In my setup I have a Bass Station II hooked up via midi to the OT. Its sound is coming in to input C on the OT, and I’m also sequencing it via the OT. What I want to do now is record this sound + sequence so that the OT can just play it as an audio sample, after which I can use the Bass Station II again to create another sound.
I’ve been looking at explanations and tutorial vids, as well as reading the OT user manual, but I can’t find the correct way of doing this. The OT manual has a seemingly incomplete explanation of recording incoming sounds and it differs from the methods I’ve seen online. Whatever I’ve tried so far, it doesn’t really seem to record sound, and I’m also not sure how to ‘select’ or playback the sample once it’s recorded (although this could have to do with the fact that it might not have recorded anything).
I’d like to ask how you guys are doing this, or can you point me to a step by step guide (really including all the steps, since I’m still quite novice with the OT) on doing this? Thanks!
in the early days of Octatrack usage, even this might be confusing … as “Recording 1” → “Recording 8” slots are located above the regular Slot 1 of the Flex slot menu presentation. Thus, use the Upwards arrow after accessing the Flex menu for Track 1, to go select Track 1 to be referencing Recording Slot 1 for it’s playback material.
also to mention: When recording, whatever track is selected while the Recording Screen is open, is essentially directing the audio recording that is about to be made, to go to the Recording Slot of that number.
to then actually play back that recording, the Audio Track (of whatever number) needs to be set to be a Flex track, and set to the appropriate Recording Track 1-8 of where a recording is temporarily saved to.
Audio Track 1 could be set to play back from the Flex slot menu of Recording Slot 1, or 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
But when the Recording Screen is open (accessed via Function and Rec1 double keypress or Function and Rec2), the currently lit Audio Track is now referencing essentially a hardwired Recording Slot of the same number.
When the recording is made, the audio gets placed in that numbered Recording Slot.
Important to Note: the Audio Track’s playback settings may be set to any Flex or Static slot (or indeed be set to function as a neighbour FX track, or a Thru track for applying realtime effects to an incoming audio signal).
The Octatrack is logical but the presentation interface is abstracted from the data location.
Hi Sezare56, thanks for your explanation. It still doesn’t work for me though.
I want the recording on track 3, so in this case I have assigned Flex to track 3. Then I choose Recording1 as default sample slot (this is done by double-tapping the track 3 button and choosing R1>Recording1, am I correct?). I put a trig on step 1, then go to Track 1 Recording Setup 1 and set everything up like you explain, except I’m using 32 steps as RLEN. I place a one shot rec trig, of which the light above it is yellow, correct?
From another video I understood that you can hold the trig button and select which of the inputs (A–B and C–D) you want to record by pressing the corresponding rec buttons. Is this step necessary?
I press play on the OT, the sequence starts playing and the OT seemingly records as the animation is showing.
I save the recording, name it BASS and press ‘assign to free flex / static’. The odd thing that this doesn’t actually assign the recording to flex track 3. I then need to double-tap track 3 and select the BASS recording file.
Then when I press play I don’t hear the recording. I see a ‘+’ symbol next to the play symbol of track 3, but no sound. Did I overlook anything?
Easier to make tests and understand if you use same track for Flex and the Recorder. That way you don’t have to change selected track, avoid some mistakes, or confusing things.
I consider you start with a new project, I can’t detail hundreds of settings.
Track 3 = FLEX, choose Recording3 as default sample slot. Trig on step 1. You can double tap the Track 3 button and choose R3>RECORDING3
Go to Track 3 Recording Setup 1
INAB = - , INCD = C, RLEN = 32 steps.
Place a One Shot rec trig (FN+trig, orange led)
You don’t have to do it by default. Good to know it, but source of problems if you forget it.
Press play. Once recorded, you can stop the midi track playing your synth, and check if the recording is ok. If so, you can save it, with Recording Setup 1 > Fn+Bank > SAVE THIS RECORDING, with 4 possibilities after renaming :
ASSIGN to SELF = replace R3. In that case it’s better to clear the One Shot Trig (Rec Setup > Fn+Clear)
ASSIGN to free Flex (you can select it instead of R3 after)
ASSIGN to free Static (you can select it instead of R3 after)
Press NO, the saved recording is not assigned.
(you can load it in a specific slot and select it instead of R3 after)
Thanks again for your help, but still no luck. I’m almost starting to think there is something wrong in other settings, but I honestly wouldn’t know where.
I’m following your steps exactly but I get no sound. I think my patience for tonight just ran out. I will try again tomorrow. For a sampler it sure is kind of complicated to record a simple sound
It’s good that through these experiments I’m learning more and more about the structure of the OT. It’s just frustrating if it doesn’t work, even after multiple tries.
Thanks for the clarification above. Will try again tomorrow. I’ve been using a project in which I have 2 midi tracks, one of which is sequencing my drum computer and one sequencing the BSII. Other than that there is nothing exciting going on, but I guess that is enough to interfere with what I’m doing. If it doesn’t work tomorrow I will try in a new project.
I tried looking up the definition of DIR in the manual but couldn’t find it. I presume it means direct monitoring? Does this affect recording when it’s turned up? And well, indeed it’s monitoring the thru track through which the BSII can be heard. Can you explain what you mean by thru track monitoring?
It’s great that it’s a real time looper, but having to create a new project to be able to record defeats that purpose I think. Or can I easily export the loop and its properties to the project that I was working on?
The OT is super easy to loop once you learn it, however it’s a semi complex device so it takes a bit to learn. There’s so many settings and things like scenes that can mess you up that when your learning it it’s easier to try first on a new project and do only the suggested steps… Once you get it you figure out what happened in your other project, make changes, and save it. From then on its absolutely simple to loop…
If you follow sezares advice step by step on a fresh project it will the OT up as a basic simple looper… There will be no monitoring setup for the bass station and what will happen is you will hear the recording as its recording and it will then loop. This is a very basic example of one of the many ways the OT can loop, and it can do so much more than that with live sampling it’s ridiculous…
There’s a bunch of ways to use the OT, and a bunch of ways to monitor. You don’t need to use a thru track. Instead of me explaining all the monitoring methods I suggest you try to get that basic looper setup going on a fresh project to verify you can do it. Then you can figure out why it’s not working on your other project…
The way my OT is setup I can press one button and have a recording made that loops and also gets sliced and rearranged on multiple other tracks in real time, and there’s tons more it can do than that. I haven’t messed with my recorder settings in a year or more. It’s just configured in a way to do tons of sampling tricks… It takes time, patience, and a willingness to learn a semi complex device, then it’s super easy once you’ve made and saved a good project and got the hang of it…
I get what you’re saying. I find it not as complex as some people make it out to be, it just takes time to figure out the logic and the button presses.
That said, I’ve just tried recording a loop in a fresh new project, but still didn’t manage to do it. I press play, the animation shows and the marker runs the 16 seconds line, but I get no sound. Isn’t there a way to just record the incoming sound signal, and not a loop?
How do you check if the recording is ok?
Also, like in my previous project, when I:
It’ll say ‘assigned to flex 1’, even though my flex machine is on track 3. So I then still have to manually assign the saved sample to the flex machine on track 3.
Any help would be appreciated. Getting really impatient here
Do you have a trig on step one of the flex play track and have verified its assigned to launch the recorder buffer of the same number track your recording on?
It really should take about 30 seconds to set up and you just press play and it works…
Can you make a video of your settings and recording/flex sequence in grid recording mode and press play?
I put a trig on step one of flex track 3. Then I also put R3>Recording3 on the track. Is that what you mean by verifying that it’s assigned to launch the recorder buffer?
