PrePurchase Inquiry: Pickup Machines -- Will this work?

[GovernorSilver]

@""Anarchosyn""

@GovernorSilver

I presume the pickup machines are effectively static, but resampling would allow me to get around that, yes?

I’m not sure what you mean by “static”.

To to clarify, I meant that the loops can’t be cut up, or really manipulated like a sample in a flex machine (for example). I’m aware that “static” is also used as a machine specific terminology, my apologies for the confusion.

To be ultra clear, watch the https://youtu.be/9r38r3BIgew?t=28s from time stamp 0:28 - 1:02, and you’ll see Tim Exile explain his performance setup. In such, he shows off his ability to capture a loop, and then reloop the loop (and though he doesn’t call it out, he records the filter tweaks he did over the loops). In essence, I was saying “the pickup machines can’t do this (nods to Tim), for instance, right?”

You are right, you cannot slice audio nor play back slices in a pickup machine track. The flex machine also gives you retrigger, RTIM, sample start, etc. params that are not in the pickup machine.

As you may have read somewhere, the first track to sample with a pickup machine gets the master pickup machine, and any additional tracks that sample with a pickup machine will get the slave pickup machines. The slaves are buggy, but you can work with them if you keep the recording times on them short, never touch the Pitch param on those machines, and never slave the Octatrack to external MIDI clock.

At any rate, to use the Octatrack as a simple looper would be a waste of your money as there are dedicated looper pedals with more recording time, more features, etc. for less money. The real fun is in the Flex machine - the Flex is the reason to buy an Octatrack. The Flex is what raises the Octatrack to a higher level of creative potential than looper pedals.

Keep in mind you can assign a flex machine’s “sample slot” to the recorder buffer of just about any track. You can also assign its input to the output of any track, or to the main out or the cue out. The inter-track audio routing capability gives you tons of possibilities. And don’t forget the 3 LFOs per track - they can be assigned to a large selection of track parameters, and you can also have LFO modulate another LFO.