Pickup Erase? + Reset PUM?

I’m interested in hearing about your findings @pinup57 so keep posting them, I think the mkII might have some differences aside from the obvious from the mkI, I never really got into the PUM on my mkI but determined to get into them a bit more on the mkII.

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Ok, a last one: I checked this with the EXACT same settings as yours, and there is a bug allright like you described, but A/B and C/D inverted.

-Pressing c/d to define a loop and start playing: works as expected with the quantization like we defined earlier today, regardless of the QPL setting

-Pressing a/b to define a length and go into overdub results in the pickup recording changing length to your max mem allocation length is partially true and here the QPL setting DOES have an effect: it’ll stop at the next occurrence of the lenght defined in QPL, but it’ll then switch to maximum lenght, and yield a “dub aborted” error.

In many cases it’ll just plain stop: and the track icon will dissappear leaving a blank space. In all cases, once stopped, the position/lenght indicator (…/…) is totally off. At one point during my tests, without any correlation, the right-hand input monitor led of the rec3 lit up and stayed lit. Clearing the slot didn’t shut it off, hitting rec3 neither but it shut off when I confirmed the erase action initiated by hitting rec3.

I tried to figure out some pattern in this behaviour, I caught it on video, but for the life of me I didn’t see any logic and I will stop this here: I don’t use overdub that much anyway… I was a VST coder and have spent years as alpha and betatester for audio software, so I’m inclined to go in depth, but I must admit that I didn’t get an Octatrack to resume that career :wink:

EDIT: my take on this: the QPL value is conflicting with another parameter, probably overwriting a register. The QPL value should not interfere. So it’s very probably a (rather nasty) bug.

I know this is of not much interest for the other users that read this, I’ll might as well send this report to support, but at least it confirms the buggy behaviour you mentioned.

Let’s play some music. Cheers!

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Right on man, thanks…
I’ll check on mine to verify my inverse behavior next time I’m with my OT, probably a few days…
For now I think I’ll take a little break from this topic… :smile:
Music!

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I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to ask the community a question around the “erase” function in pickup machines, so it probably doesn’t merit another “pickup erase” thread.

Has anyone managed to trigger the pickup “erase” function over MIDI? I’m not seeing anything about pickup erase in the MIDI reference in the manual.

On the mk2, the erase function is on the REC3 button, when there’s a pickup machine assigned to the track, so I’ve tried sending MIDI notes for the SRC3 recording over auto channel with the pickup track active, hoping maybe the erase function was based on the context of having a pickup machine assigned, but of course that didn’t work. I’ve tried a few other things and so far no luck.

Does anyone know how to erase pickup audio over MIDI? If not this exact “erase” function, are there other ways to clear the buffer over MIDI? I have a pretty solid MIDI setup for flex machines, but I’m digging the pickup overdub lately.

It’s not a big deal to reach over and hit REC3 with my hand, but there are times I’m playing guitar and want to proactively erase one while still playing.

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I want to say there was something similar mentioned in another thread a few months ago with a similar functional limitation .
still looking for that other thread but this seems like it might interest you also:

DIY: OT Pickup Machine footswitch (now with final pics!) - Elektron Gear / Octatrack - Elektronauts

I found the other thread but it was regarding pressing the func button via midi, the advice was ultimately send OT an update via sysex while monitoring and see if you can get the initial string, then (in your instance) start poking around to see if you can identify whether or not the the REC3 button is accessible via a sysex message.

sezare56 posted this which might be initially useful if you want to go this route.

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Hi @lowph !,

did you by chance found any solution?
did anyone? even through RPN/NRPN o sysex

Welcome @onten.
On OT MKI, you have to press 2 times RECAB in order to be in Replace mode.

So I’d send 2 midi notes instead of 1.
20231203_101130

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I didn’t manage to trigger the erase over MIDI.

I haven’t tried @sezare56’s suggestion, but if I’m understanding correctly that doesn’t exactly trigger the “erase” over MIDI either – or does it?

It should. :wink:

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Yeah? Ok, I’ll try this. Do you send both MIDI notes simultaneously?

Seems better if you want to replace as soon as you send midi. I tried with midi loopback, 2 trigs, 2nd with -23 microtiming. It works visually, if the loop is already playing. If it’s stopped, it erases anyway. If you just want to clean the buffer it may be simpler…

Sending 2 consecutive notes should also work with Midi Plays Free tracks from OT, midi loopback.

I follow now. Yeah, my original question was about triggering the erase without replacing, so I could have a blank buffer. I’ve been reaching over and hitting REC3/erase with my hand, but was looking for a MIDI target to use my foot controller instead.

In general, I’ve really tried to make pickup machines work for me while playing guitar, but I’m having much better results with flex machines, starting recording buffers over MIDI with a foot controller. Maybe pickup machines are simply not for me.

@sezare56, you play guitar, right? Do you find yourself using pickups or flex more for sampling guitar?

What about stop, new record ?

Yep. Flex. What I can’t stand with Pickups is tempo change if I record 3 bars for instance. If you stop the sequencer, you have to play the Pickups one by one…
I’d use PUM with a defined length, for overdub, seamless loops, it is less clicky. Once recorded, you can switch to a Flex and benefit from trigs.

With midi I found a way to play a recording with Flex directly after recording end. Looped. Still clicky. I have to make more tests.

In live conditions I’d rather use something like an RC 505 as a looper; free and very long length. Use OT for sequenced audio mangling. Not there…

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Yeah, that works. I was mostly trying to do this without stopping.

I used the OT without pickup machines for the first few years and was totally happy without them. I think I’ve been trying to force PUMs into being guitar loopers, which they really are not. I’m getting pretty close to giving up on them.

Right! They’re nice for just jamming out and discovering interesting pieces of audio, but I don’t think I would play with them in front of anyone, because there’s no “safety net” against tempo changes, and it’s not easy to fully reset the state, even with a foot controller.

I think PUMs will just remain a “playground” for me, because I can’t do anything too predictable with them. That’s not a bad thing though… playgrounds are fun

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thanks @sezare56!

Your workaround kinda works for me but now I have to rethink the layout of my custom pedal :sweat_smile:.

I can understand that if you have a second track (B) watching to the PUM track’s recording, being able to clear the buffer at once is a need so the track (B) gets silent. At the beginning I was thinking of that.

Never thought about this either. I’ll check it.

Thanks to both :slight_smile:

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