Sample playback (samples containing silence)

Stockwell · 2014-03-19T23:09:22.000Z

Hello,

I’ve been working with the OT for a couple of weeks now, just slowly getting to grips with the basics.

One thing I’m confused by concerning the playback of audio samples:

Some of my samples (existing audio files I’ve imported into the OT) contain a period of silence at the start. For example, I’ve got a sample of 2 bars in length with silence for the first bar and the audio event coming in on the 2nd bar. My issue is that the OT is playing these samples weirdly - the sample seems to sound ahead of the trigger; the sample is truncated and is not being fully played out. In fact, I hear the sample before the trigger and the trigger itself appears to cut the sample off.

Is the fact that I’ve got silence at the front of these files confusing the OT somehow? Should I be trimming all samples to the start point of the audio before importing them to the OT? (My trimmed samples seem to be behaving normally.)

Many thanks.

secretmusic · 2014-03-19T23:20:31.000Z

Hi !
What the sample contains is irrelevant. The OT doesn’t know or care about how much silence you have or don’t have at the beginning of a sample. Therefore, it has to do with how you’re trimming your samples before importing them, or how you’re stretching them in the OT.
Double check and make sure you’re trying this with exact length samples and at the right tempo. If that works, then continue troubleshooting by trying stretching.
One example that quickly comes to mind is the fact that the Rate parameter, if set to Pitch in the playback menu page, will slow down the playback speed of a sample. In the case of a loop, it would slow it down, effectively making it come later, and also truncating itself as it is retriggering.
Hope this helps, keep us posted.
Cheers !

Stockwell · 2014-03-19T23:26:31.000Z

Hi,

Thanks very much for this; much appreciated. I’ll experiment and keep you posted.

Cheers!

Tintao · 2014-03-19T23:42:26.000Z

Hi,

I hear the sample before the trigger

That’s weird. It sounds like you have a loop on the sample on which start point has been set towars the end…and what you think is “before the trigger” is in fact the loop coming at the begining of the sample, just before it is triggerd again…

But i may be wrong . I don’t even know if my explanation is clear.

Stockwell · 2014-03-20T00:14:07.000Z

Hi Tintao,

Yes, I know what you mean…

Actually, I can seem to get around this problem by adjusting the start point of the sample in the main playback menu. This seems to make the samples behave normally when triggered; I can get their start points to sound right and the whole sample now plays out.

I’ll have to dig deeper and see what’s going on… there’s something weird going on with start points or loops with these particular samples.

Many thanks.

Tintao · 2014-03-20T00:24:41.000Z

Did you edit the sample with the audio editor into the octatrack ? because you can adjust the starting point there, instead of adjusting the start in the playback menu. That will be a better solution i think.

Stockwell · 2014-03-20T00:38:19.000Z

I haven’t done that but I’ll definitely experiment with the audio editor. Thanks.

Tintao · 2014-03-20T00:56:32.000Z

If the period of silence in your samples is long (1, 2 sec…), for sure this is the problem. The sequencer trigger the sample, blank…blank…sound, but the sequencer return to beginning, so it retrigger the sample, etc… etc…

Question, if the silence period are long, why do you keep them in the sample ?

secretmusic · 2014-03-20T07:27:18.000Z

""Tintao"":

If the period of silence in your samples is long (1, 2 sec…), for sure this is the problem.

No, it’s not, sorry.
What the sample contains has absolutely no impact on how the OT plays it back.
The OT can play a loop that’s got 31 bars of silence and 1 bar of sound at the end in the exact same way it will play a loop that has 32 bars of sound. What the sample contains has NO impact on how the OT plays it back. I hope this is clear, so that troubleshooting stays on track, this is not the problem.
Cheers !

secretmusic · 2014-03-20T07:30:34.000Z

""Tintao"":

Question, if the silence period are long, why do you keep them in the sample ?

Maybe he’s playing back stems, and wants to keep a clear arrangement of trigs.
Or maybe he likes the flexibility of having silence at the beginning of samples in order to play with the start time, and therefore timing of it (it’s an old school trick that allows for example to introduce swing into a groove without moving trigs, simply by adjusting start point).

In fact, playing with the start point in both the editor and the playback page, as well as the rate, are likely the issue here. That and making sure the samples are exactly the right length.

Cheers !

Tintao · 2014-03-20T08:28:34.000Z

""secretmusic"":

[quote=“Tintao”]If the period of silence in your samples is long (1, 2 sec…), for sure this is the problem.

No, it’s not, sorry.
What the sample contains has absolutely no impact on how the OT plays it back.
The OT can play a loop that’s got 31 bars of silence and 1 bar of sound at the end in the exact same way it will play a loop that has 32 bars of sound. What the sample contains has NO impact on how the OT plays it back. I hope this is clear, so that troubleshooting stays on track, this is not the problem.
Cheers ![/quote]
Hi secret,

I think you didn’t understand my explanation (sorry for my bad english maybe).
I know that the octatrack don’t care about what’s inside the sample. That’s no the point.

Let me give you a basic example :

If your sample is 16 steps long, 15 first steps are silence, and the last one is “the sound”.
Now on the sequencer, you trigger the sample on step 2. Start the sequencer…no sound for 15 steps which means that the sound will be hear on the first step, giving the impression that the sample has been fired just before the trigger, but that’s just a coincidence.

That maybe be the source of the problem.

Stockwell · 2014-03-20T12:14:33.000Z

""Tintao"":

Let me give you a basic example :

If your sample is 16 steps long, 15 first steps are silence, and the last one is “the sound”.
Now on the sequencer, you trigger the sample on step 2. Start the sequencer…no sound for 15 steps which means that the sound will be hear on the first step, giving the impression that the sample has been fired just before the trigger, but that’s just a coincidence.

That maybe be the source of the problem.

Hello Secret & Tintao,

Interesting to see your discussion about this - thanks.

I think Tintao may be correct with his idea above… that does correspond with the way I’m hearing it. I’ll experiment with that (changing to 32 steps for example).

I had planned to keep the silence in some of my audio just because it helped me organise my samples in a way that matches my original Logic compositions (and also that those samples contain natural unquantised timing, but I can see that I can easily achieve that in other ways in the OT).

However, as I understand more about the OT, I can see it makes more sense to trim the samples to the front of the audio (as most of my samples are anyway). I think this would be a cleaner way of working. And I think the “silences” could get confusing!
Cheers.

Tintao · 2014-03-20T12:47:47.000Z

I understand. But maybe you should trim your samples, and set the triggers at the right moments.

secretmusic · 2014-03-20T14:00:21.000Z

""Tintao"":

Hi secret,

I think you didn’t understand my explanation (sorry for my bad english maybe).
I know that the octatrack don’t care about what’s inside the sample. That’s no the point.

Let me give you a basic example :

If your sample is 16 steps long, 15 first steps are silence, and the last one is “the sound”.
Now on the sequencer, you trigger the sample on step 2. Start the sequencer…no sound for 15 steps which means that the sound will be hear on the first step, giving the impression that the sample has been fired just before the trigger, but that’s just a coincidence.

That maybe be the source of the problem.

Hi Tintao,
My apologies, I did not understand what you meant, but I get it now.
It’s very probable that the silence in the samples is causing confusion, not in the OT, but in the OP’s brain
And indeed, trigs should be lined up properly, samples cut exactly, and at the right tempo, in order to really tell what’s happening.
I often use this method in order to keep an arrangement intact, however, in the long run, it makes more sense to trim the silence out, as it only takes up room on the card. You can use micro timing if you wish to slide trigs later (or earlier), and place trigs at the “right” spots on the grid to get silence where you need it.
Hope it all makes sense ?
Cheers !

Stockwell · 2014-03-20T14:48:03.000Z

""secretmusic"":

It’s very probable that the silence in the samples is causing confusion, not in the OT, but in the OP’s brain

You’ve got that right Secret!

Thanks for your input on this chaps. I will experiment when I next get the chance but I think you’ve both made it clear to me.

Cheers.

poonti · 2014-03-20T15:11:47.000Z

The OT really needs some intelligent threshold slicing…I’m amazed this hasn’t surfaced in an OS update yet!

Tintao · 2014-03-20T15:26:45.000Z

Good.

Stockwell, have you got some tracks somewhere for listening your music ?

subq · 2014-03-20T16:43:11.000Z

original bpm of sample in combination with looping on can definitely freak you out a little

what you can do is use the trick I posted on the OT tips post and set it to slice mode…then you can see exactly what playback is doing on the sample

for that matter, you could also just open it up and watch it but you may need to zoom out on the file

actually seeing what playback is doing what/where on the sample file is helpful in determining what is going on

fachperson · 2014-03-20T17:10:08.000Z

poonti: treshold slicing issue +1. I don’t do that anymore, I’m too scared of the results

Stockwell / Tintao:
From the initial problem description Tintao’s diagnosis is 100% correct.

Think about oneshot trigs. These will launch the sample and not get in its way once it’s been fired. Down