Effing pickup machines!

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

AHHHHH!!! Why are the Pickup Machines such a pain in the ass to use?! They seem so unpredictable.
I swear they never work the same way twice. I’ll think I have it down one day, then switch it back on the next day and not be able to get the results I need.
The tutorial is pretty half assed. The one in the manual is about the same.

Can the Pickup Machines sync to the OT in stead of changing the OT tempo every time? What am i missing here? If I have a beat going why would I want everything to change because I played some droney thing into the looper?

Can I use trigs with the Pickup Machines? The LFO still lets you select Trig but I can’t seem to plug any in there. I know it won’t effect the “sample” but it would be cool to mess with effects.

I’m guessing that step editing is out of the question too as that would be cool and we can’t have that.

Oh well, maybe we will get a new drum pack for the Analog RYTM.

Why do people not like Pickup Machines?
"Conserve" Pickup Machine Contents
#2

My understanding is there is no trigs on the pickup machines.

I told my friend about the trick to use pickup machines without changing the BPM. He tried it on his newly acquired Octatrack and it works for him too. You know, the trick to have the pickup machine loop off of the output of another track instead of sampling directly into the pickup machine.

#3

I don’t know that trick but I’m assuming that you’d use SRC 3 in the setup menu to select whatever track as the source. Do you need to record to that track or can you just use it as a Thru? Maybe add FX too!

Do I need to setup QREC, QPL or LEN in the setup menu for that?

#4

From reading your threads, I’m going to suggest that you learn the various techniques for recording on the fly with the OT until you have it nailed. I do live sampling constantly with no issues. Pickup machines are a frustrating waste of time (imo).

#5

watch that a few times, pause it if you have to.

took me a while to understand how to use them, but now i constantly find myself using pickup machines to sample my synths then i save the sample and put it in a flex/static machine. You gotta sort out what is user error and what the quirks of the machine are. Make sure you set the pickup mode to ONE2 where you use the two red buttons to begin and end the recording, then go to waveform editor and cut it up if needed.

1 Like
#6

I’ve just used Pickup machines to create an entire album of vocal loops… so… they do work, sometimes :slight_smile: