This could be a known issue for seasoned Octanauts but this happened to me on stage so I’d like to pinpoint what’s going on. Also my memory is a bit hazy because of how intense performing live is for me, so I may have some details wrong.
In my live set there are two songs during which I use a Pickup machine on Track 2 to layer live vocals. Between these songs there are two songs with no Pickup machines involved.
So what happened was I played through the first song, which is entirely stored in its own Bank. Everything went fine, even my SRC3 samples worked without a hitch.
The next three songs are all in one Bank and I believe I switched Banks without stopping the sequencer.
In the second Bank, the first song is self-contained and the two after it are designed so that each one uses sampled and transformed elements from the previous one. The first transition involves sampling a long delay trail from my Analog Four (inputs A/B). The next pattern uses a different Part in which this sample is then played back on a Flex track, pitched down and effected.
After sampling and then switching patterns and Parts, my previous live vocal loops suddenly started playing really loud and uneffected. This took me completely by surprise, and in the state of confusion I somehow hit REC 1, erasing my delay trail recording. All I could do was to address the audience by joking about the machine having a mind of its own, and then backtracking to sample the delay trail again.
I’m not sure if I hit stop but if I did, then that emptied the buffer because I couldn’t hear it after doing the transition again.
I haven’t done any troubleshooting yet but it could be that the Track 2 buffer is assigned to another track in the affected Part for some reason. Maybe I planned to do something with it but didn’t and just forgot it there.
If that is not the case, then I don’t know what happened and why the Track 2 buffer would be playing in that situation.
Then, once I got to song three, which also has a Pickup machine on Track 2 for looping and layering vocals and synths, I got some kind of error message while recording. It just flashed on the screen and then the recording would stop. I have no idea what the message said because it went away so quickly. I hit Track 2 + Stop to instantly stop the playback, then REC 3 and YES to erase the buffer. After that, everything worked fine all the way to the end.
The recording and length settings for the Pickup machine are identical on both songs but the tempo is different.
So, if I didn’t stop the sequencer during the first problem, that would mean the loop from song one was still in the buffer. But because the tempo had changed, then by the machine’s logic the loop was of wrong length.
If I did stop the sequencer, then the buffer would have been empty. But because the Pickup machine is always on Track 2, maybe something behind the scenes gets carried over unless the buffer is cleared, and this causes a similar discrepancy in the length logic?
Does anyone have any idea of what could have happened and would the best practice be to simply clear any Pickup buffers after each song, just to be safe?
Thanks for any tips and insights!
