that scribe track is cool… hiphop not being my thing, i still enjoy that … AAANNDDD
the avatar pic is the same (cat inversed color BW) like from another user in this forum… is that the same person?
There are three ways to deal with the clicks in the OT I know of:
-
in the recording menu: setting fade in and fade out amount to the lowest value
-
in the amp page: decreasing hold and release amounts; sometimes dialing in the attack a bit
-
in the sample editor: searching for zero crossing points by holding down FUNCTION while scrolling around with the sample start and end points.
While in production this is the method I rely on and can get rid of…almost all clicks lately…
I have to admit that the PICKUPmachine song has this noisy downpitched mandolin backround wobble with all those noise artefacts from a bad preamp and a shitty mandolin pickup and therefore obscures this technical issue by praising it…
I tend to record fixed length takes (almost always 64 steps) with the pickup machines with a rec trig on the first step and try to end my noodling within the four bars limitation.
Regarding the OP-1 I watched a nice tutorial by dj thomas white on youtube where he recommended to cut loops in the OP-1’s tape recorder by hopping from bar to bar using SHIFT+arrow keys, a method that works astonishingly well I think.
But…all things considered:
I might be click-deaf 
Click-deaf.
That’s the way to live.
Clicks are evil. They’re like the little dots in the upper right corner of the frame in 35mm movie theaters. Supposedly they would ruin the experience for machinists and overly attentive people. I never saw them. I was happy.
Thanks for the lantern. I should have been more specific. It seems like the sampling end fade isn’t consistently applied. It works when I just grab a section manually, but when I trigger the PU, it seems like the fade envelope isn’t applied, thus hard-clipping the end of the take. The fade IN always works, it’s just the end that flakes.
Maybe some more people can chime in and verify this? I find the pickup machines otherwise to be pretty useful/productive. Surprisingly so.
Note on page 52 of the manual they mention how Pickup machines use FOUT (unless that’s a typo).
manual:
FOUT applies a fade out to the recording. The value is expressed in sequencer steps. The fade out is added after the recording stops. If for example recording occurs for 16 steps and FOUT is set to 2, the total length of the sample will be 18 sequencer steps.
This parameter behaves differently for Pickup machines. In this scenario the fade out will be applied to the beginning of the captured loop.
1 Like
Aight.
Mystery solved.
For what it’s worth - just never do the takes with DIR set to REV. Seems like the end fade just doesn’t strike. Recording FWD and then reversing works. PIPO is - as we all know - broken.
1 Like
Except that I think something is still broken. You would think there would be a difference in some way between FOUT=0 and FOUT=64, but there isn’t (at least with a RLEN of 32).
On the other hand, setting FIN=32 with RLEN=32 works as expected – the input is recorded and slowly ramps up to maximum volume by the very end of the loop.
I haven’t got FOUT to do anything audible yet.
Other Pickup notes – if you record direction forward, you can later reverse (and also use PIPO) the sample and it works.
If you record with direction set to reverse, changing the direction to forward does not change it (it continues to count backwards through the steps) and PIPO creates a nice little tone when it hits 0.
1 Like
So many straw arguments here, always, it gets so boring.
I don’t want a solve-all-problems sampler.
I want the fricken sampler that they advertised when I bought it., with full implementation of the products and services described at point of sale.
Elektron is great - I’m thankful - but they’re not my mates. Some of you sound like you think they pop over and have a beer with you and a jam. They’re a commercial company.
As a commercial company, you honor your promises. You cannot advertise one thing, sell it, then not honor what it is that you have promised. Likewise, I can’t get the item and then not pay, and bring up a bunch of excuses why.
And it is an especially bad look to go forth making $$$ off new products while you neglect to honor the promises that you have made to paying customers.
People CAN find a philosophical release valve if they want. I make great stuff inside the limitations, sure. I’m a DIY guy. But people don’t HAVE to respond that way, and customer’s shouldn’t.
If you go get a burger and they F your order up, do you say “oh well, let’s go get philosophical now…”? Maybe you do, but most people don’t, and SHOULDN’T. This isn’t a crippled child or the Pope we’re buying off here. There’s no “oh well, you’ve done the best you can…” attitude to be taken.
Worst of all is the constant silence from Elektron over widespread dissatisfaction regarding the OT, from multiple sources. That is the slap in the face that really tops it all off.
They see the posts, they read the emails, they understand that they have not delivered the product that they advertised, and yet there is no display of customer care, no sense that they value the $$$ that we have spent on this product. Our $$$ allows them to do what they do and to profit from it. Without a customer, you have nothing.
@KONTARE and why I wont purchase anymore Elektron products
currently have 3 with a possible sale of 2, 1 being the box in question
if they fix the octa to my satisfaction I will re-consider my position
I’ve said it before so I’ve given voice to my concerns
its all I can do.
To me the octa has the most convoluted hierarchy possible and competes with the infamous Yam TX16W and Korg S3, both of which I’ve owned, learned to use and quickly gave up on.
When I read things like this, I wonder if I’m missing something, or if we are using the same machine. The OT was my 3rd Elektron, after the MDUW and MNM. It took me a minute to get my head around the MDUW (my first, and I found it so frustrating that I considered just quitting making music a few times), because I found the Elektron way to be convoluted, but after I got it, I found it pretty easy to learn the Mono, and thus far the OT has come to me faster than the previous two. Maybe I’m still in the afterglow and haven’t gone deep enough to be frustrated by the machine, and I know that my cumulative knowledge and a few years between EU and here have made navigating it more intuitive, but I don’t think it is any more of a head scratcher than any of my other Elektron experiences…in many ways, less so because it is so much more flexible than the silver boxes. Maybe in a few months I too will be cursing it, but so far it has been the most intuitive of all their equipment for me.
When I read things like this, I wonder if I’m missing something, or if we are using the same machine. The OT was my 3rd Elektron, after the MDUW and MNM. It took me a minute to get my head around the MDUW (my first, and I found it so frustrating that I considered just quitting making music a few times), because I found the Elektron way to be convoluted, but after I got it, I found it pretty easy to learn the Mono, and thus far the OT has come to me faster than the previous two. Maybe I’m still in the afterglow and haven’t gone deep enough to be frustrated by the machine, and I know that my cumulative knowledge and a few years between EU and here have made navigating it more intuitive, but I don’t think it is any more of a head scratcher than any of my other Elektron experiences…in many ways, less so because it is so much more flexible than the silver boxes. Maybe in a few months I too will be cursing it, but so far it has been the most intuitive of all their equipment for me.[/quote]
Think of it like you are playing that old MS Windows game Minesweeper. You can go for a long time without stepping on any mines, but if you play long enough, you will hit one (or more).
You can (and I can and others can) use the OT successfully for years without hitting a single bug. Depending on how you use it and how it is slotted in your overall gear setup, experiences may differ widely. Some people bought it to do a specific function (or two) and if it doesn’t work properly for that then they are understandably upset. Others bought it with less specific purposes (or maybe more mainstream purposes) in mind and they are very happy.
It just depends on where you are walking at the time.
1 Like
Sorry, did me and the other bad undersatisfied customers ruin your customer service relationship?
O dear. How sad for you.
It’s a good strategy that you have, to blame the dissatisfied customers while not fixing your mistakes, honoring your promises, or taking responsibility for your incomplete product.
With that kind of attitude I am sure you’ll be working for the company in no time. What a natural kind of guy! Top marks for you!
The Elektron mantra - “it’s your fault if it’s broken”
@Baddcr: RIGHT.
On the topic of the PU click bug, I have figured out what’s going on - at least rudimentarily - on a systemic level. It seems like the PU machines have a script element that writes a fade after the recording end runtime event, ie at the beginning of the heard sample. Fair enough. This is explicitly stated in the manual (thanks oldgear for pointing that out). What seems to happen is that when the pickup machine starts in reverse, the fade is written at the position of the playhead, ie the end, fading in instead of out, which creates the click.
Adding a condition to write a fade-out instead of a fade-in for PUs in reverse mode would solve it.
Sorry about the wordy and layman-esque description. I only really understood LISP as far as programming goes.
recursion > iteration
1 Like
Sorry, did me and the other bad undersatisfied customers ruin your customer service relationship?
O dear. How sad for you.
It’s a good strategy that you have, to blame the dissatisfied customers while not fixing your mistakes, honoring your promises, or taking responsibility for your incomplete product.
With that kind of attitude I am sure you’ll be working for the company in no time. What a natural kind of guy! Top marks for you!
The Elektron mantra - “it’s your fault if it’s broken”[/quote]
Oh dear, I apologise for my poor typing, I meant to say:
‘It’s exactly this kind of person that is spoiling the customer / company relationship for the rest of us’
[/quote]
I think it’s perfectly acceptable for people to be upset if they buy something and it doesn’t do what they were told it would do. If I buy a car and it shows up with three wheels instead of the four that it was advertised as having I would be within my rights to be pissed off. If the car company said the other wheel was coming in an update but gave no specifics as to when that would be and then just kinda quit communicating at all, it would be totally plausible that I would be pissed off. If they then continued to release 3 wheeled cars advertised as having 4 and still not fixing the one you bought . . . we should all be pissed! We have to hold companies accountable. They will use the fact that we love music and that it brings us joy against us to get our $$. That’s what they do. This not their hobby. They are not in it for the good of mankind. They are not your friends. If you get cancer tomorrow, they will not be donating any more of your $$ back to you so you can pay some bills. You are customer #xxxxx and that’s it.
Who ruined this relationship? The company that didn’t didn’t deliver what they said they would or the customer that is out $$? They already have the money, this thing is so deep that there’s virtually no way you would know that you are not satisfied until well beyond the point of returning it.
This problem is bigger than Elektron. Far too often we are being sold beta versions of products that never or rarely get completed. This was not a problem when I was younger as things were either delivered fully functional or completely fucked and never updated without sending to a service center as there was no internet. . . I’m old.
Anyways, this is not the point of this thread. . . really and it only creates fighting between the users as it’s obvious that Elektron does not read this forum nor does it give a flying fuck as to what we think or are having issues with.
We should be filling up their support inbox everyday!
Maybe that would get their attention.
As for the OT. Still haven’t been able to get the results I was hoping to get out of the Pickup Machines. I make cool shit with them. I am gonna try another version where I have a Pickup Machine for making layered loopscapes, then have another track recording and playing back off the same Recording buffer but as a Flex Machine. This might allow me to do some of the TRIG stuff I want. Sucks that I have to use at least 2 tracks to do one thing! I just don’t understand how the Pickup Machine’s architecture can be so vastly different than the other machines. They can all play in reverse, and record audio. I’m guessing it has something to do with the overdubbing? It’s really dumb.
It would be cool if I could assign the output of a track to the input of another track. Like sub groups.
Also, is 16th notes the highest resolution for MIDI notes? I know the Arp can do more but . . . some Retrig action would be nice. It doesn’t need to go as far as the audio tracks but 64ths are totally doable.
They really just need to spend a few months on this thing.
I think the fact that we all care so much is why these conversations get so passionate. We want this thing to be the best and it’s so close!!
with that compressor thing can’t you just resample the cue outs?
imo octatrack is cool, 1st elektron box i used, i find it super easy, use it for something every day, but i feel like there is a lot of busy work in the operation that the other machines have polished out…
i think it’s in part because there isn’t as much of an environment for working with the overall big picture as the other machines. the global slots and machines as templates on the other boxes really help.
i don’t get why with pickup machines the 16 “dead” trigs buttons when you have one selected don’t work for using any and all of them? imo it’d feel a lot better than jumping around mashing a/b + c/d like a maniac. (see also: switching between audio and midi tracks, not sure why it’s isn’t function + trig md style.) or why it can’t abort the pitch or automatically smack it up or down when over dubbing. is there a reason you wouldn’t want to i’m missing? i don’t get a lot of problems with clicks maybe because i’m used to leaving silence anyway.
Let me wrap up your case and add a few additional suggestions:
On syncing multiple layered live takes, LFOs, trigs etc:
- Using multiple PU machines, parameters synced through LFOs in TRIG mode. Set up correctly, they won’t drift.
OR - Using a CUE loopback to an input pair THRU track, allowing any number of PU machines to feed into one (sequencable/LFOable) track, which can be sent to additional NEIGHBOR tracks for exponential mayhem. This also works as a sub-group.
OR - Doing a MIDI loopback and controlling the PU with a midi track. This is WAY flexible and won’t eat a second track in your setup.
OR - Ditching PU machines altogether, because they are severely limited (no RATE pitching, for instance), using FLEX tracks instead. You just need a good setup template. Layering/bouncing will be manual, but very second-nature once you get into it, and the multiple tracks provide intrinsic layers of undo. Once you get it into your fingertips there’s NO limit to what you can do with this workflow. Seriously. I mean, I’ve designed gargantuanly weird and complex modular looper patches in PD, and 8 tracks of this mayhem makes them all look like SK-1s. It’s all you, bro.
On midi note resolution:
- Use additional MIDI tracks routed to the same channel, with microtimed trigs, will get you retrig-like behavior.
BUT - I’ve always found that cleverly p-locked arp parameters and 2x pattern scaling get me enough midi output resolution. If you’re already familiar with these tricks, maybe give them a second look in a specific context.
If you can’t find your way with these methods there must be something massively sublime about what you’re looking for that I’m too stupid to get.
1 Like
-
I’ll admit that the LFO’s confuse me a bit on all the Elektron machines. What does SPD 38 and MULT 2x mean? It’s not a beat division as far as I can tell nor is it the frequency. It’s just two numbers!
-
Thought about CUE loopback but I don’t have any inputs left.
-
Hadn’t considered the MIDI loopback. That seems like it could be dangerous. I might have too much MIDI going on to chance that. I turned off all the individual MIDI things happening in all the Elektron boxes. Pretty much on use the global channels.
-
This is ultimately going to be what i try. I can probably just setup a track to record from an input and itself. . . . . I hope. It’ll probably end up recording the FX though so I might have to figure out a way to do this with a couple of tracks instead and find a way of working that isn’t too confusing.
Thanks!
When I read things like this, I wonder if I’m missing something, or if we are using the same machine. The OT was my 3rd Elektron, after the MDUW and MNM. It took me a minute to get my head around the MDUW (my first, and I found it so frustrating that I considered just quitting making music a few times), because I found the Elektron way to be convoluted, but after I got it, I found it pretty easy to learn the Mono, and thus far the OT has come to me faster than the previous two. Maybe I’m still in the afterglow and haven’t gone deep enough to be frustrated by the machine, and I know that my cumulative knowledge and a few years between EU and here have made navigating it more intuitive, but I don’t think it is any more of a head scratcher than any of my other Elektron experiences…in many ways, less so because it is so much more flexible than the silver boxes. Maybe in a few months I too will be cursing it, but so far it has been the most intuitive of all their equipment for me.[/quote]
i could play a MnM facing backwards if I wanted and hardly touched the manual for the A4.
I’m forever forgetting things on the octa and having to stop, re-trace, and if I can’t work it out consult the manual, which doesn’t always help!
something to do with old age, 
and maybe because, I spent a few months living with an octa expert when I first got one and was able to jump in the very deep end, following what he was doing and when I got stuck I could just ask a question ,
he’d go “oh umm blah press this blah press that” and I was away in seconds
so it is somewhat my fault, as I was able to move into the complicated stuff very quickly.
still doesn’t preclude that I find it quite annoying to work with
Who is Coralhex? What does his blue/whatever Elektron flag mean? Very interesting posts and he keeps up trying and replying.
@topic: Pickup machines work well for me, just vanilla looping, playing a keyboard (mostly A4) and using keys for recording start stop, but I understand your concerns.
I’m waiting, week by week, for a trigger slices/slots via midi implementation. DAMN!! It doesn’t make sense to me to add an iPad or even MPC to the setup when the OT has all the power under it’s hood. At the moment I use a midi-slaved MD (sequencer stopped) for exactly that purpose. Doesn’t make much sense either. Such a waste of ressources, just to get more sounds out of a device that can handle gigabytes of samples.
What are your creative ideas to get the most out of drum pads connected to the OT, without adding an additional device (lemur etc)? Most importantly, how to switch between slices in an at least mostly controlled way? The best I came up with so far is to use LFO’s to scroll through slices. My chains follow a 8x8 or 4x16 principle (8 snares, 8 toms…). With some clever LFO syncing you can get, for instance, a CH, OH, RC combo in one track without having to use plocks. Complicated to set up, but it works, and most importantly, it can be fully controlled from outside (my MPD’s knobs). Alternatively, I just record STRT automations. Then there’s also the lack of velocity response and envelope/hold recording… Maybe the OT is just the wrong device for drumming purposes? I don’t want to give up though, it’s so CLOSE to a perfect device, as many of you pointed out already.
you can hit up on a midi trig micro timing page to get retrigs? dunno.
@coralhex you don’t get slow down using all 8 flex tracks resampling each other? it’s not as bad as a few versions ago but i still do. sucks. i think 1.11 or earlier was the last time all 8 worked for me. i was told i was just doing too much or something like that. are you using independent track lengths and record track trigs?