An LCD surrounded by hand controls let the user interact with sampler, step sequencer, mixer, and effect features while stereo audio and MIDI signals are continuously output.
[1] In December 2020, 10 years after its release, Elektron Music Machines celebrated the Octatrack by producing a limited number of Anniversary Edition units.
A CompactFlash card reader lets arbitrary digital sound recordings be loaded into RAM for sample manipulation and step sequencing, or the same functionality can be applied to live recordings made by the Octatrack from the four input audio jacks.
The musician programs the step sequencer to cause playback on one or more of the audio outputs by pressing these buttons to indicate where to start the sound.
Each of the eight audio tracks can have up to two effects which are selected from EQ, compression, flanging, delay, reverb, or others.