Hi All,
New OT owner, and I can’t find anywhere in the manual or searching here on how to sync an existing pickup machine loop with the sequencer and have it start playing on the next iteration of the pickup machine loop without sending a midi cc or note from a pedal (i.e. button presses). I’m looping my acoustic instruments by triggering the record buttons with my hands. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I think the first Pickup machine that record dictates the BPM (so it gets to be the Master) the other Pickups are Slave to the Master.
Keep in mind that the Pickup calculates automaticaly the bpm as soon as you close your measure/bars…so -actually- it is the sequencer that get synced with the pickup.
Hope this was some answer you were looking for…
Otherwise: pg 55 of the manual
MASTER AND SLAVE PICKUP MACHINES
The first Pickup machine that records a loop acts as the master. The BPM of the Octatrack will automatically change according to the calculated BPM of the recorded loop. If Pickup machines are assigned to other tracks, the loops they record will be slave loops. The length of these loops can be dependent of the length of the master loop. If the LEN parameter of a slave Pickup machine is set to X1, the loop that machine will record will have the same length as the master loop. It will also force the slave loop to be in phase with the master loop. If set to X2, the slave loop will be double the length of the master loop. If playback of all Pickup machines is stopped, the first Pickup machine that records a new loop will be the new master.
The master/slave relation is visualized by the track icons. Two pixels located at the top left side of the “P” indicate a master Pickup machine. Two pixels to the bottom left indicate a slave Pickup machine.
In the illustration above, the leftmost track icon depicts a master Pickup machine while the right icon shows a slave Pickup machine.
Thanks Sicijk, I actually found the relevant passage in the manual p. 56:
The Octatrack sequencer can be tempo synchronized to a Pickup machine recording. This is useful if you want to mix pre-progammed tracks with Pickup machine loops and don’t want the sync of the sequencer to drift.
Press [TRACK] + [TEMPO] to sync the sequencer to a Pickup machine loop. The BPM value normally shown in the top left corner of the LCD will at the same time be replaced
with information about which Pickup machine that is controlling the sequencer BPM.
Don’t know how I missed that, anyway… back to the OT 
O_O
thanks to you…i have missed the opposite behaviour! =)
Pickup machine are always been far from my workflow…but it’s time to disclose it a bitmore…since it’s there! =)
Cheers
Hmm, it says it’s synced to the pickup machine after I press the track + tempo, but my sequenced beat is all garbled/doesn’t play back right at all. Not sure what settings I missed or is this a bug that others have experienced? I did an empty reset after backing up my project but when record a loop and then sync the sequencer, it’s still a garbled mess when playing back…
Lazos - just checking - do you want your acoustic playing to dictate the tempo? Or are you happy to play along to an existing beat? If it’s the latter then it’s pretty easy to setup so that it records continuously after the first trigger, so press once then whatever you play from then on just overdubs - if you wanna stop overdubbing - press the other record button to enter play mode…
Yeah, I’ve tried using the pickup machine with the sequencer already playing and as long as I don’t have grid recording on and I set the recording setup Qrec to Plen (or similar) I can loop to the already playing sequencer no problem. I can even use another flex machine to play back and slice the recorder buffer and all is in sync.
It’s when I want the pickup machine to dictate the tempo that the sequencer goes all crazy. Anyone else encountered this issue?
No one at all? I even tried using all flex machines rather than static for my rhythm tracks, but still a garbled mess when I sync to a pickup machine. Very frustrating. Time to write Elektron I guess. Other than this, the OT is awesome, though.
I wanted to use Pickup machines like ableton live’s loopers.
But It seems to be impossible to keep the pickup machines just tempo slaves !!!
I have a beat on a track, and sometimes, the tempo changes after looping.I tried to loop on the pickup 2, but it’s the same.I choose Qrec and Qpl to 8, it’s the same.I made in the arranger a loop at 160 bpm; but the tempo changes.It comes back to 160, but the pickup is then not synchronized.
I think Pickup machines are not ready !
the way to fix all that is using the arranger !
Try flex machine instead.
flex can’t do overdub…and you can’t command record by midi.it’s less flexible than pickup
Flex cannot overdub, true, but otherwise it is far more flexible than pickup machine e.g. just try overdubbing on a pickup machine once you have started sequencing the track and adding any rate or pitch variation–doesn’t work.
Also it is very easy to start recording via midi on a flex machine using notes 60-63 as in the manual.
It’s been a while since I tried anything with pickups, but is it possible to turn off time stretch attributes for the record buffer on the PU machine track in order to keep the sample from trying to match tempo?
Ok, the MIDI question was answered.
These instructions for overdubbing on Flex Machine were posted a while back - unfortunately I selfishly copied and pasted only the text itself, not the link so I can’t give proper credit to whoever posted it (sorry!)
No, you can do it with only one flex machine. If you set the internal input SRC3 of this track to CUE as the recording source, all cued tracks will be recorded, even if they are muted.
So the trick ist to have one track with a flex machine playing its recorder buffer. Set this track always on cue and than just cue the tracks you wish to record and proceed as i wrote above. Perfect loop and layer.
so far I need overdubing…but you are right about Flex machines…
It’s not possible “to turn off time stretch attributes for the record buffer”, I asked to Elektron team
This is the thread.
Have fun.
Hi, do you mean you can sync the pickup with the sequencer if you use the arranger? Can you elaborate please :-)) Thanks!!