Tips on Capturing and Preparing Loops for Octatrack using Ableton

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Tip 1: if you record a loop from an external input to Ableton while Ableton is set to External sync, it will capture the loop in a very strange convoluted fashion with markers everywhere.

So, if using external sync with Ableton as slave, first manually set the bpm to the same bpm as the incoming device’s clock. Then, enable Ext to have both the external device and Ableton start playing at the exact same time. Then, switch off Ext. Record the incoming external audio, say 4 Bars’ worth. It will be captured naturally without extraneous markers, and be of high quality.

A loop may then easily be exported, ready for use in the Octatrack.

Tip 2: Alternatively, bypass any requirement to export anything, and go grab the recently recorded audio file, from the Samples->Recorded folder. Copy, and paste into a folder of loops ready for transfer to the Octatrack.

Tip 3: To apply things such as volume automation to the audio file before exporting a loop, but not use any warping on the clip whatsoever, it is necessary to use the arrangement window for a clip to sound in an audio export if it’s Warp setting is off.

Although recording an incoming audio signal loop to Ableton is going to be much higher quality if Ableton’s clock source is Internal and not set to External, there is still about a 7-10 percent detectable change in quality if the Warp setting is set to be on, even if the tempo of the project is the same as the tempo of the recently recorded loop.

So, this is why the choice might be to copy the audio loop in the Performance window and paste it into the Arranger window. This way, the loop will play even though its Warp setting is off and thus the Loop setting is off. All that is required is a four bar export, and that is what will happen from this view.

The volume automation may then be accomplished on the Master Stereo channel, also automation of mastering plugins or sound design plugins may be achieved here.

Or, alternatively in the Loop Performance window, set the audio clip’s retiming function to be “repitching”. That effectively removes any warping.

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#2

I’ve been looking for a while but no luck , this thread seemed relevant to my question.

Once I’ve tweaked , warped , looped , stretched and fixed an audio clip in ableton , what’s the simplest way to get that as the actual wave file out of ableton so I can drop it onto my device.

Do I render it off ? , find it in a folder on my machine , freeze or whatever?

#3

The way I do this is- in clip mode, at the bottom of ableton, in the sample settings where you can set the transpose, above that hit “edit” and there you can open the sample in your preferred audio editor…There I open it in soundforge, and save file as. I’m sure there many ways of doing it, but that’s how I do it.

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#4

You can export multiple individual wave files (eg. to your desktop) via the files menu.

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#5

Thanks for the replies , I think ‘edit’ method is the way to go ,
I had hoped the current version might be hiding somewhere but clicking edit is pretty quick too .

I’m using ableton in a quite basic way.

#6

why not just resample into a quantized new clip with the lenght of your choice?

IME the ”repitch” warp mode doesn’t really mess with the sound quality of audio clips, as long as your tempo is the same as the clip’s tempo of course.