How to accomplish recording a long sample on OT? Or maybe a better way

Here’s what I got:

OT in arranger mode playing 18 bars (five patterns) worth of music. Most notably: A chord progression that is MIDI sent out to my Monomachine–the thing I’d like to record.

How would you go about recording this? Increase the record time (whatever the function is called in the project setup) to the max, start from the top of the arrangement, set a rec trig and press play? Or maybe just record the audio into a DAW, then back into the Octa? Afterwards, for the sake of workflow, what then? Chop up the chord progression so that it’s sliced based on the pattern?

Also maybe of note: The MnM is currently routed to a THRU machine and has some FX on it that I like. Once I record this audio (without FX, as I’ll want to effect it “in post”) what’s the best way to get those exact FX? Because once I change the thru machine to a flex machine my FX settings will be changed, right?

I’m sure there are a lot of ways to tackle this problem so I look forward to all the solutions :slight_smile:

I’d record internally, with a one shot rec trig.
First, for max recording time, you have to set MEMORY SETTINGS > DYNAMIC RECORDERS = YES

To stop the recording, I’d quantize the rec actions
REC SETUP 2 > QREC = PLEN
REC SETUP 1, ONE 2
Press twice* Recorder track + REC3

*(because it is needed with one shot rec trig)

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Thanks! Some questions:

QREC = PLEN what exactly does this do? I was under the impression it quantized the record to the pattern length? But I’m recording five patterns worth of material? How does this work out?

I also don’t quite know what you mean by “Press twice Recorder track + REC3.” If I set a one shot rec trig, then all I have to do is press play, right?

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I think that QREC=PLEN just quantizes the beginning of the recording to occur at the start of the next pattern. From the manual:

PLEN will, after pressing the keys initiating recording, start the recording process once the pattern has played its full length.

You could use RLEN to control the length of the recording, but I don’t think it goes as high as 5x64=320 beats.

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Aside from @sezare56’s advice, I would add:

I am pretty sure you can swap the machine out without it affecting the FX settings. You could do that with a part. There’s a neat video of Cenk doing something like this. He switches the part without changing pattern, then frantically edits the trigs to make them make sense for the new machine :slight_smile: I think it’s one of the OTmkII intro/demo videos.

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Oh right, but a part would store the FX settings, and you maybe don’t want that. nvm.

I stopped watching Cenk’s videos. They’re always in Fast Forward mode with the sound time-stretched to match the visual :wink:

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It quantizes rec start / stop, but if you start a recording with a one shot, you need to press twice (little bug).
In your case I think you have to stop recording before the last pattern. You can also set wanted length in steps with QREC, but IIRC higher values are 64 / 128 / 256…

Nope. Unfortunately, RLEN is limited to 64 steps max. That’s why you need to to quantize rec stop.

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You can record inputs or the track with its fx.
You can also monitor inputs with the track recorder + a flex, no part change needed in that case.

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Personally I’d just set RLEN to max after adjusting record buffer so that enough time is allocated, set rec setup 1 type to HOLD and hold rec button, play the MnM into OT release rec when chord progression is complete, then go into audio editor and trim as required. It is probably the least hassle to do that way.

I really think we need both number of steps recorded to be increased to 1024 steps (64 bars) and the option to have a start recording and stop recording trigger and/or have the option for the record trigger stop recording when the sequencer stops, this would make using the arranger to record a simple affair, just use the HALT command to stop recording. Maybe we should send in feature requests!

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I sometimes literally use another track to play an ‘alarm’ during the last bar to remind me to stop recording (&rec quantised to end on a complete bar)

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Multarzynski

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That, and, it would be nice if the recorder obeyed the tempo multiplier! It would make long fixed length recordings a lot more intuitive.

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This is the second time this has happened to me so I’ll point it out in this thread…Maybe you guys can help:

When I change stuff in the project memory settings it gives me that little warning before I back out, which I thought would only affect the rec buffers? But it seems when this happens every sample I have loaded into my static machines is “gone” and I have to reselect it. It’s really annoying. So even though it says that sample 1 in the static slot is “Kick” I can’t press func+yes to preview it until I reload it again. Every single sample I’ve loaded is like this. It’s even more annoying when I’ve used sample locks…

I assume this is what’s supposed to happen? So is the general idea “make sure your project is set up exactly how you want it before you start playing around”?

I’m about to try recording this progression and I’ll let you know how it goes.

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That’s a known bug about the samples not playing after changing mem config, it didn’t do that until a few OS’s ago and it hasn’t been fixed yet… Workaround is to save project before changing config and then reload after, or do a power cycle after changing config…

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I got my chord progression recorded…I still didn’t quite get what you meant by pressing twice+rec3 (I don’t even know where rec 3 is?) to stop the recording so I just trimmed the end so it’d stop when I want to. Now I’ve put a one-shot trig at the beginning of my arrangement. Oh btw all I did was replace my thru machine with a flex machine and it kept the FX exactly as they were so no worries there.

Now I’m trying to think ahead…Say I wanted the C chord to happen twice as long as I recorded it, I guess that means I have to go in and slice it up? Slice up each individual chord? Sounds tedious lol.

The other option was recording each individual pattern and having different samples for each chord but I’m not sure about that.

Thanks dude. It really didn’t seem like a “feature” to me lol. If I were to save project before changing config and then reload after, wouldn’t it just reload to my original config?

Yes

Rec3 is MKII MIDI button (MKI).

If you start recording with Track + Rec1, 2 or 3, with ONE2, you just have to press Track + Rec1/2/3 again to stop recording.
If you start recording with a one shote rec trig, you need to press Rec1/2/3 twice.

Nothing to understand, it doesn’t work as it should, it’s a warning because it is not documented.

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Yes maybe my number one feature request.
It possible to use a 1024 steps pattern and set QREC to pattern length. Once recorded, slice in 64 and choose bars a x1/8 scale track! :sunny:

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Well I sent in a feature request so I guess we’ll see, I think I sent it before but my memory is crap.

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