Hi there, I came back here after a couple of years, my Octatrack was shelved for a while but a couple of days ago I brought it out because I needed a looper. In 2019 I had shared a tutorial on how to use flex instead of the pickup machines that were way to unpredictable for my taste. But there were some shortcomings (especially keeping sync ove a long time, and also using multiple tracks at different meters).
So I spent a couple of days experimenting, and produced an updated version. This one works really great and I’m having a blast improvising stuff. (I’m a guitar player, primarily, so I need pedals because I don’t have much free time “on my hands”. The tutorial descibes how to set up a modern midi footcontroller to create a multitrack looper with different loop lengths. I use a MidiCaptain from PaintAudio. You need to be able to send multiple midi commands at a single press. The MidiCaptain can do that, and also can issue different sets of midi message at each subsequent press. This is great for this kind of set-up.
I hope the pdf will upload, I tried through the file manager but it didn’t work…
Cheers
Dirk PickUp Machine with Flex V2-2026.pdf (342.7 KB)
For live looping (at a gig I mean) I have this simple setup: MidiCaptain out=>OT in; OT Out=> MidiCaptain in; OT thru=> whatever else the MidiCaptain is commanding. Midi Thru is enabled on the MidiCaptain which creates the required midiloopback. I don’t have any midi feedback loop (not the same thing!) problem because the audiotracks are blocking the miditracks (that are on the same channel) from receiving data.
For studio work I connect everything with a ICM4+ midi router.
It sure is one of the most capable controllers on the market. As long as you can layer midi commands per switch, you’re fine. For a 4-track looper you need to be able to layer 3 (the essentials) +4 (one for each track) =7 commands. I took a look at the manual, and you can certainly do that (it’s called a “Switch Preset”).
Required to control midi tracks ?
Sorry but it is really hard for me to read the pdf on my smartphone.
Could you sum up here ?
Do loops play just at the end of recording ? Overdub possible ?
Need to select active track ?
Possible to use with active track only ? (To limit necessary controls)
Required for midi tracks to control the audio tracks
We can initiate recording into a recording buffer assigned to a flex machine by sending a note #60 (or CC59 val 60). What a flex machine does NOT do, is play and loop the recorder buffer when we stop the recording. It will not quantize the recording end either unless we define a fixed length beforehand.
So the idea is to use a miditrack that is running in the background with trig on beat 1, microtimed -1/96 that has CC59 val 64 P-Locked that is sent on the audiotrack midi channel to stop the recording.
-To start quantized recording, Footswitch 1 sends a command initiate quantized recording on the flex track (Qrec=Plen)
-To stop the recording, Footswitch 2 unmutes the midi track, so that it will send a quantized “stop recording command” to the flex track. At the same time the switch arms a one-shot trig on the same audio track, which starts playback
Hence the mandatory midi loopback.
Yes, that’s the point
Yes, it’s a matter of internal routing in rec setup
Yes
Yes. I actually use a single switch on the MidiCaptain, because it can do sequential presses and send different set of midi messages at each press. So Start and Stop are on the same switch (toggle) . I do use two other switches to select the active track (up/down); and another one to mute/unmute the active track. And one to start/stop the sequencer.
Being able to use the sequencer and all the P-locking goodness while live looping is a lot of fun!
Can the MIDI tracks that control the loop closing be on “plays free” such that they aren’t tied to a measure? I wonder if they could just be a few trigs long to handle all of the actions needed.
If you were to enable overdubbing, would the MIDI track length need to be predetermined?
I’ve used MIDI loopback before to do some probabilistic stuff with record buffers. There might be some fun options here for implementing that.
There’s lots of room for imagination by using midiloopback command tracks. I have the midi track looping 1 bar because that’s how I want the quantizing to be, but I’ll experiment some more…
Grrr I can’t find where I posted settings but my flex setup was simpler, probably some caveats.
1 note sent to start recording, same note to stop + another note to play, QREC quantize.
Ok, so you have the tracks in loop mode, looping themselves, no trigs? Does OT do the automatic “length correction” when using an odd length, like 5 bars?
I’m not sure what you mean by “length correction.” Is that something to do with the interaction between pattern length and master length? Or something else?
I’ll buy a beer to the guy who hacks the firmware adding a switch to defeat this brutal enforcement of a supposed 1-2-4-8-16 bar law