!). If you really feel like giving something in return I’d love it if you take some time to listen to our album “Comfort in the Echo” or follow Tic Tic on Facebook.
Tic Tic 
Hi, I’m having some teething troubles with 1.3.1. The app instantly shuts down when I click the create button. Maybe because I’m using it to make 120 slice chains, but the same task is working fine with 1.3.0.
Thanks for making this app! Its an essential to go along with Octatrack 🙂
Thanks for letting me know. I just tried creating a 120 file chain in GridMode on my Catalina MBP. That worked. I then checked “create .ot file” and tried the same, and then it crashed. Was that checked when you tried? As the Octatrack can have max 64 slices, that option should not have been available when more than 64 slices are added to the list. So that is a bug at least.
That said, I don’t have access to any other mac than my Catalina MBP. So I don’t know if the mac version works at all on other OSes yet.
In this case, I was making a 120 slice chain for Model:Samples, so no .ot file and I was using ‘evenly spaced grid’, I did try varying some of the settings such as stereo/mono, samplerate, etc, but it still crashed each time.
My Mac is stuck on High Sierra so I can only try it on that version too. I’ll try making an Octatrack specific chain and see if that’s working.
I receive an error telling me it wants to create multiple .wav files because I’ve got more than 64 samples, when I have in fact exactly 64 samples. Platform: Windows 10.
Simple enough pull request to make if there’s a github where you track issues? not sure.
There’s a bug where if you have exactly 64 samples v1.3.1 will alert you “This will create multiple .wav files” and that there are more than 64 audio files. It asks to save two files but if you cancel the second export all 64 samples make it into the first exported file but no .ot is created. Do you have a public repo for this codebase where we can contribute fixes?
https://github.com/KaiDrange/OctaChainer
🙂
DRAG AND DROP YAY!!
now i don’t have to create folders to sift through the exact samples I want, i can just listen to the drum hits in FOOBAR2000 and drop them bad boys into it. Thanks for this.
Just wanted to say thanks for this tool. Really helpful! Been using it to create sample chains for the digitakt and it works perfectly.
One possible future feature idea: when you’ve selected ‘mono’ under channels, it would be useful to preview the sample in mono when hitting play. Particularly for us lowly Digitakt users where mono is the only option. 🙂
One thing I notice with this new version (Mac) is that it’s no longer possible to reorder samples in the sample list. Is this working for anyone else?
Yep. Same here. I’m on Catolina.
the app crashes everytime i hit create no matter the mode i’m in (mac pro 10.13.6 high sierra)
each time i get an empty wav file of 44 bytes.
I suspect my OS to be the source of the problem but updating is not an option for now.
thanks for any help 🙂
Hmm. It could be something with the file(s) you want to chain. Do you have an example file that doesn’t work at your end I can try? Could be a bug, or some unsupported metadata in the wav header, etc. An empty wav of 44 bytes makes me think OctaChainer crashes when trying to read the contents of the source .wav file(s), so most likely (hopefully) it should fail for me as well.
thanks for your reply!
I think the problem does not come from the samples because i tried so many different ones (shorts, longs, wav, aiff and almost every bit depth and sample rates known to mankind ^^)
from the crash log i think that comes from the library localisations of high sierra (and probably some olders OS too) :
Dyld Error Message:
Symbol not found: ____chkstk_darwin
Referenced from: /Applications/OctaChainer.app/Contents/MacOS/../Frameworks/libsndfile.1.dylib (which was built for Mac OS X 10.15)
Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
finally got around to giving this a go, and it will insta crash on CREATE.
I get a message “The default interactive shell is now zsh” [Mac Big Sur]
samples 24bit, 44.1
would love to get this working as splicing then slicing can be tedious, but not the end of the world.
thanks
adding: seems the crash is cause by adding SILENT SLICE
Hey! Hmm, not sure why a silent slice is causing issues for you (I think it used to work at least?), but I haven’t used the tool in quite a while myself, nor checked how it is holding up on newer Macs, etc. I haven’t updated or maintained Octachainer in a long time now since my limited time for hobby dev projects is spent on some other audio app these days. Sorry! However, there is an awesome new tool around now! I’d check that one out: https://digichain.brianbar.net/
This is his thread on Elektronauts, btw: https://www.elektronauts.com/t/digichain-web-app-for-making-sample-chains/191074
Thanks. The tool werks perfect aside from crash with add silent slice.
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Just tried your browser app.
Werks great! Appreciate it much.
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div>Nice werk 👍🏿
Sent from my incredibly annoying iPhone
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The web app is not my work, but that of brian3kb at Elektronauts, so he should have all the credit for that. Still, glad you like it!