I’ve sampled less with the Octatrack than I hoped to and I’m starting to reckon there must have been advancements since I last tried. So… is there a “save all samples” command yet? When I record it tends to be maybe 7 tracks grabbed from any synth in the studio and it’s a slow process saving each sample, hoping you didn’t forget one.
I don’t know if this is already possible but if so, ideally it’d ‘save all’ then give the option to either save into a new flex slot then point to that slot, or save to a new flex slot but retain the selection of the original recorder, ready for you to make more loops. The icing on the cake wold be to be able to sort slots by their filename. Then you’d have quite a useful manual playlist mode kinda thing as a bonus.
Nope, there is no save-all button…
The quickest way for me that works good is :
Take 1 track, and setup the recorders to record whatever “internal track” you want.
and that the quantized recording thing is setup correctly (recorder-setup-page 2… the most left thing on the bottom row… put that one to qpl
now save this sample (its in the audio-editor…)
when it asks to input a name… Function+play (clear) … insert a name (function + cursorkeys) … DO NOT PRESS YES !!.. first copy the name (Function + record (copy))
add a number with Function+cursorkeys. Now press yes
:loop
Now Everytime you grab a loop (trackbutton + midi/part button) it should start the recording at the beginning of the pattern, for the length you specified)
Everytime you wanna save it.
Double-tap the track button
Function + bank (goes into audio editor)
it should still be on the “file” page…
Save sample
Function + play(clear)
Function + stop(Copy)
Function + cursorkey(left) (this should select the next number)
press YES
goto loop until done sampling.
And yes, this is still a whole lot of steps… but it is still quicker then many other sampler i used (quit a bit) … not as quick as most dedicated hardware recorder… but a recorder is not a sampler 
they come with other problems…
enjoy
p.s. yes… a continious saving sample-machine… i would dig it…
What I would dig even more is… instead of 1-64 steps or max… I would like it to go from 1 to 512 steps… without me bitching around with Recorder-buffer-size in the setup of my octatrack.
Fair enough, so people suffer with this every day? Good it’s not just me I suppose but seriously, there are so many times I have to stop and scratch my head wondering “why so sloooooow?”
Thanks, good tip re: naming. I may just treat everything as volatile, this is meant to be fun after all
Aye, also amazed the max recording length is still 64. I’d want at least double that in most circumstances and as my flex memory is completely free and there’s 1/8 speed for tracks, hy not make life a little easier?
I know, old and moany…
I am old and moany too, aslong as nobody calls me a grumpy old fool… I think its ok 
We survive
Isn’t save all in the record setup menu? Function + AB then function + bank/edit?
And for some reason I thought it was in the audio editor pages too, somewhere. Maybe the last page?
Mine is out for repair otherwise, I’d check. 
It’s not! Function +AB.
You might have to go into your project settings. Forget what it’s called. Assignable? Should be called flex flex recorders. 
I do hope we see more machines in the octatrack for stuff like this. After using the MachineDrum and monomachine I really appreciate the tailored focused machines , even if they aren’t super different.
I meant that I can’t set a record length of 128 or 256 despite the dynamic RAM feature introduced a while back. But thanks for the tip about Save All. I’ll go hunting for it. Seems such an obvious idea you’d think it’d be in there somewhere.
I have a dream… some days, about a company like Korg copying the basic idea of the Octatrack but designing it in a way lots of people could use it instantly, freely, logically, without fear of losing work, in any state of mental fogginess and just for the sheer fun of it… I have a dream!
Smokey:
check out page 61 of the manual (the current one on elektron.se)
it says
While in either RECORDING SETUP menu, an EDIT menu can be opened by pressing
[FUNCTION] + [BANK]. This menu offers various commands relating to the track recorder.
EDIT THIS RECORDING will open the recorded sample in the audio editor. The audio editor
is covered in the section “THE AUDIO EDITOR” on page 95.
SAVE THIS RECORDING will save the recording made by the active track recorder to the
Compact Flash card.
SAVE ALL RECORDINGS will save all recordings of all track recorders to the Compact
Flash card.
So yeah there is a save-all which is only a few button-presses away.
and its also a way to enter the memory-config without digging in the setup. so yeah. if you give an exact length of 512steps in the memory config and put record-length to max… you get 512steps of recording.
funky learn something new every day… but just to proof i am older then 30…
I would still like the recordlength be “longer then 64” like you joke with the korg thing… simplicity can be king…
I really dont mind getting technical or geek around… but hmm this is something i just wanna go automagical… or in 1! menu … not 4 (record-setup page 1 & 2 … “dialog with save options and memory config” leading to “memory config dialog” I wonder if i ever get smart enough to learn why that is… (most elektron decisions made sense after lots of thinking)
I bet it has to do with those flex machines that play content… if you allocate to much memory to record… you got no memory left to store stuff to play from memory… and in all fairness, things bigger then 4 bars (with the exception of sample-chains and some acapella vocals)
isnt that handy in the octatrack (my opinion)… Darnit more study for me…
Aha yes, this menu rings a bell. I really will print out that useful list of menus and how you find them one day
Thanks
The save all should be useful - gonna try it before I lose it again. Sadly the max length thing can’t be set without also specifying the track range in advance - and the range always starts at recorder 1. Still, next time I have a rethink about what all my tracks do I’ll look at it again.
Splendid!
The Save All option assigns the recordings directly rather than as new flex samples. So it seems that if you’re working on building up some banks of new sampled material you still have to go through each one from the current batch, setting it to a new flex slot, then pointing your flex machine at that slot, saving the part for good measure, before returning to your original recorder part and starting again, the next time remembering to set new names. And I guess in that scenario Save All would have no idea whether I’d saved the audio earlier or not…
There have to be some slicker workflows than mine, right?
Some days I feel very old. Good to know I can whine to Olympic standard though 
Ah yeah, i forgot about that… hmm yes, like i said… more research to be done.
I really like my octatrack and in general terms it does what elektron promised on the box / the things i want it to do in an easier workflow then my other groovegear…
but i think i will laugh next time i read “because it takes me away from my computer” for an instrument, it does have allot of “technical stuff” to think about.
good thing i am a sheldon-esque nerd…
[quote=“” smokyfrog""]
Some days I feel very old. Good to know I can whine to Olympic standard though 
[/quote]
Hooray we both feel like geriatric olympians … lets share the medal…
Hehe yeah. It’s definitely got some built-in hippy-proofing that’s for sure. OT keeps trying to reach that side of my brain that died when I tried to grasp calculus in my youth…
I know that feeling…
Just out of curiousity, i had a better look at it… and… I think, we need even more math… and i will try to explain you why…
in the memory-setup-page… you can tell your octa HOW MANY SECONDS your buffer is… there is this little line in the top of the screen that translates it to “a number of steps”.
silly me… i wanted 128steps… but my octa didnt… it would do 126steps … or 130steps.
I had to change bpm… to get 128steps… because you can only tell your recorder to be an EXACT amount of seconds… (no fractions)
So if you want longer and exact recordings… you either play with bpm till your amount of steps fall into an exact second… or record a bit longer… and trim the end bit.
Darnit!! that kinda suxx…
in all fairness nice people who read my rant… its not that i want a 128step recording everyday (hardly) not even speaking about a 512step recording… I got me octatrack for almost 2 years now… and this is i think the third time i look at memory managment, with this fine a comb… so its not a “biggie” but…
I do think i am going to ask for a way… where the recorders stop automagicly when my sequence in the arranger stops. so i can get my perfectly recorded very long loops… and for the recorders to be able to record longer loops… go from 1 to 256 and max… I think it will make some stuff just more fun… (like recording 16bars of machinedrum and slice it… instead of a sample-chain … this kinda shit should just “work” without rocket-science… (even though i just want to make a rocket once a year)
[quote=“” smokyfrog""]
The Save All option assigns the recordings directly rather than as new flex samples. So it seems that if you’re working on building up some banks of new sampled material you still have to go through each one from the current batch, setting it to a new flex slot, then pointing your flex machine at that slot, saving the part for good measure, before returning to your original recorder part and starting again, the next time remembering to set new names. And I guess in that scenario Save All would have no idea whether I’d saved the audio earlier or not…
There have to be some slicker workflows than mine, right?
Some days I feel very old. Good to know I can whine to Olympic standard though
[/quote]
Ahh sorry that didn’t help. It would be good if there was an option to save with parts. Something like the SUPER copy/clear functions on the monomachine would come in handy on the Octatrack.
I usually just use the track recorders real time and record the octatrack out as I play and/or resample it to a new track and slice that up, slowly saving as I go. I don’t do file management. With plocks, scenes and parts I don’t have to bother with thousands of one shots anymore.
I mean, I have the program Autosampler, I’ve made a ton of sample collections and all that, but I rarely use them for music and often when I listen back I wonder what inspired me about them in the first place.
So i agree the octatrack sucks / is slow at making sample collections, but I dunno if that’s really a useful function of a musical instrument, you know?
You could try using pickup machines on one part to sample, and flex machines, assigned to the same recorder on another part. When you switch from the pickup part to the flex all your samples will be there. It’s not a bad way of making a ton of semi-related loops to slice quickly.
I made a bunch of silent files of specific lengths that I load up and record into, but that’s really kinda silly.
I’m definitely a lazy hippy.
@the_dreamer Yeah, I mean, I like how the monomachine FM machines break it down into smaller, more focused elements. For the most part, no less interesting sounding and easier to get an intuitive feel for, so you go deeper. Flex machines are cool as hell, but why not a time machine, slice machine, loop machine, record machine.
I’m fast at it, but you have to jump from menu to menu and in n out of record mode a lot to get things set up.
Like, a record machine that automatically armed when you switched parts and had length, source, quantization settings all on the first parameter page would rock. Switch parts, record into all your record machines, return to your main part with samples loaded and ready in your flex machines. I guess they are on different screens because they don’t want you thinking you can plock them, but I think it’d be overall less confusing. The pickup machine already breaks the plock idea anyway.
Look how people say the new “vintage” synth in Logic X sounds better, when it’s just re-framing ES2. Honestly, I bet it does sound better, but because it’s easier to dial in the right settings, if you want a vintage synth sound.
“So i agree the octatrack sucks / is slow at making sample collections, but I dunno if that’s really a useful function of a musical instrument, you know?”
Well I don’t think the Octatrack is a musical instrument. More of a music-oriented tool. Or a performance sampler that comes more from a DJ angle than a musician’s. I mean, if it were a musical instrument the volume control would control the volume rather than headphone output, right?
Yeah, i was thinking simular thoughts… something that bugged me
was the absolute slicing… I was playing with my machine for a long time assuming (silly me) that slices where relative (a fraction, instead of a specific length in the sample)…
until i started tweaking tempo in my “uncle dreammer wants to learn everything set” (i usually dont change tempo… but seemed like a fun thing to incoorporate into my thing)
Suddenly i found out: that its nice slices are saved in the buffer.
but, if you change tempo of your pattern… and start recording into the buffer that was pre-sliced for another tempo, the slices are all wrong.
I think the slices are absolute…
It could well be that i am wrong, and i just had a bad day of jamming and overseen something… but blah. if i cant preslice the recorder just once… and have my set in whatever tempo i decide to set it when i am not recording a loop… i have to rethink my whole atitude towards playing out live… shamefully… because the rest of my ideas did work… and i thought it was well more fun and more decent then whatever solution i came up with playing live on my mc909…
Well thats the thing… I am not worried about my speed… i might be a olympian geriatric moaner, but i can learn stuff like that.
Its more : If i can setup my octatrack to do the set I want.
and to record exactly the length I want… and slicing always work.
eventhough i pre-sliced the recorder slot in another tempo then the current… It would work as my small mixer/fx-unit-trackmuter-looper thing… all i had to do when i do my thing… is "keep time, press the right button at the right time… have time and fingers left to do the same with my machinedrum… maybe i feel confident enough to encoorporate my monomachine in a nice way… all be realtime… all be synced… I will have a nice relaxed experience… and everybody happy…
as it stands now… I can do this for 99% now … (thats actually impressive… so please dont take this as a giant shit on my machine)
but, darnit… sometimes it feels the last % is just “tiny details”
So I think i want the following:
- A way to stop recorders when the arranger stops… so i can program “really long” sequences in the arranger… and record it in 1 go… (press play… play with the knobs… wait till arangement is done… and voila. i got perfect sample)
- Fractional preslicing… I want to tell my recorder slot, BE SLICED X TIMES once! … (eg: if i want 4 slices… each slice should be 25% of the total loop length) so in every pattern I will use to play back that recorderslot… slice1 = the first 25% slice2 will be 25%-50% slice3 = 50%-75% and slice4=75%-100%) Basicly in my “practice set” all even patterns have a recorder trigger… and all uneven patterns do not. but, they do play back… so basicly i want to be able to change tempo in an uneven pattern without my slices going goofy.
- select steps instead of seconds in the dynamic memory page… I know you see steps… but because of the whole second thing… I couldnt select the amount of steps i needed, because of bpm… it just didnt allow to get “THAT” amount of steps with “THAT” bpm…
Sounds like an idea to me I think i would use that.
Yeah, easy breezy can be efficient… if its to easy (not enough options) its frusty, but to many options can be eh sucky 2
Haha, have to agree to disagree.
A performance sampler is an instrument to me. SPs 1200, 303 to 505, MPCs, ASRs, fairlights.
I also rate the invisibl skratch piklz as musicians.
My instrument definition is super loose: used by a musican, live at least some of the time, to make music. When mad professor, king tubby, etc uses a mixer, it’s an instrument, when pdiddy uses a mixer to make a pop music product it’s a tool.
Eno and Fripp played the hell out of some tape loops! That was as much an instrument as anything else.
The headphone controls are really useful as monitors live or doing feedback I mean, a lot iof guitarists and singers use headphones live too?
It took me a while to face a horrifying reality: Recording my hardware collection, even with an Octatrack at the center, is more efficient with a mixer and a digital recorder/audio interface with a DAW than internally re sampling on the OT alone. I know, I know- DAW is a dirty word around here, but even though the OT does so much so well, it isn’t a computer.
But…when working with recordings/samples more sensitive to the 64-step sequencer it has on board, the OT is fine. I agree it should manage long samples better, and slicing and mapping never fails to piss me off (see: changing parts and losing your locks). But arguing that it “isn’t an instrument” is pretty interesting when you’re here with frustrations over it’s limited RAM. It’s only an instrument when you use it like one. It’s like saying a Novation Bass Station II isn’t an instrument because the sequencer only runs up to 32 steps but you wanted to record 128 or VSTs can’t be instruments because sometimes they make your computer lag.
Some of the finest instruments ever made in the electronic age are samplers, as someone already pointed out. The closest thing to the OT still on the market, MPCs, can handle long samples well, slice them, and map them out and be saved to a file before you get your recorder trigs set up on the OT properly. But the OT has the MPC beat as a live performance sampler and the Elektron sequencer is far more expressive than an MPC’s pad sequencer. The MPC is more geared towards studio work, while the OT is a product that is most rewarding once all your studio work is DONE, and you’ve got your projects set up in the OT.
And that’s when it, without a doubt, is an instrument (and a very, very inspiring one at that).
In my hands it isn’t an instrument
I spose I’ve never personally seen samplers, mixers, effects units, mother keyboards, computers and sequencers as instruments either. Otherwise we may as well call everything you find in a studio an instrument, which may or may not be an effective use of language.