Im a complete beginner on the octatrack mkii. (l do own a digitakt and feel comfortable on it to do almost anything). So, I dedicated a session finding samples, figuring out the bpms in ableton, made sure they lined up on the grid and then exported into my octatrack, so i can sit on my couch and focus on using the octrack.
I loaded up one of the loops and it doesnt line up on the octatrack grid, made sure the bpm was correct, turned on and off loop, time stretch, quantize, changed the bpm of the loop to 97bpm since this is what is supposed to be and octatrack picked it up as 142 when imported. i also tried p locking on step 1 and 9 to see if its just going off the click over time but still doesnt sync up, even if i p lock on 1, 5 , 9, 13 etc .
So can some one please guide me through the process of using loops, chopped in a daw, or any given loop with a known bpm and how to get them to work in sync with the octatrack.
What is your loop length ?
Does it work with other loops with same characteristics ?
Check that loop twice if so.
You can also disable timestrech (Playback Setup TSTR off) to check if it plays correctly at the right tempo without timestretch.
The tempo discerning algorithm analyzes the sample filename for tempo figures, checking if the initial estimation is off by a factor 0.5 or 2.0. The ”normal” BPM range the Octatrack uses to make its initial BPM guess is 85 BPM-170 BPM*. If you have loops with tempos outside this range, it might be a good idea to put the BPM value in the filename. Typically, a 70 BPM loop is initially loaded as 140 BPM loop, but if the number 70 is found anywhere in the filename, the octatrack will use 70 BPM instead. Similarly, if 280 is found in the filename, the BPM of the sample will be 280.
*In fact I found it was 80.7 - 161.4 bpm
Maybe it changed.
so it ended up working for me, after i went in and trimmed the file to a one bar loop, and typed in the correct bpm. Im guessing since i didnt really care about the file lengths on ableton when i exported, the OT had a hard time determining the bpm of the loop. Even though i wrote “artist - song - 97 bpm” in the file name.
My guess is the OT needs specific length to accurately time stretch. My file was a weird number of bars like say 37 or something.
Yes I wanted to quote the manual but couldn’t find : loops have to be multiple of 1 bar (1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8 etc).
Otherwise in Attributes, under tempo you can specify loop length. I should be more accurate than Trim.
want to join the discussion with another problem while also preparing loops (from Logic) for Octatrack.
Lets say I have a 4 bar loop with pads or a bass drone. I do often have the problem of “clicking” at the begining or end of a loop / sample. I set the start and end Point to cross Zero … but its still clicking.
Any ideas what I do wrong and how to avoid this?
recarding the bpm: yes better set bpm manually in “Attributes”. Octa doesn calculate always exactly.
In my experience, sometimes the OT completely fails at BPM recognition, regardless of what you name your files.
So if you KNOW the file is a perfectly trimmed 4 bar loop at 123bpm, but OT says in the sample editor attributes page it is 145, simply scroll to the BPM and change it to 123. you will see the bar length correct itself to 4 bars as you do so. Remember to press the encoder to enter the correct value while in the Attributes page of the sample editor.
didn´t help.
I found a Workaround:
render the stems / tracks out in logic
Import into ableton
Set “fades on start/end of section” to on
render exactly that section (with the fades)
Import into Ocatrack and Play the sample from beginning to end
(you see the Little fades at start and end within the trim menue)
so far so good … but what if you set start trick to 32 or 64?? still clicking.
Add fades there too in Logic!
If your files are stereo, without zero crossing at 32 or 64, clicks are normal. No crossfade in OT.
Try ATK, HOLD=0, REL…
the way I use it now is, to slice the stems. Say I have a 64 bar stem, slice it into 4 or 8 or 16 slices, set “zero crossing” to yes and then lock the slices on the trigs. This gives me best result.