Octatrack Arranger crash using looper

Buad · 2023-02-18T15:14:41.678Z

I was working on the idea of using the arranger to perform a Dj set. I have a 3 or so minute song on each track set as a static machine. Then I set up the arranger to loop a 64 step pattern with the song from say from track 1 with the trig as a one shot trig, and the loop is set to loop 40 times to cover the playback time of the song.

Then I set up pattern 2 the same way. It was as I started to set up pattern 3 that the problems came in. At first I had the arranger set up with all 256 rows programmed on it just to have them ready for when I would get it more set up for a set.

So as I put pattern 3 on loop it started to become non-responsive. The number of loops icon was delayed as I turned the encoder. It would just randomly catch up and it was delayed trying to adjust it to the number of loops I wanted.

And then soon after as I went to set up the 2nd pattern with the one shot trig that the OT completely froze up. I waited a few minutes to give it some time to adjust or catch up, but it was locked up. I had to reboot it with the CF card removed as I tried to reboot it 3 times and when the loading status bar came up it would get to just the last little smidge before being full and freeze.

I was reluctant to reload the project once I figured out how to get the OT to load something else, booting it without the CF card & putting it in afterward. I did reload it, removed all the additional rows so that it is just the 3 looped patterns, and it still was delayed in response to adjusting the 3rd pattern’s loop setting.

I’m thinking that it has something to do with the memory/RAM, like maybe I am overloading it having 8 songs as static machines perhaps, but I really don’t know so if anyone has any ideas on how I could work around this or if it’s just a bug, as I read in the other topics on issues with the Arranger that people thought the tempo per pattern feature was causing some problems? Thanks to anyone who has some advice or experience with this.

Karl_Joseph · 2023-02-18T15:31:27.165Z

There is a weird bug with row 2 of the arranger… if you look around the site your see it mentioned. I think it’s related to pattern BPM or something. I think I’ve managed to avoid said bug by adding a few rows past the second row and then just going back to the second row to make the changes.

sezare56 · 2023-02-18T15:35:46.440Z

Karl_Joseph:

weird bug with row 2 of the arranger

If you have a thread link please…

Buad:

some advice

Hard to tell. I’d rather use 1st trig condition instead of one shots you have to arm again. Btw how do you proceed to arm each song ?

Karl_Joseph · 2023-02-18T15:38:09.172Z

Octatrack freezes in arranger mode Octatrack

Hello. I have an issue where the Octatrack freezes when I enter arranger mode. About a year ago, this was happening so much that I just gave up and never used arranger mode. Then there was an intermittent period of about 3-5 months where the issue resolved and the arranger mode worked totally fine. Have no idea why. I made multiple arrangements and had no issue with freezing. Suddenly I am getting the freezing issue again. I just purged a ton of files in case it was a card thing but I see no c…

sezare56 · 2023-02-18T15:41:49.708Z

Karl_Joseph:

weird bug with row 2 of the arranger

I couldn’t find it in above thread. And op uses a pretty old OS (1.25).

Karl_Joseph · 2023-02-18T15:44:32.012Z

There was another thread I participated in (that I can’t find now) where it was deduced (if I recall correctly) that addding the second row and then changing the tempo or switching between pattern and global tempo on row 2 was crashing the device. Sorry I couldn’t find that thread… or perhaps I dreamt the whole thing. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to try adding a bunch of rows (and probably save the project) and then come back and make adjustments to row 2… I’m curious if that work around works for the OP as that’s what I’ve been doing and haven’t had an arranger crash since… but it’s also been a while since I’ve used the arranger.

Karl_Joseph · 2023-02-18T15:47:49.416Z

Found it:

A two line arrangement to crash yr OT Octatrack

Been discussing the arranger a bit over in the OT feature request threads and while exploring it as a means to get better muting behaviour/other performance options I ran into multiple crashes. [image] If anyone wants to try the following 2 line arrangement on a fresh project (no samples or patterns needed)… [image] (Where B column setting is ‘pattern’ rather than a numerical tempo. The patterns can be any bank above A) On my OT it crashes with the on-screen error when switching to the se…

Karl_Joseph · 2023-02-18T15:51:54.070Z

Yup… that’s right, manually setting BPM.

DO NOT SET COLUMN B TO PATTERN IN ROW 2 ! ! !

Lol

I hope this helps.

sezare56 · 2023-02-18T16:03:55.723Z

Karl_Joseph:

DO NOT SET COLUMN B TO PATTERN IN ROW 2 ! ! !

I doubt this bug is specific to row 2. (Adding a different tempo on a different row can be the cause).

Buad · 2023-02-18T16:22:28.536Z

Thanks in general for your guys help to figure this out. I thought to use the one shot trig since the pattern was going to be looping and didn’t really think of using some other trig. I figured I only needed it to trigger the once and then I would not be replaying the said song again in the set. I’m pretty much just exploring the use of the arranger as I have only started getting into it with this idea in mind so if a different trig type would be better I’m up for anything.

I was thinking of even putting together longer samples/tracks in which I would have, I think it’s 64 slices you can have in a sample right? And just put like 63-64 songs as one sample in track 1 & 5 and then just slice them up & playback slices more on the fly. But I thought if I could just use the Arranger I could have more at my disposal and have a preconfigured set ready to go and if say as in a wedding reception situation I could take requests playing the tracks from slices in the moment.

So this was just what I started with but if I could say have the 128 sample slots with each sample being the collective of songs sliced up I could have a more live playback say on one or two tracks set to loop two patterns on the arranger and just throw in trigs to play the slice points for whatever song I want to playback.

Buad · 2023-02-18T23:30:07.737Z

I think I figured out what I did wrong. I was setting the patterns to ‘loop’ and I didn’t properly ‘nest’ them. So I think it was potentially doing something that was glitching it as a result. I just set the patterns to repeat instead and dropped the loop command altogether.

sezare56 · 2023-02-19T00:08:00.398Z

Buad:

I think it’s 64 slices you can have in a sample right?

Yes 64 slices max, but with equal length slices you can use 128 Start points, with Length 1.

Buad:

And just put like 63-64 songs as one sample

AUF · 2024-01-08T16:29:55.273Z

Hi how do you nest an arrangement loop? I saw this mentioned in the manual on pg88 but it isn’t explained or followed up as far as I can see. Cheers!

sezare56 · 2024-01-08T17:00:10.078Z

Welcome @AUF

AUF:

arrangement loop?

You just have to select the right target rows and the number if loops if you want to nest loops. No need more explanation imho.
A loop can be in the middle of another one. Just select right rows.

If you don’t succed, please detail what do you want to achieve.

AUF · 2024-01-08T18:22:31.345Z

Hey @sezare56 thanks for the welcome.

I thought “nesting” would collapse all the rows in the loop so you would just see the loop row and not all the constituent ones. Just for tidiness really. I’m used to the term nesting in video editing where it collapses multiple video layers into one. I guess I could save each loop as a separate arrangement and then chain them (if I wanted tidiness).

I’ve had my OT for a couple of months and I’m loving the arranger, it’s like having a hardware tracker - my dream would be to record arrangements where I’ve done loads of 2 step/4step rows on one audio track (using the good old sliced amen break at the mo) into a new audio track pattern but I don’t think that’s possible. Not as audio I mean but as trigs.

Shredrr · 2024-01-08T20:19:13.151Z

just for the record, OT Arranger even in version 1.40B allows to create more ROW’s than the arranger file can actually hold on to which has a max of 256 rows reserved. What if you reach row 256, depending on what is read first it might be possible it becomes technically row 0 (“last active row index datafield” is an uint8 - unsigned integer 8bit - value, adding 1 would flip back to 0 when set to 256 because the range is 0 to 255). So creating 256 rows already messes around with the internal memory (hello Elektron, ya forgot to check max row value on dublicating ‘arrow-down’, it sometime warns then it does not, boom! - the active row field points to something ~~random~~ unexpected). As long no row is erased, the arrangement reloaded and like-like action I doubt the whole arrangement memory [structure] is re-evaluated, so the buggy numbers swirl around and do all kinds of weirdo stuff. For users: be careful when you create maximum rows and double check it works fine, if ya need more rows it is intentionally allowed to create an arrangement chain with another file (memory) following the first.

Imagine you created 256 rows, the last index points to 256+1 == 257 = index 1 in unsigned integer 8bit, now your visible row 2 is invalid, it actually tries to read who knows what… uncanny valley.

ps: Regarding the “bank unavailable” bug … what if… two scenarios…

the wrong index now points to an invalid memory like, lets say pattern 256-1, which would be P15 but there is nothing so display and memory do not match, you experience the bug. or…
it actually tries to play pattern C02 but there is no pattern 02 in bank C and therefore also no pattern tempo, now it would try to calculate which tempo to apply (project tempo, pattern tempo or anything different set from arranger) and fail cause there is nothing to calculate on… (the “unused” flag is in the way, or no fallback available)

maybe even others scenarios… but that it is particular happening with row 2 is very symptomatic for an index-error and using an 8bit data field there are not much scenarios that allow such bugs.
ps: and i could be entirely wrong as well…

sezare56 · 2024-01-08T21:14:08.154Z

AUF:

I guess I could save each loop as a separate arrangement and then chain them (if I wanted tidiness).

I found arrangement chaining not practical but why not.
No collapse.

AUF:

my dream would be to record arrangements where I’ve done loads of 2 step/4step rows on one audio track (using the good old sliced amen break at the mo) into a new audio track pattern but I don’t think that’s possible

Possible if you control your audio tracks with midi tracks.
Record on external sequencer.
Complicated for sure.

I also worked on 2 steps pattern arrangements. Different part/fx each 2 steps. Scenes + crossfader. Fun.