Record hold time as played?

Hey there,

I couldn’t find anyone talking about this or find it in the manual:

I like to finger drum on the octa, either triggering different tracks on trig buttons 9-16 or by finger drumming slices.
I finger drum with slices (or tracks) set to play the slice only for as long as I hold my finger on the trig button. Maybe the slice will have a little shaker section on it that lasts a full beat (with the shaker sounding four times on that beat), but I only momentarily hit it so that I can vary the number of shaker hits in real time. Some taps are long, some are short.

When I record to octa’s sequencer, though, it doesn’t seem to be registering the length of my presses anywhere. It’s just a trig, meaning that it plays the whole length of the slice.

I know I can adjust playback settings to increase or decrease the hold time or set a manual length by choosing “time” in the length field in playback settings, or plock the length of slices on individual trigs, but I don’t want to do that. I just want the octa to capture that organic performance into the sequencer, note length information and all. Is this possible?

Thanks in advance!

Hey!

When I got my first Octatrack, I wondered about the same thing.

Short answer:
The Octatrack doesn’t record the hold-length of your real-time-played triggers. It’s sad, it sucks.

Long answer:
There is a (kind of) workaround:
You can setup a MIDI-Loop by connecting the output to the input and play your instruments via one of the the MIDI tracks. When recording MIDI tracks in realtime, the sequencer creates the length-parameter-locks automatically.

See my old thread for more information.

I guess it’s just one of the many things that we have to accept on the OT (;

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Oh man that’s a bummer.

Ok, well, I guess that’s what mpc’s or Ableton are for. File under “the OT works best when you think with it like an OT.”

Haha exactly …

IIRC, if you use an external MIDI controller the HOLD information is correctly recorded.
Which explains why @bolandross trick is working.
Just wanted to underline that there is no need for a MIDI loop per se, any external controller works.

BTW, maybe this can be considered as a bug and a support ticket created.
FYI the Monomachine uses the same logic as the OT.

Sadly, It’s about the track type, not the device that is inputting the notes.

When realtime recording to normal tracks T1-T8, the Octatrack does NOT create parameter locks for the trig length.

When realtime recording to MIDI tracks 1-8, the Octatrack DOES create parameter locks for Note, Velocity and Length.

I’d love to see this fixed.

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There is cool thing about the Monomachine sequencer, which is the fact that you can place “note off” trigs, which is something that the Octatrack doesn’t have. It’s a time saver!

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Just wanted to let you know what they officially replied.

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I have wondered the same thing for years, tried to find a solution many times. Today I’m at it again. Since there’s been many updates since I last tried to find a solution.

I’m mainly recording slices. It would’ve been such a huge time saver to be able to record the hold parameter in live rec. But if it’s requiring too much fundamental rewriting of the code, I understand if they’re reluctant to go there. The Octatrack is probably packed as it is.

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I found one with a midi processor :
I mapped NOTE OFF messages to HOLD Control Change, with 0 value, default HOLD value being INF, IIRC. Short REL.

So at the end of the midi note, it plocks a trigless with HOLD = min.

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Where there’s a Will, there’s a way :wink:

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Reminds me @hellcore Octatrack learning curve :wink:

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