Pick up machines conundrum

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

hey gang… I gave the pick up machines a new try and since I have never worked with any kind of looper I ended up with more questions than anything. I followed the tutorial and am getting an expected result but are also left with a tonne of questions how to proceed once I got loops I’m happy with. so I’ll start with a few questions:

am I right assuming once I hit stop that my loops are only available via the track trig(s)? I can’t add trigs on the pick ups itself if I wanted to restart with my MD in sync right?

what if I wanted to add sequenced effects to my loops? would I really have to sacrifice a neighbor track ?

sorry this is all rather diffuse as the whole concept kinda escapes me and I find this all somewhat cumbersome to use. So if anyone could chime in and describe their workflow with pick up machines I’d be very delighted.
I found only one thread on this forum which ended nowhere. so maybe this is a good occasion to start a little compendium.
many thanks!

EDIT: guess I shouldn’t have stopped reading when the pedal gets explained (I don’t own one):

“10.Set pedal 3 so it transmits MIDI note 71, an B note. This will sync the sequencer to the active Pickup machine and make the sequencer start playing once the synced loop starts over again.”

How could I do this without a pedal?

One bug and mea culpa
#2

Can´t really share any workflow yet, because I´m still into figuring it out for myself. However, some conclusions…

Regarding PickUp tracks: no, unfortunately you aren´t able to add trigs to your PickUp track. Depending on what you want to achieve though, there perhaps are some possible workarounds. May depend on external gear too, though…

Regarding Neighbour track, I guess that would be the easiest way adding sequenced effects to your PickUp track. But then they ARE truly independent of each other when it comes to the sequencer controlling the effects. But if you´re out of tracks, it might be possible to use an LFO with custom waveform (= LFO designer) assigned to the effect parameters you want to control? I haven´t tried this myself, so it might be something that I´ve missed. However, I guess that all this depends on what you´re trying to achieve sequence-wise with your effects.

Regarding PickUp Sync: on page 56-57 in the manual you´re able to read about necessary button (combo) presses to achieve the same behaviour. However, the result are depending on if the sequencer is running or not.

#3

thanks very much! I wonder how I missed that. guess I will need to experiment further and find out how to incorporate pick ups with my set up.
thanks for your help

#4

[quote="“tasmansea”"]

thanks very much! I wonder how I missed that. guess I will need to experiment further and find out how to incorporate pick ups with my set up.
thanks for your help[/quote]
No problem, some things are a bit scattered in the manual and some things are “low profile”.
I was pretty sure it would be in there somewhere, and I knew what to look for as well (I guess it´s a little bit easier then)…

However, I accidently found out something yesterday that I weren´t aware of earlier. Regarding the PickUp track and no possibility to put trigs on it: it seems that you actually CAN put trigs on it.

BUT it seems that it will behave as overdubs (which somehow makes sense in a way). I´m not sure if it works “standalone”, or if it´s an sideeffect of that I had an second track working with the same recorder buffer at the same time. That said, I´m also not sure if this is considered normal behaviour regarding the PickUp track. Or if it is an “bug” or perhaps just a “secret backdoor/workaround”.

Also, it would only work if I had the PickUp track active which makes sense too. But at least they started of at the same time. PickUp Sync (activation/de-activation) could then be applied at will at any time…

#5

Not in my experience. If you had the sequencer running when you hit Stop, when you hit Play, any loops you had playing on any Pickup Machine track will resume playing, without you having to add a trig to the Pickup Machine track.

By default, the sequencer will sync to the Master Pickup Machine if you had the Pickup Machine already looping before you start the sequencer. No pedal required. If you don’t want the sync, then you have to change a config setting (I forget exactly which, and where).

#6

It’s been my experience that having a pickup machine already looping before starting the sequencer will not by default result in the sequencer syncing to the master pickup machine. If my loop is nice and tight, and I start the sequencer, everything generally stays in time, but pressing the pickup machine track button + tempo (before starting the sequencer) then hitting play will start the sequencer on the next iteration of the loop as well as make it sync even tighter and the screen will flash that pickup machine sync is now initiated. But again, if there’s a default setting, that’s cool since it avoids having to sync manually or with a pedal CC. I’ll have to check that out.

#7

thanks everyone! (some)stuff makes a lot more sense now and your pointers have been really helpful. sometimes I wish the manual wasn’t as scattered. It’s all in there though.

what still bugs me is that the tempo, detected by the OT, is always double time (i.e. my 75bpm loop is set to 150bpm) - which is probably due to me not playing very accurate. I know how to work around, but wish I didn’t need to.

It also would be very cool to be able to sequence effects on the pick up track itself which would allow some cool poly rhythm with only one track since sequencer and recorded loop are detached anyway. these trigs could (or would have to) be trigless by default.

I hope elektron is planning on giving the pick ups some more attention again and give them a bit of an overhaul (it should be possible to set the length of slave machines to X0.5 or X0.25 for instance)

maybe I can craft a bit more precise scenario and might have to bug you with more questions then… right know I’m just dabbling and trying to figure out how I could get my set up more “playable”…
cheers again for your help

#8

… oh and also… ELEKTRON? pretty please? wouldn’t that be a great point to introduce threshold based sampling? I can see it’d be difficult to implement in the sequenced environment - but for the pick ups it would be the shizzle …

what you reckon?

#9

sorry for the spam chaps,
I have it now pretty much the way I’d like it to have - however the OT tempo detection seems the biggest hurdle:

I’m using a metronome (old fashioned) set to 76 bpm.
now I record 3 chord stabs with a long reverb tail. 2 bars each
after the end of the sixth bar I press the 2nd record button and playback starts
it’s playing along the metronome nicely and accurate enough for my needs
now I tempo sync to the pickup machine (track+tempo) and the OT (pretty consistently) tempo is set to 102 bpm (+/- 1 beat) depending how accurate I play
for what I’m trying to do, I need to use the pick up sync as I’d like my MD to start after a few runs. funny enough it kicks in exactly when I want it but since it’s set to the wrong tempo it doesn’t make any sense musically. and also if I force the OT to the desired 76bpm it starts to retime my loop completely needlessly (and introduce artefacts)… and of course the sequencer doesnt start in sync unless i start it in sync manually - which I don’t want to rely on)

any ideas? please help. cheers!

EDIT: after practicing to play it tightly alongside the metronome I can get the OT to consistently mis-guess the tempo at exactly 101.5bpm. very annoying. hope anyone can chime in

#10

ok - so finally i narrowed it down to something concrete (and hopefully easier to comment on) - rather than just me exposing that I don’t know what I’m doing:

If I record 6 bars @76bpm the OT recognizes it as 8 bar @~101.5bpm (due to inaccuracy in my playing)
If I record 8 bars @76bpm the OT recognizes it as 16 bar @152bpm

…both are multiples of what I intend to do and I can correct this glitch free AFTER activating pick up sync by going into the audio editor and changing the attributes. can anyone think of a way to avoid this detour?

#11

Korg ESX does threshold based sampling nicely, and that’s a sequenced environment. Not sure why the OT doesn’t have this…I would love to see this in an update.

#12

Not in my experience. If you had the sequencer running when you hit Stop, when you hit Play, any loops you had playing on any Pickup Machine track will resume playing, without you having to add a trig to the Pickup Machine track.[/quote]

my incomprehension carries on:
does this work for you on all pick up machines?
if I hit stop after having the sequencer running and then play again only my master machine would start playing and not my slave machine. is that a bug? or does it work for you?

#13

Not in my experience. If you had the sequencer running when you hit Stop, when you hit Play, any loops you had playing on any Pickup Machine track will resume playing, without you having to add a trig to the Pickup Machine track.[/quote]

my incomprehension carries on:
does this work for you on all pick up machines?
if I hit stop after having the sequencer running and then play again only my master machine would start playing and not my slave machine. is that a bug? or does it work for you?[/quote]
I’ve had bad luck trying to post responses to this thread due to timeout from the website, but I’ll try again…

Yes, both my master and slave pickup machines stop playing when I hit Stop on the sequencer, and both resume playing when I hit Play. I am using OS 1.25. Are you using the same or the 1.25b?

#14

thanks for your response GovernorSilver!
I’m on OS 1.25 too. I followed the instructions in the manual numerous times an am getting an expected result (besides the tempo issues described above).
After syncing to my master loop I hit play and the sequencer starts in nicely after completing the loop.
However - once I hit stop and then play again only my master loop starts and the slave(s) remain silent. I can trig them manually and they start in sync - but not by pressing play. (as indicated by the little symbol which shows a square).

Is there anything I need to prep for the slaves to behave the way you’re seeing it? I wonder what I’m missing. cheers!

#15

thanks for your response GovernorSilver!
I’m on OS 1.25 too. I followed the instructions in the manual numerous times an am getting an expected result (besides the tempo issues described above).
After syncing to my master loop I hit play and the sequencer starts in nicely after completing the loop.
However - once I hit stop and then play again only my master loop starts and the slave(s) remain silent. I can trig them manually and they start in sync - but not by pressing play. (as indicated by the little symbol which shows a square).

Is there anything I need to prep for the slaves to behave the way you’re seeing it? I wonder what I’m missing. cheers!
[/quote]
That is weird. I have never experienced this problem with the slave pickup machine failing to start upon restart of the sequencer. I don’t know what to suggest at this point other than to try creating a fresh new Project. If you still experience the same issue, make sure you are not seeing an error message like “Dub Rec Aborted” or “Rec Mem Full” in the LCD screen.

If that still doesn’t work, report the issue to Elektron support.

#16

Korg ESX does threshold based sampling nicely, and that’s a sequenced environment. Not sure why the OT doesn’t have this…I would love to see this in an update.[/quote]
my old akai s950 did this. was helluva useful if whatever you were trying to sample was the other side of the studio.

1 Like
#17

thanks Governor, I have yet to try with a fresh project (been only trying fresh banks for now). I will get in touch with support if it persists.

here is the outcome of my looper efforts btw. - more or less recorded live:

#18

thanks Governor, I have yet to try with a fresh project (been only trying fresh banks for now). I will get in touch with support if it persists.

here is the outcome of my looper efforts btw. - more or less recorded live:
https://soundcloud.com/tasmansea/novunder[/quote]
I noticed this occurring with my pickup machines as well. I’m on OS 1.25b. I’ll try later today to see if the problem recurs.

#19

thanks for chiming in Lazos,
would be cool if you could report your findings when you get to check again.
it’s driving me nuts as I don’t know what I could be doing wrong
chur!

#20

Yep, so pickup machines continue to behave in this fashion for me (OS 1.25b): Two separate pickup machines synced to the sequencer with programmed beat playing. Stopping and restarting the sequencer results in only the master pickup restarting. I’ll write a support ticket today.