How to use Flex machine for live looping

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hi again! :slight_smile:

I am happy using Pickup machine as a live looper. Also without changing the tempo.

With Flex machines there is a different story;
After trying for a while I must admit I am not being able to use Flex machine as a live looper.
I even do not manage to record anything with record triggers.
I was watching a video were the guy recorded, and the Flex automatically played back triggers of the loop.
Then he could do some really cool mangling stuff!

Please anyone, can you submit me with a step by step guide on how to set up Flex as a live looper?
I am not lazy, because I really tried…

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#2

Hi,
not shure, but with the pickups the best way is using the track+ AB to begin recording and Track+CD to stop recording

#3

Yes, that is how it works with the Pickup machines, but Flex is different.

#4

Put a trig in Recorder Setup on step1 and a playback trig on step1 on Audio Track loaded with a Flex pointing to the same Recorder.

Remember to p-lock the sampling source for the recorder-trig

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#5

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]Thanks for the answer, but this is what makes me confused.

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]How I did it, step by step (please fill in):
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]1. Load a Flex machine.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]2. Set it up to loop on, slice on, len to for instance 32 for recording 2 bars.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]3. Set up recording of wich input by pressing function and “rec A B”.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]4. Enable record button for inserting record trig on the first beat (red light).
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]5. While record button is still enabled, push function and the beat you want to play it from (green light).
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]6. ?

#6
  1. The playback trig should be red not green (trigless trig/lock)
  2. Press PLAY and see what happens.

Having LOOP set to ON doesn’t change that much the result.

#7

Remember, there’s two separate triggers. One for recording and one for playback. In record mode you set the trigger and then after exiting record mode you set your play trigger. What you are doing is setting a trigger and then changing it to a one shot.

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#8

In my Sampling Flex Machine Track i set a regular Sample Trigger at step 1, switch to REC Mode and set a one shot trigger [Function]+[Trig] at the same step. So everytime i press [Enter/Yes] in REC Mode the Recorder gets primed and will start sampling on the next cycle and start playing the recording at the next cycle after that.

Loop is set to OFF, Rec Length is the same as Pattern Length. If Source is set to CUE you can sample any combination of active or muted tracks you like, even the playback track you are recording to. There is virtually no limit to resampling and layering, If you use a lot of delays and reverbs you might consider a compressor with max RMS setting as a limiter.

Who needs those buggy pickup machines?

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#9

One tricky thing to be aware of when sampling with a Flex machine using the Recorder Trig method:

You must select ONE input (AB, CD, or internal Track)

The default is that all three inputs are selected. You must deselect the two inputs you are not going to use. Otherwise, the Recorder Trig method will not work.

This is not documented in the manual, or not explained well anyway.

Another disadvantage is that sound-on-sound looping (recording layer after layer) does not work with Flex machines. A new loop will overwrite the old one. The workaround is to use two or more Flex machine tracks.

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#10

No, you can do it with only one flex machine. If you set the internal input SRC3 of this track to CUE as the recording source, all cued tracks will be recorded, even if they are muted.
So the trick ist to have one track with a flex machine playing its recorder buffer. Set this track always on cue and than just cue the tracks you wish to record and proceed as i wrote above. Perfect loop and layer.

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#11

Thanks, will try soon.

1 Like
#12

Well you CAN use the pickup machine LOOP on a flex track and thereby realtime mangle the hell out of it.

Example: Track 1 is a Pickup machine… recording to recorder 1
Track 2 Is a flex, set it to play back recorder 1

There will be a drop out at times on track 2 when you overdub your loop on thrack 1 (if i remember correctly), for me it has not been a problem.
So on track 2 you can change rate, pitch and what ever you like to change or trigger… you can also slice and the slices will remain after overdubbing… it is GREAT fun… i often use two Pickup machine to capture external sound and replay the on one or MORE flex machines. Sometimes i let a flex sample a Pickup machine, capturing a snippet of the loop… and often i use a pickup machine to loop the sounds from a flex machine (often the flex is set to produce “grains” the loop becomes a grain rhythm, FUN)

I have also experimented with neighbor machine, track 1 is a pickup at say 32 steps, track 2 is a neighbor machine with effects trigglocks at 32 steps (or to make it interesting have the neighbor pattern be of different length so that the locks are applied to different parts of the loop i like to have a loop of say 32 and the neighbor at, say, 20 to make a polyrhytmic offset. Using combfilters with melodic patterns and a rhythmic reverb and delay setting can be very fun… (the delay can act as a stutter looper… resample that to a flex and replay it with locked steps of pitch and/or rate shifts to create melodies of the changing stutter sample (record triggs are very fun)

On a side note i got my Make Noise shared system this week so it will not be much octatrack until i find out how the modular work… the putting my modular sampler/effects/sound mangler (OCTATRACK) to work with the modular will be a very special type of fun indeed :slight_smile:

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#13

Just spotted this. Need to try this as soon as I can. Sounds like it is the ideal alternative to pickups for me - I am in slave move and as we all know they don’t work but I want to do looping!

Cheers for the tip. It’s almost a shame that I have to fly down to London for a weekend of partying and NFL. It’s a hard life.

#14

You lucky lucky b&w£#%*¥€ ; - )
I hope you don’t mind but I was specifically going to ask you and governor silver to chip in on a focused pickup machine power user forum thread so that we can bottom out all the ways to get the most out of it and identify areas that need fixing and maybe identify some very modest enhancements to put to elektron along with compiling a document detailing all the good and bad of pickup machines for current and new users, it’s consistently the area that gets people moaning the most, even though it is possible to use it in certain circumstances with certain constraints. I’ll scope it soon and see if I can get a few power users to contribute thoughts and workarounds and identify any clear bugs or issues that we can seek feedback on. Sadly, my experience is that you do not get the same ease of use and robustness you get from various loopers and delays, it’d be great if it could replace those more effectively
Enjoy your makenoise session ; - )

2 Likes
#15

When I first got my OT, this really helped me to understand flex recording.

1 Like
#16

[quote="“avantronica”"]

You lucky lucky b&w£#%*¥€ ; - )
I hope you don’t mind but I was specifically going to ask you and governor silver to chip in on a focused pickup machine power user forum thread so that we can bottom out all the ways to get the most out of it and identify areas that need fixing and maybe identify some very modest enhancements to put to elektron along with compiling a document detailing all the good and bad of pickup machines for current and new users, it’s consistently the area that gets people moaning the most, even though it is possible to use it in certain circumstances with certain constraints. I’ll scope it soon and see if I can get a few power users to contribute thoughts and workarounds and identify any clear bugs or issues that we can seek feedback on. Sadly, my experience is that you do not get the same ease of use and robustness you get from various loopers and delays, it’d be great if it could replace those more effectively
Enjoy your makenoise session ; - )[/quote]
I would be happy to participate… i hope to resample my new Make Noise system with the octatrack this weekend…

#17

Great ! I’ll try to get a thread up soon with the idea fleshed out. I had been thinking about this recently and the optimism of an update on this was mostly lost and in the forum fallout there’s been an initiative to focus our issues into a positive document which establishes the good, bad and workarounds and a modest wish list that could specifically make pickup machines work more robustly in more cases and get a handy user guide out of it and an agreed bug/issue list because undoubtedly there are user issues or expectation issues to remove from the picture, but there are also definite bugs and truly annoying nuances that could be finessed. Will keep you posted :+1: Cheers

1 Like
#18

[quote="“avantronica”"]

You lucky lucky b&w£#%*¥€ ; - )
I hope you don’t mind but I was specifically going to ask you and governor silver to chip in on a focused pickup machine power user forum thread so that we can bottom out all the ways to get the most out of it and identify areas that need fixing and maybe identify some very modest enhancements to put to elektron along with compiling a document detailing all the good and bad of pickup machines for current and new users, [/quote]
I’m not a power user, but I’ll try to help with what little knowledge I have.
BTW, abergdahl’s “granular” project is great for monster drones! I’ll be using it for our live show on Nov. 8.

#19

Cool. I’ll throw something out soon. If you are using them and not throwing the towel in that’ll count as a power user for this fact gathering exercise ; - ) besides, you’re frequently contributing on these threads and I like your work, cello, right?

EDIT: six months have passed but i haven’t forgot, my bad !

#20

Trying some of the methods in this thread and when I resample from the flex/record track I get feedback, what’s the trick I’m missing