not sure why things have to be ‘fun’. … the rewards of production arent based on fun for me… id be more concerned with technical ability through working hard on a machine to get the best results.
You don’t need QREC to function with reg trigs to achieve what you want to achieve.
Place a one-shot reg trig on step 1 of your loop, set the recorder’s recording length to the length of your pattern. Now you can “arm” that reg trig at any point in your loop (TRK + YES), only when the sequencer comes around to step 1 the recording will start and will continue until the end of the loop (important: make sure it’s a one-shot reg trig (SHIFT + Trig while you have the Recorder Setup 1 or 2 open), as otherwise the Octatrack will record/overwrite your loop every time it hits step 1 until you disarm the track again. You overcome this with one-shot trigs, they trigger recording once and then need to be rearmed).
If you wanna playback right after looping, just place a playback trig on step 1 as well.
If you have this setup (on a flex), you’ll “overwrite” your loop every time you record. If you instead want to overdub, set up the rec trig to record from your desired input + the track itself (eg if you are recording and playing back on track 6, you’d set the source of recording to Input A (or whichever input your guitar is going into) and Track 6).
I prefer this over pickup machines as I can mangle what I record easily.
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Not sure why things have to be productive…
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Yes rec trigs don’t take QREC in account, which is logical.
A one shot rec trig at the beginning of the pattern and a manual recording with QREC = PLEN behave similarly once armed/started.
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sure why do anything…
enjoyment rather than productivity? Oh no wait - if it wasn’t mixed, mastered and released, it didn’t happen 
Ah, capitalism.
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Because I’ve already done all the capitalism stuff (go look me up on Apple Music or whatever you stream with- I’ve done the whole “trying to make it thing”). It has to be fun because once I get it working how I want, it totally relaxes me.
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Any midi foot switch you recommend? I have owned the big old behringer one from years ago (can’t remember the name), logidy UMI3, and and the apogee midi pedal and they were all pretty crappy.
How about a new Behringe footswitch?
I don’t recommend the FCB1010. Limited and boring to setup even with an alternative firmware. I have a Yamaha MFC10 and a Roland FC200.
Morningstar MC6/MC8 products,
or DIY Arduino !
Does your Akai have footswitches with midi send possibilities?
Oh - there is an alternative firmware? That’s interesting. I’ll put it on the list 
This MPC is the newer Live 2 so there are no foot switch inputs like the older ones. However, there are usb host inputs and my Logidy midi pedal is usb. That might be an option, or my iConnectAUDIO4+ has midi host capability (I run it in standalone mode as a mixer since octatrack has a rough time connecting straight to my monitors- it’s way too loud and if I turn the master down, it affects the headphone volume). I will research your suggestions and also see if it can be done using the pedal I already have. I owned the FCB1010 at one point and kind of hated it. I’m gonna take a break from asking questions and go make some music.
Really weird midi choices. Can suit a few setups but not versatile at all.
Same from answering.
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I mean… I guess if you’re just looking for end goals and you get to charge people by the hour, buy the more complex thing that takes longer to get to your result. I didn’t get into music for results though, I got into it to have fun.
I get @Peats_Artificial’s point though, that it’s OK if some parts of music production suck (f*ck, I hate mixing…). but if your primary instrument sucks to work with, what’s the point? I don’t want to finish writing a song and go: “thank god that’s over. it sounds great, but I hated every second of it.” and THEN you get to record it…
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i have fun too. its not all academic… i mainly think of fun as enjoyment after learning something inside out… the bit about being ‘bored’ with an octatrack just didnt make sense to me thats all. i was tired and shouldnt have added a comment
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I heard someone in this thread might benefit from the OT Flex looping doc I made not long ago:
I made this when I was trying to decide which path to take with OT as a looper of other gear (ultimately I chose the flex/thru track only route, not the pickup route). So many settings, so easy to miss one, so I use them like checklists.
If it helps , download it or bookmark this post. 
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I’ve been using a Morningstar MC6 with the Octatrack for about a year now, worth every penny. MC8 would probably be overkill, at least for my purposes.
I was just looking at those. Having trouble finding one for sale. Looks promising though. Edit: their website shop page wasn’t working at the time. Now it is. Yay!
Thank you
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I’m kind of digging the MC3