Hi,
Is it normal that the start and end parameters of the samples only range 0-120 and not 0-127 ?
It seems to me that it makes no sense at all and makes simple things such as divided a sample in 16th impossible.
Am I missing something ?
Yes, it meant to be tweaked by ear to taste and is not meant for multisamaple chop splitting like say an MPC1000.
sure but it would be so much better if only the range of these parameters was a multiple of 2. You can have the ears you want you won’t be able to tweak correctly the start point of a sample if it is a 4/4 loop and you want it to play from the second step ( 120/16 = 7.5)
The more range the better and a multiple of two would be way more usefull to a vast majority of users.
128 256 512 …
That’s weird. Most folks prepare sample chains in multiples of 16 for the OT. It be great it those chains would be usable. Changing them up to multiples of 15 will be unneeded work.
Oh wait, 0-120 not 119. That’s 121 increments, chains of 11 it is.
120??? 
so, what about MIDI CC control?
this is really weird…more if think that most of the other elektron´s products use 0-127 for almost everything
Yeah that’s sounds really weird. Guess we should wait for Elektron’s input on the matter
Can the start/stop settings be plocked per step?
yes
great, thanks.
Maxime: When will you do a video with the AR? 
Can you sync the AR and SP to the A&H mixer? Please!!
I am curently working on a 4 hour set for tomorrow night (where I will pay the AR on stage 5 days after receiving it ;)) I 'll do a video next week or so; there is not enough time in this world !
C’locks when the axL rose from the green lighthouse,
into the blue wheels flat tired of the longest dday.
First shaken then stirred is the key to the photosynthesizer.
The difference seems minute’rus.
Paying no attention to the darkness behind eyelids is to sleep well.
Then get on the blue bus when it’s calling us.
Thank you once again for the grace of your words shaman of our forum PongFu
Hi,
with n slices there are n+1 positions (slice boundaries) where playback can start and stop. So if the knob had a range of 0 to 127 you would be able to select 128 positions and that would give you 127 slices. You would not be able to select any perfect divisions because 127 is a prime. To get 128 slices the knob would need to range from 0 to 128 (have 129 values) and thus break the MIDI 7-bit convention which allows only 128 values for a parameter.
With a range of 0 to 120 you have 121 positions available. The number of slices is 120 and this number divides with 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8. So you can play for instance one beat from a 3/4 or 5/4 bar, or one eight from a 4/4 bar.
I hope this makes sense
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Totally. I was thinking slice number like in the OT. Not start and end points. Duh.
Thank you for the clarification.
Not really, because the Octatrack start/slice parameter is calibrated in 0-127 or 2^n slices where 0<n<6. Of course that uses start & length rather than start & end which allow things like reverse playback and other effects with a minimum of controls.
Breaking the 7 bit paradigm for the sake of loop divisibility strikes me as a bad idea. How is the behavior of 121-127 defined on MIDI in? What if someone wants to drive the AR with an external CC, like using the OT MIDI out with CC output under LFO control? Every time the LFO cycles it’s going to clip in its positive phase near maximum amplitude, which is going to result in a big discontinuity. So now someone using an Octatrack or other piece of gear is going to either have a large glitch every cycle or have to bias the center value to 60 instead of 64, resulting in an unwanted offset plus needless complexity. Yeah, you could use the internal LFO, but there’s only one per track and it’s not assignable to other tracks. This is no good to anyone who wants to modulate the start and end parameters separately, and it’s going to be a pain in the ass for anyone sending out CC from a DAW.
Why not just use a lookup table for the divisors? this won’t have any negative effect on one-shot samples, including warping by rapid modulation of the start and end points, and it will make loop division practical at the same time. 7-bit parameters aren’t musically optimal, but neither is the equal-tempered scale - people accept the limitations of both because they’re a predictable standard that provides for compatibility, whether of tuning or of MIDI controller transmission. Accommodating the use case of particular loop lengths is a nice idea, but not at the expense of breaking MIDI.
Why would you make 2 major sound-shaping parameters un-sequencable by external gear?
So, for example 61-120 could be the third and fourth parts of a 4/4 bar or 61-90 could be just the third? Would this mean that 60 second/60 sample chain could be sliced 0-2, 2-4, 4-6, etc…?
Why is a sample devided in 120 parts, in stead of 128? Feels weird to me
I think this is because it makes it easier to divide such number, works better with time as well, maybe.
Easier for chains and such.
Whereas 128 is pure hardware value, no humanized layer on top.
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This has cropped up many a time, try the search, an Elektron employee already detailed the exact thinking about this and it is very logical … maybe find that if you read through these from a search 
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