Flex looping variations?

Ok maybe somebody can help me with this:
Something I like to do on the octatrack is adjust sample loop and end times on the fly using the audio editor. For instance I’ll have two tracks of drum loops and two tracks of synth loops, then I will move the loop/end points around on each track till I get some weird rhythm going (I am doing this w/ flex and the loops are freely playing - I’m pressing track button and play). Pretty basic. I do this a lot when recording and then go back and edit together various pieces.
What I want to do (in a live setting FYI) is save patterns like this that have different loop/end points. I know that I can slice and do one shot trigs but then it seems like I have to re-arm each track whenever I change patterns.
Any ideas?

You can use different slots with the same sample and different loop/end points.

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Thanks! Will experiment with this later today…

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…this works really well for what I’m trying to do. Thanks again!

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You may want to look into “plays free” tracks to keep certain things looping but still introduce new elements as you switch patterns, if the same track number is plays free, the previous track will keep looping until you trig one on the next pattern…

(Edit: I think this is only good for looping samples but not sequences… See pages 73 and 74: https://www.musicbycatabolic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/ElektronNextLevel2016.pdf)

Also, without plays free there’s the global “silence tracks” and per pattern per track “start silent” options. By default or by custom config, a previous patterns sample will enter the release phase of the amp(can be inf) upon pattern switching and will keep going until a trig is reached, so if no trig a looping sample will keep looping.

Also you can manually trig samples using the trig keys without needing trigs on the tracks in track, slots, and chromatic mode…

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I did run into the problem of tracks continuing to play after I switched patterns. I’ll try the starts silent thing.
This is a pretty fluid way to work off grid with the octatrack. I dig it

I kinda thought you wanted them to play through, but sure, go the other way… Can be configured globally and overridden per track…

Not necessarily off grid, because you can quantize the start of a play-free track to get it in sync with what’s already running.

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In the payback setup set the LEn parameter to TIME.
Try playing with the start and len parameters on the playback main and you can have different loop lengths this way.