I love the punch in effects on the Teenage Engineering OPZ and Pocket Operators.
For people who don’t know, they are really great. Each button relates to a very different, very extreme effects condition: pitch drops, stutter repeat, reverb on, reverse, bit rate drop, decay reduction, etc. You can switch these on and off simply by hitting the button, then releasing it. You can record your actions.
Do any other devices let you play and sequence diverse effects like this, with huge changes in sound laid out in one simple set of buttons ready to be imposed on your whole song?
If not, they should, because it’s REALLY fun and useful.
To be clear: I have and love my Octatrack. Scenes are good, and I use scenes a lot, but you can’t record rapid fire changes in the same way as on OPZ/PO (other than by recording as audio!). I know I can also record or program single parameter changes on OT and other devices for things like bit depth, reverb etc, but it’s not the same: you don’t get the same experience of a palette of massive sound changes in an instant easy fun button grid.
(Also, the usual tacit good faith caveats here: not attacking any other kit, not saying OPZ is the best thing in all possible use cases, not attacking anyone’s gear religion!)
I’d argue that the performance mode on the tracker is better than the OP-Z due to that you can design the performance parameters yourself and the rolls on the Tracker sound . And also the ability to shuffle the pattern via the performance page lends to some great fill variations…
Personally I wasn’t a fan of the sound of it though and I tend to not enjoy the workflow of trackers… just my opinion though…
MC-101/707 take it much further than OP-Z in that you can completely customise scatter, and set it to specific tracks or the whole mix per pad. The sequencing is a bit janky though, however playing manually can be quantised so sequencing isn’t really necessary (for me) and offers more flexibility.
Can you apply scatter to incoming audio on mc101? And is there any latency from incoming usb audio that would spoil this? Can you use usb audio as a mix-in for another device or is it only for sampling in?
OP-Z punch-in effects are really useful, and using combos of them can be very expressive and inspire new ideas. If you could program them it would be next level.
This was posted in the Push 3 thread. I’ve linked to the bit where he sets up something similar to what I think you’re talking about Ableton Push 3 = Ned Rush - YouTube might have to fast forward a bit to see it working.
He maps the MPE stuff to stuff within the same drum rack but I think it should be possible to map it to anywhere in the Live set really.
I’ll just add for the OP-Z you also have the tape track which you can use in a similar fashion and is very sequence-able.
You can assign any of the 8 audio tracks to it (plus the audio in track) and then loop sections anything from 1 step to 8 steps (maybe more?) and reorder those sections for completely new arrangements. You can adjust pitch from 1 octave down to 1 octave up with fine control and push it to multiples of that, you have a filter and can send it the two master fx slots, plus you can control how much of the original audio comes through. All of these parameters can be sequenced. You can make anything from big ambient pad layers, through to hard and funky filtered chops.
The only downside is that whatever you put into the tape track goes to mono (but can be panned).
I’m obsessed with Punch-in FX (have many POs, had OP-Z etc)
If you’re willing to use a computer or Ipad you can built some amazing punch-in FX arrays.
In Ableton, using Infiltrator, turning on/off individual effects with midi notes, stack 4 Infiltrators and you have 32 punch-in fx, then split a Launchpad so the top half toggle and the bottom half is momentary.
Or even better/different setup a Launchpad to send Program Changes to an Infiltrator for 62 FXs (save two pads for toggle/momentary on/off).
Turnado is amazing for this too. Set 8 momentary pads with one CC number, rising on/off values, eg 0-8, 0-16, 0-24. Then set 8 faders to control the knobs 1-8.
Now you have instantly customizable punch-in FX. Just hold a pad, set the faders, and it will remember and repeat that FX everytime you press that pad. Two things, set the threshold to 5%, and move ALL the faders to their positions even if some are at zero.
Best of all is Drambo. If you have an Ipad you can devote to it, you can completely customize each punch-in FX using all the great AUv3s available.
Anyone have any good tips for punch-in FXs please share!
This sounds great but unfortunately although I mostly love my work it’s all on a computer so for non work things I need a mode switch away from the computer to avoid feeling like a brain in a jar holding a mouse for 100% of my life.
Thing is, with something like Drambo, once its setup you never have to touch it, no mice or touchscreens required. I turn my Ipad on, load Drambo, then turn the brightness down and dont touch it until I turn it off.
It does take a fair bit of work to setup though, thats the initial boring bit.
The thing is, there’s no hardware that will do it well. I do enjoy using my Kaoss Pad 3 and my circuit-bent KP1, not quite the same as punching in different FX though.
I did set it up once using two Launchpads and a KP3. One Launchpad sends PC to select the FX on the Kaoss pad, the other has X and Y values as CCs. Good in theory but the KP3 doesnt change FX quickly enough sometimes.
That said, check out John Hopkins effecting stems with 4 KP3s, pretty much using them as punch-in FX. It can be done!
It’s worth pursuing! I have an insane Ableton/Drambo setup now with tons of punch-in FX, using it is an amazing experience, instant flow state joy!
Maybe the new Ableton push 3 will bring joy, but it’s so huge.
I’ve been thinking about why I love punch in effects so much.
I think it’s because it’s the polar opposite of that “slowly evolving sounds” noodle that is the default you can fall into with so many electronic instruments. That has its place but I like a few angular jolts.
100% that, cutting and chopping like crazy is fun as fuck!
I use Abelton as a performance mixer for my hardware, each channel has a beat-repeat, slicer, Infiltrator/Turnado, punch-in fx, plus more.
Seriously, if you love them as much as that, you should do it!
Do you use sends on a mixer?
If you’ve got or can get an Ipad, a Launchpad, and Turnado, I’ll talk you through setting it all up.
Push 3 looks cool but I seriously doubt on its own it’ll do much. I reckon I could set up though so the pressure/wobble controls some aspect of the sound. Cool, but not really necessary as a normal on/off pad and a few faders or an X/Y pad probably would work better for accurate control of the punched-in effect.
. And also the ability to shuffle the pattern via the performance page lends to some great fill variations…