#343

Had my Octa MK2 for some days now, really enjoying diving in and sometimes not understanding at all why the stuff I feed it with sounds great.

But, I am having trouble setting it up as a multitrack async looper with multiple pickup machines l(3) without getting timestretching to previously recorded pickup machines every time I record into a new pickup machine. I’ve seen talk about async looping and the Octatrack earlier in this thread, but I couldn’t seem to find any answers. Does anyone have any pointers? Thanks!

#344

Afaik the only way is to use flex machines and trigger samples manually. This way you are not bound to the OT’s clock. Overdub is a bit hard to achieve this way though

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#345

i would use flex tracks. I don’t see much of an advantage to pickup machines. They are even a good alternative to thru machines for grabbing the live buffer. I’m not sure if this answers your question but you kind of have to offset the rec trig and the playback trig with the micro nudge. this might help:

all of his videos are great for in the box sound design and more practical things like midi loopback and generative tricks

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#346

Thanks folks, not giving up quite yet. Maybe @marcus_fischer can chime in?

#347

I’m not affiliated with the item below, I just stumbled across it while looking for some wood sides for my OT and thought it was cute:

5 Likes
#348

This has also bothered me for quite a while.

As I want to do
• very long recordings (= larger than the 512 steps one can do with Flex machines at the smallest Scale value),
• over which I want to overdub,
• without the OT changing the tempo and thus doing timestretching,
I can’t use Flex machines, but have to use Pickup machines, which I can only prevent from tempo-changing by preloading their recording buffers with empty audio files of pre-defined lengths. Avoids unwanted tempo changes for me. Yes, it is not as flexible as one would like it, but as the old saying goes: You have to die one death.

I’ve listed the necessary steps here. Hope this helps.

3 Likes
#349

Great hack! But this will only work with pre-defined loop lengths? Maybe one can do some smart and quick editing on the go to bypass that?

#350

Yes, this only works with pre-defined loop lengths.

I never tried to edit the lengths of these audio files during a live performance, that would take way too much time.

But what I do live is to stop one of the Pickup machines, load a different empty loop file into its recording buffer, then restart the Pickup again. This is also how I clear a Pickup machine: stop it, reload the empty loop file, restart.

1 Like
#351

As long as you don’t need overdub using flex is straightforward-ish to set up multiple loopers without predefined lengths and without worrying about tempo changes timestretching material. This process is made much easier if you use an external midi controller to map controls. It has been a while but for some reason i remember rec length had to be set to 64 instead of infinite but i don’t know why. 64 beats is pretty long especially if you set bpm to 30 (if you’re not using quantized recording the bpm can be whatever).

Dirty flex looping:
Set loop in playback setup to on, timestretch off. I have recorders set to quantize play and record to taste (I use Qplay 4, Qrec 4), but it can also be unquantized. When I press rec ab, rec cd, or rec src 3 it starts recording my loop on the beat (ONE2). Then I just hit the track sample pitch=0 button (note C6, see OT midi reference) and the rec ab, cd, or src 3 button at the same time to stop recording (quantized) and start playback (unquantized). The need to hit two buttons at the same time is why an external midi controller really helps. This doesn’t give me quantized playback start but it’s close enough for my needs and if I want to nudge it to be quantized I can use the onboard trig buttons in track keyboard mode, the track + play command combo, or drop a play trig on the sequencer.

Overdub is technically possible but very imperfect - need to record from src3 cue and setup feedback.

I had tons of start values, record, playback, length values for buffers set up on midi controllers and it worked pretty well. Essentially I was trying to contort an octatrack into MLR, and so when i discovered some of the max/norns applications here on lines I realized that these are purpose designed tools for what I was trying to get at. That said I still use my modular through OT rather than norns 90% of the time because it can do so many things simultaneously in a small package (fx, looping, sequencing).

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#352

had some great fun using the technique today. I think I have managed to settle with this as a way to move forwards. just a quick additional tip to it, you can export empty loops from Ableton in your preferred lengths, then edit the bpm info on the Octatrack(remember to save sample settings).

here is an early (highly reverberated) dive into what this can be:


thanks again!
4 Likes
#353

I’ve been using this technique since you posted it. and I have some minor improvements to the workflow(at least from my point of view :slight_smile:)

  1. make an empty(silent) .wav file in you favorite DAW(or on the Octatrack) of the max loop length you want.
  2. Import .wav into octatrack
  3. Adjust the attributes of the silent .wav to match your preferred bpm(load into a flex or static machine, remember to save sample settings after doing this)
  4. Make as many sample copies of whatever different lengths of loops you want. It is important to adjust the sample bpm to the same bpm after trimming the sample. Think of this as prepping tape loops :slight_smile:
  5. Load the recordings you want into the recording buffers of the pickup machines. Normally you can double tap a track button to see the according sample slot list, and the 8 recording buffers on top of the sample slot list (in case it is a Flex machine track). But double tapping the track button of a pickup machine track only gives you the menu to chose a different machine for this track. So you have to double tap a track with a Flex machine on it to get to the sample slot list with the recording buffers. Now use the cursor up/down to select the recording buffer with the number of the pickup machine track you want. Then press “yes” twice, which will open the audio file selector, select the empty audio file you named & saved in step 1/4.
  6. Press Play on the OT Sequencer.
  7. Press Play on each of the Pickup machines in which you loaded the empty recording.

Important! Without these final two steps it does not work! And the master bpm needs to be the same bpm as the sample attributes, but the length can be whatever you want. You might get a loading error when you load the project set up as this, but ignore(press no) when you get the error message. Enjoy!

7 Likes
#354

I am not quite sure I understand your workflow correctly, but this may be due to the fact that it’s been ages since I used OT’s Audio Editor or edited sample attributes on it.

Here is my understanding of your changes to my workflow:

  • Instead of doing “empty” (= silent) recordings of all required loop lengths, you just record one silent recording, with the longest needed absolute time length.
  • Then you create copies of this recording, trim these copies down to the actual loop length required for a specific BPM in the Audio Editor.
  • Then you save these copies, ensuring the copies’ BPM is set correctly on saving.

Is this a correct understanding?
Some further questions:

  • You trim the copies in Audio Editor > Trim to the desired loop length, right? As far as I remember, start and end points can only be adjusted in samples. How do you ensure to trim a copy to the exact number of steps at the desired tempo?
  • When you trim the copies to the desired loop lengths, you do destructively delete the superfluous parts with Audio Editor > Edit > Crop to selection, right?
1 Like
#355

All correct assumptions. But you need to first trim and save your loop length, then go into the editor on the new loop to save the bpm attributes(the OT makes bpm assumptions on new loops).

Well, that is the “cool” part. You can edit down to retry much any length, the amount of steps doesn’t really matter(at least from my testing). This leans more to an experimental workflow thou, and is great for creating phasing loops etc. But, you do get info on how many bars your edited loop is in the editor, but a loop can be (as an example) 0,85 bars long.

I save the selection as a new sample. Can’t remember the menu selection for this since I am not in front of my OT right now. But it is a non-destructive workflow. You end up with an “unlimited” selection of different loop lengths based of one “leader” loop.

#356

Thanks for your answer. My understanding of your non-desctructive workflow is that you create multiple copies of the original (relatively long) loop, which means even relatively short loops use up the same memory size as the original long loop. Is this correct?

If this is correct, your approach would not work for me: I use very long loops, like one with 512 beats, another one with 1024 beats and yet another one with 2048 beats. At 110bpm these total up to almost 489 seconds (or 8 minutes and 9 seconds). This just fits into the OT’s RAM of 85 MB, which is good for something around 8.5 minutes of stereo material @16bit, which needs to be shared between all flex loaded samples, recording buffers and all pickup loops.

So if I try to do this using your non-desctructive workflow (as far as I have understood or potentially misunderstood it :wink: ), I’d need 3 loops each being 2048 beats long, but only one using its full length, whereas the other uses half of its length (1024 beats), and the final one uses only a quarter of its lengths (512 beats), which would simply not fit into the OT’s RAM, as 3 times 2048 beats@110bpm gives almost 848 seconds or almost 14 minutes.

But again, I may have totally misunderstood your approach.

1 Like
#357

The copies are of course smaller files, as they will not feature the cropped away material.

My intention on posting the adjusted workflow was just to illustrate an alternative “in the box” workflow. And the main takeaway from my testing is that you can use almost any file (as long as memory allows it) for this pickup machine technique as long as you change the sample attributes to the same bpm on the OT.

Current favorite usage is to have 2 loopers with slightly different buffer lengths and do phasing Steve Reich stuff.

Many thanks for figuring this out, it pretty much makes the OT close to a perfect experimental looper.

2 Likes
#358

Got it, thanks for the clarification.

Aha, I think now I am getting my head wrapped around your approach – need to try this out! Thanks for sharing!

1 Like
#359

Hey folks, I’ve just released a new Rust library called ot_utils which is designed to make it easy to concat audio samples and generate .ot files for the Octatrack.
This is very similar to OctaChainer’s slice feature but it’s made as a very easy to use Rust library so other people can incorporate this functionality into their different projects.

I’ve also added support for ot_utils into my Audiohit command-line utility so it can now automatically trim audio samples, concat them into a unified sample and generate the .ot file.
This should be a straight-forward tool even for non-programmers.

More details are available on the Elektronauts post.

12 Likes
#360

I know that the OT is often touted as a DAW replacement tool, but I’m wondering if any of you find value in using both? In other words, are there things about the OT’s workflow that lead you down different paths as a composer than tracking into Ableton would?

If yes, elaborate.

5 Likes
#361

for me it forces me to think more rhythmically, even in an ambient way, which i rarely ever do in pro tools. that’s its benefit to me… which is why i’m interested in the Tracker as well. forcing me out of my comfort zone and approaching composition from a different angle.

reminds me of the time a few years back i bought an SP-1200 to see if i could make ambient music with it… i did give up after a month and sold it (really regret selling it, if not just to look at it in the studio :slight_smile: )… but, yeah, that same concept of forcing a different way of working.

4 Likes
#362

I use both in my workflow. I find the Octa is great for the initial part of my composition process that is focused on creating loop-based ideas (drum patterns, vox chops, sample flips). I also use thru tracks to record melodies from my modular rack, which is especially useful when I’m jamming and something clicks in the moment. I set up one bank per song and each pattern in the bank as a change in that song.

Once I have enough variation in that song, I record everything into various lengths (in 24 bit) within the Octa, and transfer all the recorded loops into Ableton for final arrangement, mixing and mastering. Ableton (or any DAW) is vital to my workflow because I can use my go to plugins and it’s viewing and editing features in the mixing and mastering process. Then the final mastered stems get cut up and sent back to the Octa for live performance.

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