LFO sync?

avantronica · 2015-09-24T22:10:31.000Z

""Clancy"":

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.

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 … ?

Autopoiesis · 2016-03-18T20:25:17.000Z

[quote=““avantronica””]

Clancy:

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.

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.

avantronica · 2016-03-18T21:15:05.000Z

""Autopoiesis"":

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.

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

jrnmv · 2016-03-18T22:00:19.000Z

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!

avantronica · 2016-03-18T22:13:01.000Z

^ thanks for pointer

jrnmv · 2016-03-18T22:27:50.000Z

Anytime!

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

Autopoiesis · 2016-03-21T18:50:14.000Z

""avantronica"":

[quote=“Autopoiesis”]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.

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

Autopoiesis · 2016-03-22T03:35:39.000Z

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

Autopoiesis · 2016-04-01T17:34:09.000Z

Here’s a programmed (i.e., doesn’t require manually adjusting the LFO settings during pattern playback) “solution” that I got to work last night:

Set the LFO(s) to SYNC TRIG mode
Save the part you did #1 on (eg, part 1) and link it to some pattern (eg, pattern a1)
Copy the part to another part (eg, part 2)
Copy your pattern to another pattern (eg, pattern a2)
Switch to the new part (part 2)
Set the LFO(s) to FREE mode or HOLD mode
Save part 2 and link it to the new pattern (a2)
Use arranger to play pattern a1 and then infinitely (or however many times you want) loop pattern a2

This way, the LFO(s) will always start at the same phase position and then continue to cycle without resetting each time their hosting tracks restart.

But I’m pretty sure that I’m never going to do this in practice, because it makes the simplest sequence into a Rube Goldberg contraption. I’d rather use Parts and the Arranger for what they excel at and only when I need them for what they excel at.

Hopefully someone else can find a better solution. Doubt that Elektron would prioritize addressing this in the Octatrack at this stage of development, but I feel that it could be quite unobtrusively handled by a new parameter in the pattern settings menu (where you can configure tracks as Plays Free, etc.) that governs whether SYNC TRIG LFOs reset only when patterns start playback. I imagine it would be a taller order to implement an entirely new LFO mode.

I submitted a ticket about this to Elektron because I feel that it misses out on enormous potential and the Octatrack is so very close to being able to support this.

Autopoiesis · 2016-05-06T22:13:36.000Z

""Clancy"":

[quote=" zite909"]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.

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)[/quote]
I discussed this topic with Simon in a support ticket (thanks Simon!), and along the way got the idea to push zite909’s idea further.

Maybe not 16 bars of variation from a 1 bar note sequence, but you can get 8, as long as you don’t mind using the Inception-style arp sequencer for your fastest-moving pitch and gate events. You can ‘draw’ a 16-step note sequence in the arp sequencer (or in a designer LFO that’s routed to arp transposition at a fast enough playback speed), run the arp at its ‘3x’ speed, configure your track to run for 64 steps at 1/2 the base tempo, and drop an infinite-length trig (or whatever you want to do to fire off the arp) in the main trig sequencer. Then you can route a SYNC TRIG LFO to whatever parameter you like, at a slow enough speed that it will run its full course when the track has finished (effectively 8 bars, relative to the base tempo).

This workaround does mean giving up per-step control of velocity, note length, CC messages, etc., which is unfortunate, but I’ll definitely be experimenting with it to see how manageable it is.

mastaman · 2021-05-05T02:37:19.099Z

I found that using a LFO with “Trigger” option and using the “1st” probability trigger on the first step in the sequece to work pretty ok (apart from the “1st” trigger sometimes starts on the second bar, if that happens i delete the trigger and try again, it usually works the second time and then it sticks to working)…but as you say we loose some control with the notes in the sequencer (i need to investigate more but i guess we can still use trigless trigs to change arp speed, transpose etc etp with probability triggers …1:4 etc). But it is a pretty interesting way of generating melodies. Do a LFO with the LFO designer…set it to speed of 8 and multiplier of 1 and link that to ARP transpose. Then enable ARP and build a melody ontop at the speed you like…with a 16 step sequencer and scale of 1 (default settings). I get 16 bars of “variation” (transposition from the LFO designer, and if i set LFO speed to 4 i get 32 bars). So with the 1st trigger no need to run fast arps or 64 step sequences or change the “scale” of the sequence. Also i found that if i map a square LFO to the ARP speed i could get the arp to shuffle a little…but only at depth of 1 or 2…more gets wonky…need to investigate more…still would have been nice with a LFO that would start with the transport and be in sync with the main clock…and not reset until told with a certain parameterlock instead of tied to a note trigger.

Autopoiesis · 2021-05-05T08:57:02.511Z

Doesn’t quite work if you want to use any “trigful trigs” on the track, but I appreciate how you’re thinking about this and that we have wanted to get similar things out of the LFO designer <3

Schnork · 2021-05-05T09:19:49.824Z

mastaman:

Also i found that if i map a square LFO to the ARP speed i could get the arp to shuffle a little…but only at depth of 1 or 2…more gets wonky…

That sounds interesting, have to try that!

mastaman · 2021-05-05T17:16:58.516Z

Yes, haha, any “trigful trig” would reset the LFO again with this “1st” trigger way…i am also thinking about using 2 midi tracks to the same midi channel…do the “trigful trigs” on the second channel and the long variations with LFO designer+ARP on the first track…not sure if it will merge or what (i think i read one track will get prio). I quite like to decouple gates, velocity, ratchets etc from notes track and have different length on each sequence. It would be great if we could get some more features on the LFO’s. For example have a LFO trigger a note, have a LFO re-trigger another LFO or note, be able to adress (retriggert) each of the 3LFO’s separately per track as a dedicated parameter/LFO destination) maybe even have audio levels (with a threshold) to be able to trigger the LFO…an envelope follower on the inputs that can trigger a LFO (with options to send a LFO re-trig or note trig with a gate from the set threshold on the envelope follower…even map the envelope follower to FX like filters etc)…and maybe even clock the LFO from the audio input and even advance/reset the LFO designer…more like a modular. Octatrack is a beast as is…but could use some love in the LFO department.

mastaman · 2021-05-05T17:25:14.569Z

yeah i need to test it more…test different waves (square was only had like 2 “shuffle” values…but it felt a little wonky (untight)…maybe using the “attenuator trick” with a low value LFO designer to get finer values on the depth it can get more usable) I have to test it more if it really is usable or to messy.

Schnork · 2021-05-06T12:43:43.698Z

mastaman:

i am also thinking about using 2 midi tracks to the same midi channel…do the “trigful trigs” on the second channel and the long variations with LFO designer+ARP on the first track…not sure if it will merge or what (i think i read one track will get prio).

For midi CC, the midi track with lower track number gets priority, if you have lfos mapped to the same parameter - so you can‘t directly mix lfos from different tracks.
You can have different lfos on two or more tracks and switch between them by muting/unmuting tracks, but when more than one track is active, only the lfo on the lowest track is output.

Note trigs and p-locking CCs works simultaneously on more than one track, although if you p-lock the same CC on the same step, again lower track number gets priority.

Seems you can have lfos on several tracks modulating the same note and arp parameters if you have note trigs on both tracks!

So lfos on two tracks modulating for example arp transpose actually works.

mastaman · 2021-05-06T21:36:33.157Z

Tank you for this info! I will investigate this. Interesting!

sigurdklem · 2023-01-31T16:54:45.168Z

This. I really want to be able to transpose patterns with OT and met the pattern lfo reset-wall like you are writing about. For now I am doing the sync trig to free manually you wrote about earlier in the thread, kind of works. Did you find another solution other than this more clunky one?

sezare56 · 2023-01-31T18:05:40.537Z

Welcome.

sigurdklem:

Did you find another solution other than this more clunky one?

Interesting! Thanks to revive it.
I didn’t know it, can’t remember a better solution to sync an lfo starting from the beginning of the pattern, longer than the pattern. @Autopoiesis ?

sigurdklem:

I really want to be able to transpose patterns with OT

Could you elaborate what you would like to achieve ?

sigurdklem · 2023-01-31T18:57:47.039Z

My ideal solution would be to MIDI transpose like the A4 could, a number of patterns simultaneously. I just found out that this kinda works if you put the MIDI arp of all tracks involved in the tune of your song, and then use arranger to transpose MIDI. Sounds good to me.

Before I solved this now I also met OPs problem with the lfo restarting every 64 steps when when trying to both sync and keep it going past 64 steps for longer pattern changes.