I just lost an hour of my life, and couldn’t find a similar thread here. Hoping to save the next soul and make this discoverable.
TL;DR: it looked like my flex track was recording very quiet. Spoiler alert: it was user error plus a very confusing Octatrack behaviour.
I set up a flex track to record loops from another track (a thru originally but it doesn’t matter). Rec1 setup source to the right SRC3 input, quantised recording and playback. When hitting record, I can see a waveform for my flex’s AED, but it’s incredibly quiet. Inaudible unless I crank gain, filter distortion, etc. I can hear the source just fine when it plays, I can see the waveform refresh every time I record my flex, but I can barely hear the recording. Fresh project, no FX, no scene, AMP page as expected, record another static track rather than thru, the whole debugging experience, hair pulling included.
Turns out, I was hitting REC1 rather than REC3 as one should for recording another track. But somehow some audio still bleeds from recording A/B by hitting REC1, giving the illusion that the recording setup is good, while I am literally recording the wrong input.
I am pretty sure this happened to me more than once.
Testimony?
Bleeding wtf recordings reports is quite common if wrong source is recorded.
INAB INCD inputs can bleed to each other, or even add unwanted noise if nothing is connected, especially if their Gain is maxed in Mixer.
If you want to record INAB only, INCD can bleed in, and vice versa.
If you record an internal source with SRC3 there shouldn’t have such bleeding, unless SRC3 records something playing inputs.
(If you record Track 1 Flex, SRC3 = T1 as only recording source, INAB INCD disabled , no bleeding)
This can be annoying, but you may want to record noise and add pure OT inputs noise intendedly. I use it with comb filters.
(With rec trigs, unwanted INAB INCD sources have to be disabled to avoid noise.)
Sorry I went too far…
You’re lucky if its the only one…
I’ve lost years for different reasons.
MIX was untouched: everything at 0. INAB and INCD also at 0, only the wrong REC button press pointing at the wrong recording source. The bleeding happened whether I was recording a thru or a static track. It included the effect from the recorded track.
The bleeding is very faint: you can’t hear anything unless you crank up gain and filter distortion, which I only did because I could see waveforms in the AED.
Sources INAB and INCD are -, SRC3 is T1 which is the thru / static track I am recording. So the silence is not so much silence.
But! Your question made me wonder: what if SRC3 is also -? And it turns out that in that case, pressing any REC1/2/3 indeed records silence. In other words SRC3 needs to point to something for the bleeding to happen, if all sources are shut then the track input is really shut.
Speculative reverse engineering: the complete mute is implemented at the input of the recording track, and only enabled when all sources are disabled. If at least one source is enabled, this mute is not on, and they rely instead on imperfect but flexible gain reduction from sources to track inputs that bleed through.
