LFO sync?

So, i have a midi track with a designer lfo affecting the arp transpose. Made so the sequence is 64 steps long. How can I sync it to start when it should, on the 1st step? The only way i that i could work out is changing the lfo sync to one or trig on the first step and then to hold after that manually, but that’s not a method i would depend on live.
There is more than one trigger on the track…
Any thoughts?

1 Like

using trig on the first step should do what you want restart the LFO

i dont understand what you are trying to achieve though, if you want subsequent triggers within the 64 step sequence, do you want them to retrigger the LFO or not? both is possible

I need the sequence to start from the begining every time the pattern starts… The trig and one modes keep retriggering it, hold mode makes it pause when i start / stop the sequencer, resulting in out of sync playing, plays free continues to cycle when it’s stopped…
If i press stop, and then play i want it to start from the begining. That’s what i want.

Sorry for the rant, it’s late here.

sweet, its not too much to ask for!
so why are you using hold?
just use trig mode on the first trigstep.
and on the subsequent trig steps use trigless locks

hope that helps

It sounds like analogback wants the custom transpose LFO to run fully across a sequence that contains multiple note trigs, but the note trigs are restarting the LFO.

Have you tried setting the LFO sync to SYNC TRIG? This should start the LFO when the track starts and then let it run freely (notes won’t retrigger it). Then you should just be able to set the LFO speed as required to transpose your pattern.

See page 72 of the current manual for more on sync trig.

Just bringing this one up again as it’s very similar to my current issue.

The SYNC TRIG lfo setting doesn’t seem to work as described. It doesn’t start with the TRACK as described, but with the PATTERN, which means it restarts with every loop of that track.

Starting with track would be so much more useful as it wouldn’t restart, allowing for long evolves.

At the moment I want to use a slow lfo design to transpose to a different pitch 16 times over many bars…

The workaround I have found is to start sequencer with lfo set to SYNC TRIG, then before the pattern repeats, switch it to FREE.

Let me know if I’m missing something here. It’s something I have spent a bit of time with, but like everything on the OT you can never be sure if you’ve exhausted all possibilities - a good thing!

1 Like

I don’t think you’re missing anything about the LFOs, but you are almost in a position where you might want to use the Arranger to pre-program the transpositions.

Wouldn’t the ‘one’ option work here?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, most likely :frowning:

I don’t think you’re missing anything about the LFOs, but you are almost in a >position where you might want to use the Arranger to pre-program the >transpositions.

Unfortunately I think that audio track cannot be transposed from the arranger. Thats why I think that the OP wants to use a slow LFO synchronised to the track as work around for that (clever idea btw!).
But I dont think it will work because the LFO will be restarted each time the pattern start over.

Maybe one day the audio track will become transposable from the arranger ?

1 Like

You’re right: I had forgotten that. That deserves a support ticket.

1 Like

Actually I just realised that it is possible to solve this issue by doing exactly the opposite :
-Use the LFO designer to generate the melody of the track. The LFO should be restarted at the beginning of the pattern (i dont remember the name of this setting).
-Divide the tempo of the track as required
-use the track trig to transpose the melody.

It should give you the result you want. Actually this how i use the OT for melody.

1 Like

Thanks for that. Sounds good.
Don’t think it will give me 16 bars of variation from a 1 bar pattern (for example) though, which was the idea that started me off on these slow lfos. Well maybe it could if I took the tempo right down… Too much compromise
Manually switching from ‘sync trig’ to ‘free’ for the transposing lfo does it fine though. Just feels like I’m forcing ‘trig sync’ to do what it should do anyway (that is, play continuously from track start)

am I missing something or did you just answer your own question - there are 8 audio tracks per pattern (+midi) - what ‘track’ concept are you referring to and how does the manual deviate from its own description … ?

[quote="“avantronica”"]

am I missing something or did you just answer your own question - there are 8 audio tracks per pattern (+midi) - what ‘track’ concept are you referring to and how does the manual deviate from its own description … ?[/quote]
I’m also not sure about Clancy’s use of “track” and “pattern” here, but what he describes is certainly frustrating. In SYNC TRIG mode, LFOs restart every time a track starts OR restarts, not just when a pattern or arrangement has started playing. I do actually think that the manual is somewhat misleading about this:
“SYNC TRIG will restart the LFO on track start. The LFO then plays continuously.”

IMHO, this statement pretty naturally reads as implying that the LFO will restart when a track first plays, and then continue to cycle without resetting. This is what Clancy wants to be possible, and I also wish this were possible. I was pretty bummed to discover this last night, as I would really love to be able to run an LFO over more than 4 bars but have it start at the beginning whenever you start playing a pattern or arrangement. It means you can’t really use the LFO designer effectively for very slow-moving modulations.

1 Like

perhaps wishful thinking, though not unreasonable (and very easy to accomplish on analogs)
if you chained two patterns ( looping latter ‘free sync’ version of pattern) somehow in the arranger - you’d achieve what you needed (at expense of other hassles) - or manually set it to free after it starts - or a.n.other solution i’m guessing may be out there

Not sure if this is exactly what you’re after, but buried in the settings menu for the sequencer, there’s an option for Auto Change in regards to LFOs that will restart ALL otherwise free-running versions provided the pattern that you’re changing to is associated with a different part.

Per the manual (p. 37):

LFO AUTO CHANGE will when checked make all LFOs automatically restart with any new LFO settings activated when changing to a pattern containing another part.

If unchecked, the settings of the LFOs of the previous pattern/part will not be changed until trigs occur on the tracks of the new pattern. Activate and deactivatethis setting by pressing [ENTER/YES].

Does that help?

Good luck!

1 Like

^ thanks for pointer :+1:

Anytime!

Hoping there’s a workaround within that setting for this specific situation.

perhaps wishful thinking, though not unreasonable (and very easy to accomplish on analogs)
if you chained two patterns ( looping latter ‘free sync’ version of pattern) somehow in the arranger - you’d achieve what you needed (at expense of other hassles) - or manually set it to free after it starts - or a.n.other solution i’m guessing may be out there[/quote]
It seems that could work. I’ll give it a try later today. Even if it does the trick, it’s too bad that it requires resorting to using the arranger in such a clunky fashion. I’m preaching to the choir here, but I really wish Elektron were still actively supporting the Octatrack’s development, as here we are discussing how close the machine is to being able to do something powerful for sequencing, but just falls short because there isn’t a fitting LFO mode. It looks like I may be approaching the end of my days of hoping to stave off the desire for a Cirklon by stretching the limits of the OT’s MIDI sequencer :rage:

Sorry to report that the arranger approach doesn’t do the trick - I can’t seem to get the LFO mode (sync trig vs free) to differ between patterns or arrangements. Are you sure it’s possible? Maybe I’m missing something.

Anyway, until then, it looks like manually switching from “sync trig” to “free” gets the job done. Hardly ideal, but I still love the Octatrack. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like