Declick

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

to keep samples from clicking at playback i’ve had some success with the following “tricks”:

  • if it clicks on offset, dial in a value of 1 or 2 for the amp attack
  • if it clicks at the end, use a green trig plocked to -64 volume and its trig offset as far right as possible

but…

  • a sliced sample gives me grief at the moment: no matter if i select the zero crossings option for slicing or not, the result is full of clicks…

so, my question: any way to remove clicks that result from slicing (or retriggering for that matter), i.e. clicks not at the beginning or end of a sample?

cheers

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#2

ok Im digging this thread up because I more or less have the same question.
I recorded my Kick and Bass to put it in one track together and save up some space.
Now everytime the 16 bars start again it clicks. Cant get rid of it, nor by changin the amp attack, neither by putting a green trig with -64 volume at the end. What to do?

#3

I’ve had similar problems with clicks. It can be hard to narrow the solution down and sometimes there simply isn’t one. I brought it up in a post somewhere when I first got OT cos I was pretty gutted about it… other users helped me understand the causes a little better. Though I’ve forgotten exactly what was said now, sorry! I vaguely recall it being explained as often being related to envelopes and the tracks being monophonic. So a sample sometimes doesn’t have time to end at its zero-crossing before the next trig… Dont quote me on that tho :wink:

#4

Here’s a recent thread:

The good news is the clicks are pre-filter/fx, thus can be tamed a bit. But yeah, this remains an annoyance for sure. Maybe send a ticket to actualize the issue with HQ?

#5

Here’s a recent thread:

The good news is the clicks are pre-filter/fx, thus can be tamed a bit. But yeah, this remains an annoyance for sure. Maybe send a ticket to actualize the issue with HQ?[/quote]
Ah yeah, your recent thread is the one I was thinking of :wink: A lot of info in there for Op. It’s not all good news though sadly… Hopefully it’ll get addressed/fixed by Elektron at some point, it’s actually a pretty big issue for a sampler…

#6

so far, it worked for me to use Attack in the Amp section on the sliced sample. More specific, putting attack to 1-5 did not eliminate the click, 15 was too much of a “dip” so 10 was the magic number for me in this case – surprisingly seamless actually.

#7

Your second trick shouldn’t ever work, because if the sample is too far away from a crossing, it’ll click once it goes back to zero for the silence.
The ending trick i use is a short release, the trick is you have to set the hold for the length of time (minus the release) you need the sample to sound. Luckily 1 hold = 1 step, so it’s usually pretty easy to suss out.
I too wish the OT was better at handling this in general though, especially when using retrig, and scanning through a sound using the start parameter. Wish there was an attack/release for each retrig., though that would give a weird gated effect, probably… which might be interesting actually.

edit: actually, the trigless might work if you had two of them at the end, one at normal vol, one at -64, and put a slide between them. it’d be a weird fade out though, unless maybe if you bumped them across using micro timing. theory

#8

Have you guys tried your sliced samples that are giving you clicks in flex slots vs static slots?
static slots are being streamed off the card and flex are stored in ram.
There is some sort of warning in the manual if I recall about changing start points too quick on static slots.
That being said, I’m running tons of sliced sample chains of drum kits and instruments on the OT using static slots and only occasionally find one that clicks.

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#9

How should this issue be fixed by Elektron? I don’t think there is a perfect way but maybe I haven’t thought of everything.

#10

I have this problem from time to time too, but it’s not restricted to OT only. I am using traditional gear like a MPC too :wink: .

A question. Is this “click” supposed to be a sampling issue or a machine issue?

My little experience often points to the sample. If there is enough silence in the sample between the slices, it works fine, but if I use stuff like pad sounds, I find it hard, to find the right cut.

If I use the OT to record a phrase that shall be looped later, I follow an advice of the tutorials in the manual about “Track Recorder Sampling”. They say we should go to “Recording Setup 2” and set the “FIN” and “FOUT” parameters to their lowest values. This has worked for me quite reliable.

May be this method could be applied to “imported samples”, if they are “resampled” this way inside the OT?

#11

Its the sample that makes the click. As someone already mentioned its not an OT-specific thing. That also happens with other samplers and in your DAW. However in Ableton for example you can apply a very small fade-in to the samples that kills the click. Would be nice if the Ot had something like that.
The FIN and FOUT thing works fine, BUT if you got lets say a Basssdrum-loop it will kill the transient of the first Kick and makes it loose its punch

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#12

Thanks for the clarification and the tip about the possibility of loosing punch with FIN/FOUT. Didn’t think about it this way … until now :smiley:

#13

Going back to what I said earlier about static vs. flex samples.

Page 98 of the manual:

!
Due to the nature of Compact Flash cards, Static sample slices might not be played back correctly when modulating the STRT parameter with the crossfader or track LFO’s. The start point of the slices might then be off. This problem is avoided when using parameter locks. Flex samples don’t have this problem because of them being stored in RAM memory.

#14

Interesting. Honest questions incoming:

Aside from possible variations in the length, what is the difference between using Ableton’s fades vs OT’s FIN and FOUT fades?

Aren’t they doing the same thing?

Why would you lose punch with OT but not Ableton?

In practice, how much of a problem is this loss of punch? I mean, can I just always set my FIN and FOUT as the manual suggests - even for drum loops? That seems ideal, because you don’t have to think about it much.

#15

IMHO Elektron should just implement automatic declick with a short fade for sample locking and voice stealing. Dealing with issues like this can be really frustrating. Sadly they’re not updating the OT anymore.

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#16

this is sort of the nature of the beast isn’t it? if the source material + sequencer don’t end at zero crossings, it’s gonna click. this is not a flaw w OT, its inherent in the medium. you can use attack and release parameters to smooth it over a bit but the sample is the source of the click in the first place

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#17

I mean, maybe. But, other sampling platforms have ostensily solved the problem: Ableton for one. As someone mentioned in some thread:

ST-224, Ensoniq Mirage/ESQ/ASR- s, Electribes, Boss/Roland-SP s to EMU and Yamaha rack samplers and nothing has ever given me this headache before.

#18

You’ll lose the punch in both, OT and Ableton if you fade in.

This would be bad, sometimes i need the Click for drums, percussive/plucky stuff… Just use the volume envelope to declick if you need to. :wink:

IMO, the click is normal and appears with every hard-/software that doesn’t fade/interpolates the tansitions. Slice a continous pad/string/noise sound hard (without letting the soft-/hardware look for zero crossings and without fading/interpolating) and it will click.

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#19

They are just crap. Minimum value for FIN eventually. Increasing value (in steps) just add silence and doesn’t change the fade to a progressive curve.
FOUT is even worse because it changes recording length. Increasing values add silence too. Maybe usable with minimum value with Pickups in overdub mode.

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#20

You’ll lose the punch in both, OT and Ableton if you fade in.

Thank you for that; that is what I figured, but I wanted to make sure I was not missing anything.

Since I am creating some personal guidelines, I think I will not use FIN and FOUT when recording drum loops, but I will use those settings when recording other loops.

Just use the volume envelope to declick if you need to.

My understanding is the OT can and does still click in some cases, even when adjusting the AMP envelopes. In some cases, it seems clearing the recording buffer and re-recording solves the problem.

For normal loop clicking, I guess what might be missing from the OT is some kind of easy auto-fade like that which exists in Ableton or other samplers.

For reference, this is how Ableton handles it:

For slice clicking, some kind of auto-fade might be good there too. For me, adjusting the end point of the slice seems to help.