Clickup Machines

This is what happens to the file on the right if allowed to overdub by PUM capture … i don’t think there is scope or evidence for crossfading … i do recall discussing this before, can’t find it though

i’d love for this evaluation to be wrong, but i don’t see it crossfading, we need a comment from an insider

This has been around for years now, should really be addressed officially

Some more forum discussion:

And this post @avantronica made in 2014:

"It’s a compelling demonstration, but I wonder If you may have assumed what I think I did, namely that the fade in/out is akin to that in an audio editor domain
ie
|/~|
if you get my point
but the fade out is happening at the beginning i believe
|/
IN
|~
~~~ OUT

So i think depending on the material and how well it is handled internally it may be an unfortunate bi-product of the loop point scheme they’ve adopted

i started a similar thread which didn’t really take off nor resolve my issues with this

i stand by my comment that with years of looping i’ve never found a device be so unusable in this respect - it gives me hope it can be addressed, but it’d take an effort on the users part to demonstrate explain clearly what is wrong - PU machines seem to be of the least used, so there isn’t a good community impetus

hopefully we can keep this or that thread going 'til we get some official insights"

1 Like

As a sampler I really love the OT, as a looper it is as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. They should have called the PU machines FU machines - Fudging Useless. The hours wasted trying to use them…

1 Like

Ot can be a very original looper, with defaults.
Problems with fades, problems with overdub…
I sold my Rc 505 though. Maybe I’ll buy another one or equivalent looper later.
With Ot your records can be automatically mangled if you use Flex Recordings. You can even overdub with it, but with clics problems.

2 Likes

I’m pretty green at the OT and haven’t come in contact with this issue yet. I too hope to use it for ambient layers/drones. I’ll be sad if I come across it.

I just wanted to add that turning the the B pot clockwise to get the fade out has even now - 5 months in - not yet set in as routine. I still find myself turning it counterclocwise to no avail…because, as it’s a fade out, that’s how I imagine it on the wave.

1 Like

i must re-read what I wrote there to see what I meant - I have not given up hope on PUMs, but they do suffer from this reputation of being unforgiving to unwary newcomers - the last thing you need from what should be a simple looping pleasure - I like to think there’s a bit of room for finesse left, but probably most of the complaints come down to unavoidable consequences of the machine’s architecture

“i must re-read what I wrote there to see what I meant”. It happens to me, sometimes it’s hard to understand yourself. :slight_smile:

I can’t stand clics, I didn’t like PUMs but it worked for me for layering synths without clics, overdub mode, Ot as master. After I save the recording to play it in a Flex.

Fades are weird because it looks like the exponential curve is allways the same, just delayed by the FIn or FOut value.

I succeeded to overdub with Flex (even in slave) but with clics. I tried to emulate fades with 2 overlapping Flex Recordings with slide plocks on Vol. Unsuccessfully though, still clics…

1 Like

F%#k Up machine. That was pretty funny.
I hope this gets cleared up too. There are some great utube demos showing the pick ups with no hick ups or clicks. I have only tried them once but I will try again.

Yeah I’m two years in with the OT now and while I hadn’t used pick ups extensively prior to this issue I was able to lay down the occasional loop without such an obvious click. I’ll play more with the fade settings or maybe it’s something with gain staging in this particular a4 kit.

But yes it’d be very nice to loop in peace

@sezare56 so you just make do with the clicks while in pick up then fix them with the editor in a flex?

No I just play a hihat and you cannot hear it! :smile:

I succeeded to record almost perfect pad loops with no clicks with PUMs in Overdub. I think the Fin/out were 0.63. QRec and Qpl on PLEN.

If you stop playing you loose recording, thats why I prefer to save it and play it in a Flex.

0.063 or 0.625?

I just made a test with a sample based on a 2 sec sine at 256 hz, in order to have a perfect 1 bar loop at 120 bpm.

The loop is perfect when I play it on Track 1.

If I record T1 and play with a Flex, there is a very little click. In the Audio Editor, I can see there are maybe a 2 samples offset at the end. The sine is recorded too soon apparently…

If I record T1 with a PUM, Qrec and Qpl set to PLEN, without fades, stopping recording just after it starts, in order to avoid overdub (I press Rec AB, wait for the +, and press Rec CD just after.
Surprise, the loop is perfect!!!? No click.
A click appears if I overdub, with a - 3 Gain setting to avoid clipping. After 6 overdubs or more the click is disappearing!!!? No more click.

After a few tries, I don’t know what changed, the click is back. I overdub, and after 6 overdubs or more the click is disappearing!!!? No more click.

I try with fades, unluckily it is worth.
Really weird behavior. I don’t know what to thing about it!??
In numerical audio in general, it is easy to have clicks if the wave is recorded without short fade in. The fades of the Ot are very crappy !

Sorry 0.063!

1 Like

Actually I’m not sure if used fades with this method (Qrec and Qpl on PLEN). It’s maybe worth with it. Crazy ClickUps!

@sezare56: Thanks for your experiments!

I use the OT to create & manipulate drone-based music, so I am as well affected by the clicks and the missing crossfade. I think I deal with 2 separate issues.

Issue (1): Fade implementation
My understanding is that
(a) the OT applies the fades in realtime, i.e. during the actual recording
(b) first the fade out is applied, followed by the fade in.

As a proof of (b), I made a drone recording of 64 bars, set FIN and FOUT to 32, no overdub, this is the resulting recording:

This means that the OT fades by principle can not help with fixing clicks that might occur at the transition (or loop cycle jump, whatever you might call it) from the end of the loop recording back to the start of the recording.

I drew up a little diagram illustrating my issue with the current fade implementation, I already posted it in a different thread, so I am sorry if I bore folks who have already seen this. Based on the OT screenshot above I think this diagram gives a simplified yet correct explanation why the current fades can’t solve the click issue (and in fact produce more trouble than good in a ping-pong loop situation).

Issue (2): How to avoid clicks
Alas, I have yet to find a 100% reliable way to avoid clicks when creating drones (continuous sounds) with the Pickup machines. But most of the time I do get along pretty well with a combination of
(a) manually created crossfades, and
(b) recording over the “loop” point of a pickup machine

The manual crossfade requires a volume control (e.g. via an external mixer, or via a THRU machine) to manually control the level of the signal I record with a Pickup machine. I start the Pickup recording with the level control turned completely down, then gradually increase the level, until I reach maximum level shortly before the end of the pickup loop. When the pickup machine loops back, it automatically enters overdub mode, and after it did that I gradually turn down the level until it is completely gone. With a bit of practice, I am able to align the turning up and turning down of the level in a way that it somewhat resembles a crossfade.

Recording over the “loop” point of a pickup machine is a bit hard to explain. This is – at least in my experience – the point at which clicks normally happen. In my understanding these clicks happen if the signal at the beginning of the loop is not a direct continuation of the signal at the end of the loop. As the fades don’t help to avoid them, I intentionally record over the loop point to ensure that the signal at the beginning of the loop is really an actual continuation of the signal at the end of the loop point.

Most of the time, the combination of both gives me relatively clickless drone loops. Unfortunately I have not yet found out why it doesn’t work all the time – I guess that’s kind of similiar to the issues sezare56 has been reporting in his experiments: sometimes he does and sometimes he didn’t get clicks.

While this frustrates me big time, I will still react very unfriendly if someone tries to take my OT away from me :wink:

Hope this helps, thanks for reading so far.

1 Like

BTW: I have the RC-505…no clicks if you listen to the loops on the RC-505…but if you exported the loops to your DAW via USB, you have to manually create Fade Ins and Outs on each loop, as the fades on the RC-505 seem to be calculated in realtime and not written into the actual file.

Hi. Thanks for your tests. :wink:
Just before your post I tried a white noise with fades, to see the fade curve, but I had my fade out added at the end of the recording.

I think I had the fade out a the beginning too, but I was with Os 1.25c and today I’m with to Os 1.25H. What is yours?

Anyway, the real fade in curve seems to be always the same, exponential, after a silence if you have more than 1 step. Fade out is the opposite, but is added at the end of the sample.
Didn’t try with both tonight.
It cannot work as you said. Buy a volume pedal for fades!
More tests later!

I have the Rc 505 too!
I think I will sell it for sponsoring Analog Heat but I know it works well!

I’m also on OS 1.25H. Perhaps the fade position depends on the length of the fades? Would like to do more tests, but need sleep right now…

Some of these clicks could be a bug that creeps up here and there. I rely heavily on pickup machines for my OT usage, use them every time I turn it on. Most of the time I do not get clicks, hundreds of times, all good. But there have been a few times where clicks started happening. When the clicks arose, I would get them even if I recorded pure silence. No track recorder or PU settings were changed. Once the clicks arose, the only way to stop them was by reloading the project, and before that I triple checked the settings, reloaded part, and power cycled… This reminds me to really investigate more the specifics of pickup machines, and file support tickets. I would love so much if the community could narrow down exactly what are the PU issues and when exactly do they happen, and hopefully squeeze another bug fix or two from HQ so we can have some fully functioning pickups before were left in legacy land…