Can I drop premade loops onto octatrack tracks like I would in ableton without setting loop points and tempo?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
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So I’m considering an Octatrack purchase. But have been wondering one thing.

When I use ableton, if I drop pre made loops from splice for example, ableton usually does a perfect job of timestretching these loops to the tempo of my track. Usually I’m not shifting things more than 10 or maybe 20bpm up or down, so audio artifacts are minimal or non existent.

Can I expect the same sort of quick automatic time stretching when I drop an audio loop onto a track in the octatrack?or is there a lot of setting loop points, and telling octatrack the tempo of the imported loop etc etc?

I understand octatrack is an old device but I’m hoping if I’m not time stretching too much then it can provide a similar experience in this sense.

Would this be correct?

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If your loops are trimmed to repeat at some interval (say, one bar) then the OT will work just as you want it to. I believe the OT has tempo detection but in your case it would be easier just to save the files with the tempo in the file name (e.g., my_cool_loop_120.wav). If your loops aren’t trimmed I admit I’m not certain what will happen, but I think it’s possible to get the time stretching to work as you want. I’m sure that @sezare56 would know.

On the OT you will also have to make sure that time stretching is enabled on your track, but the default is set to auto so that if your sample is set to loop then it will automatically time stretch. Anyway that’s just a relatively minor detail of setting up tracks in the OT. Basic answer is that it’s very easy to do what you want on the OT. And it’s tons of fun to drop random loops together and see what sounds good :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Sorry just one additional comment. In case you would want to edit your loops you can set loop points and adjust tempo manually if you want. It would be saved in the metadata associated with your sample.

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No.

There is some fiddling about. Some people find this laborious.

Be warned, the octatracl timestretch algorithm isnt as advanced as abletons. You will hear Artifacts after 5bpm either side of your original.

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Fantastic, thank you.
Just what I wanted to hear.

I have just one additional question.

If my loop runs for longer than 64 steps, let’s call it 128 perhaps. Are there easy ways around this? Or is it a case of using another pattern with one half of the loop and one with the other half and switching between?

Or using some kind of trig condition so it uses the first slice or start point the first time around but the second slice or start point (half way through) the second time. I can’t remember which cond trig this is but one of them on my Digitakt does something like this.(just with playing a sample every other time)

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Yes.

  1. Step length 64. Use a trig condition of 1:2.
  2. Step length 128. No trig conditon required.
  3. dont even use the sequencer have free running loops (my favourite)

Theres tons more ways. Always many ways to achieve a goal with octatrack.

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Another fun thing is to chop your loops into tempo aligned segments using slicing. Obviously this won’t work nicely for every loop, but it is a quick way to use different segments of your loops in different orders using parameter locks on the slices, rather than trying to find the right points in your loop using just the sample start knob. You can see how you can subdivide your loop into smaller segments using this. Suppose you have a one bar loop and you divide it into four. Now you can trig each beat individually. If you did eight slices you could trig each eighth note, and so on.

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…if they’re trimmed tight in length versus inner bpm, got halfway clear amplitude peaks for the downbeats, ot is as good in guessing correctly as ableton…

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OT uses realtime Timestretch. Far from perfect, but not worse than other gear I used like RC 505…
20 BPM down seems too much.
5 BPM down or 10 BPM should be ok…depends on audio material…
I prefer default settings (Normal mode).

Anyway it’s better to use BPM up, and in that case, you can think about slices, Timestretch off, solution I prefer if possible…

I prefer to use OT timestrech with drastic settings (with RATE set to TSTR, assigned to crossfader)

Nah, 12 years old is not old. Good whisky age. Maybe you’re young and used to smartphones obsolescence ? :content:

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Yep. Underrated :thup:

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Or even make yr own terrible timestretch using retrigs and an LFO on START

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One thing to note is if you edit a loop and crop it then you will want to try the option of detecting bpm from new selection.

It helps to have multiple workflows with this. For example if I want to repitch a sample, I try it in ableton and also in the OT. You can get dramatically different results this way. A lot of times I prefer the OT because of how the sample ends up sounding. Plus I can do crazy stuff to it using the scenes.

Sometimes I timestretch how i want in ableton and then sample that edit into the OT. You get the best of both worlds that way.

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I have this timing on my Octatrack, while my MC707 is master clock, different timing per clip. I save longer loops for OT and one shots for MC707 along with all the rest of it’s sounds. I make disco/house so i use longer melodic/phrase sometimes…