No biggie…
Glad your getting along with the OT…
I’m taking a survey, it can either make ya or break ya!
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Youtube lectures from Cuckoo music and HaultioN.
So, using the Thru machine with external effects is pretty cool, right? Cue’d tracks etc… It took a minute to work out that you have to trigger the track to get audio in! RTFM, right?
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I’m just starting on the Octatrack MkII myself. Here are three things I find very important while not being very intuitive:
If you inadvertently use a clear or paste command, repeating the command will undo the harm. You have to do this before you press any other key, though, otherwise the change will be permanent.
All changes to projects are stored while you are tinkering. The OT keeps two versions of projects, one that has been explicitly stored (either by you or when changing to another project) and your current state of tinkering. “Reload” clears the tinkering and reloads the explicitly stored state.
In contrast, samples you have recorded are not stored automatically, even if you explicitly store your project! Make sure you save every single recording before you switch off the OT (or change the project) or they will be gone. In addition, recording on the same buffer will overwrite your old recording, so save, save, save!
Have fun (I certainly do)… 
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That is solid advice on the sampling. I found out the hard way the first time I recorded some audio…
Hey guys! I’m into week 2 of the OT…
I’ve been exploring the pickup machine tonight. It seems pretty logical once you have it set up. I’m struggling a little with the record length vs the length of patterns…are the two concepts related?
Also: I kept getting ‘Overdub aborted’ as an error after every loop. Any ideas on why that happens? I got to a point and it told me ‘out of record memory’ but I couldn’t find a menu setting to extend it; there was only a sad face in the flex sample selector!
Still, it’s a hell of a machine. I can definitely see - with more time and practice - how it’s going to fit into my live setup with the guitar looper and pedals.
Rlen for recording is not directly related to pattern length…
Settings from 1 to 64 always yield a recording of that many steps, unless manually defined shorter.
A max setting allows for greater length but then the length must be defined manually.
Look into One2 mode for pickups, this allows you to manually set the recorder length and enter either overdub or playback. In this mode qrec quantizes going into overdub (pressing rec1) and qpl quantizes going straight to playback (pressing rec2)… Qrec and qpl can be set to plen(pattern length) for pattern length quantization.
For example a 64 step pattern with rlen max, one2 mode, and qrec and qpl set to plen:
Your sequencer is going and you press rec1 to record, since qrec is set to plen your recording will start on the next pattern cycle.
During the recording pattern cycle if you press rec1 your pickup will go into overdub on the next pattern cycle, again according to qrec being set to plen.
If you were instead to have pressed rec2 during the recording, the pickup will go straight to playback on the next pattern cycle, this time because of qpl set to plen.
Both cases give you a 64 step loop because you manually entered a quantized overdub or playback command during the first pattern cycle. If you were to instead press rec1 or rec2 during the second pattern cycle of recording, you would end up going into overdub or playback after a total of 128 steps, 2 pattern lenghts following plen quantization…
Dub Aborted will happen if the pitch or rate is not at default for a pickup machine or if the OT is being midi slaved. Lfos and scenes may be targeting pitch or rate and therefore can also lead to Dub Abort. Note for the future that there are ways to use flex setups to overdub over pitch-shifted material, or when midi slaved.
Check out the memory config, it allows you to reserve a minimum amount of tracks and recorder lengths so you can always sample. This is very useful, but also reserving too many tracks and time can waste memory. Dynamic recorders let all the available memory be used for recordings, but if you let one run it will eventually max out… Currently there is a bug where you need to power cycle after changing mem config, or save your project before and reload after, otherwise you don’t hear anything!
Have fun!
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