Octatrack slots and slicing/mangling the same sample in different machines

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

I have a question about what happens in machine slots:

Say I have a sample (let’s say it’s 16 steps, or one bar, long) in a flex on track 1. I use a trig to play the sample in A01. The sample is in flex slot 1.

Then, in A02, I slice the same sample, still on track one, and assign random locks.

If I go back to A01, the full sample no longer plays. I know I can work around this by setting the play length to 16.

But I also find that if I load the same sample (flex slot 1) into a different machine, then it is also sliced up. It’s as if my slices have been saved to the sample, and not in the flex track (even though I haven’t told the OT to save sample settings).

How do you work around this. Load the same sample into another slot? I’d like to be able to use the same sample sliced differently in several flex machines.

#2

Afaik the slicing is part of the sample slot. You can slice the same sample differently in separate slots.

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#3

That’s what I’d do. If it gets to the point where it’s taking up too many tracks (like if you want it sliced four different ways or something) then I would just resample the track itself how you want it, load that to another flex slot, and sample lock track 1 depending on the pattern.

Or maybe even just sample lock to begin with…

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#4

The slots are global… Whatever sample is in slot 1 and however it is sliced it will be exactly the same in any pattern/part you try to access slot 1 with… Once you’ve loaded a sample to a slot don’t change the sample in that slot or it will change in any pattern part that’s using slot 1. If you want the same sample sliced differently load it to slot 2 and slice it there. If you want you could load the same sample to all 128 slots and slice them all differently and have different trim and attributes, etc…

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#5

Also parts hold the edit page settings so if you want different settings on the next pattern like different “strt” or “len” values you have to use another part, or you can use pattern level plocks to override the current parts settings on a per pattern basis…

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#6

Ok, so slices are saved in the slot, not in the machine? Now it makes more sense.

Here’s the specific task I’m trying to do as efficiently as possible. I have a sample a guitar chord progression. I want to play those chords normally, and then make a sliced and mangled version of each of them.

I can manually slice and p-lock the four chords to do the former.

Then I used the TRIM page to set start and stop on the first chord, and applied a slice grid to that chord. I mangled it, and then moved onto the next chord.

I’ve been resampling the results of the mangling, before moving on.

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#7

That sounds fine to me.

What I would do in your situation is have four additional samples loaded to the flex slots, one for each chord. Then, mangle/create slice grids for each chord and just sample lock the different sample depending on the pattern. So this way you’ll be using two machines to do all these guitar duties. One for the regular progression, one for the mangled, sample-locking progression.

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#8

That makes a lot of sense. I’ve been trying to squeeze it all into one track, which has probably made it all take five times as long.

#9

Do you need to slice the original loop of chords or can it be played from start to finish?
If the latter- then turn off slice via the playback setup page for A01 , then on pattern A02 assign part two with slice switched on, using only one track.

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#10

You can also use the same part with slic turned on and plock “strt” 1 and “len” 127 on pattern one to play the entire sample, and on pattern 2 just use normal slice locks.

I imagine there’s at least a half a dozen ways to do what OP is after, probably more. The approach kinda depends on whatever other type of general workflow has been and will be used to make the tune. There’s a lot of ways to do things on the OT…

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#11

Don’t forget the .ot file associated with the sample on the CF card*. It is updated or created when you use the FILE > SAVE SAMPLE SETTINGS function. When you load a sample in a slot, it loads these settings, if the .ot file is in the same folder. You can change settings, they are memorised in the slot.

Sample.wav
Sample.ot*

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#12

That’s why I was confused. I didn’t save the settings manually, so I thought that the slices wouldn’t be saved at all.

This is exactly what I did.

I guess what I was looking for was a way to use the sample sample “chain” (I’m counting the chord progression as a chain) as a source for both the regular chord playback, and for the mangled slice grid. I think it might be easier to use up a couple of extra slots.

Interestingly, I was doing the slicing in Part 2, which affected the patterns using Part 1, as they shred the same sample slots. Hitting PART RELOAD on Part 1 reset the slicing I’d done in Part 2.

That’s very handy.

#13

Nice!!

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#14

I’m curious about this but don’t have my OT for testing… More so about further implications like if you save part 2 after slicing differently and reload that, and other related scenarios… The slots are global, but I want to see exactly how the parts relate to them? :thinking:

I think I’ll get my OT soon though, maybe today. :slight_smile:

#15

Are you sure it actually reset the slicing? Or could it have pointed back to a different slot that was saved before changing it later or maybe the slices are there but slic and other parameters were reset so the slices just didn’t play?

I didn’t think part reload would reset the actual slice grid. Like the manual says above “information about which…slot” I thought it just pointed to the slot but didn’t contain the data content of the slot…

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#16

Working on slices in Part 2 definitely screwed up the existing tracks in Part 1 that used the same slot. I’m not sure exactly what was going on, but the result was that the original slice pattern in Part 1 sounded completely different.

The rhythm was the same, as the trigs hadn’t changed. But the melody of the slices was off.

As I said, a part reload (part 1) fixed it immediately.

I’m not sure how this happened though. I shall do further testing in the morning and report back.

#17

Parts can change Playback Setup and Slice mode.

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#18

Tried this today - samples in slots for pattern A01, part 1. Switched to new pattern 09, part 3, changed the samples to different slots and had fun. Switched back to A01 and the samples stayed from part 3, which was disappointing. Reloading made no difference.
I did copy the pattern from A01 to A09 but didn’t expect that would copy the samples slots.

#19

Same slots? I don’t understand what you meant to do.

With the same sample on different slots you can have different slices settings, whatever the parts / patterns are. Same for Trim / Attributes.

Slices does not need not be linked to samples, the default behavior is for them is instead to be linked to sample slots.

I’m not sure that is very clear in that sentence in the manual.

It is therefore possible to load the same sample to two separate sample slots and slice them in completely different ways. Slice point information will, unless linked to the sample by using the save commands of the FILE menu, be lost when assigning a new sample to the sample slot location the sliced sample resides in.

#20

The circle of questioning begins again… :smile:

Are your 2 parts pointing at the same slots?
Pointing to and working with different slots in a second part won’t affect the first part, pointing at the same slot#'s as the first part and changing things in those slots will affect both parts…