Sampling - User Error

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Hello all

I realise I’m probably being an idiot, but I’ve read the manual and tried to gain intuition to how the Octatrack recorder settings work and it’s baffled me for months. So I gave up. I’ve come back for another try and it still baffles me:

  1. If I set TRIG to ONE or ONE2, QREC=PLEN, QPL=PLEN, RLEN=64 and LOOP=NO on a pattern and try “9.2.1 MANUAL SAMPLING” with T1 (pickup) and A/B (REC1) nothing happens. If I press REC1 the machine picks up, but then loops and overwrites the recording
  2. If I set QREC > PLEN (e.g. 256) nothing ever happens. QREC must be <= PLEN for any quantized recording to happen as far as I can tell.

Why is this an issue? Well, basically, I want to record guitar alongside MIDI sync’d beats from other gear into the Octatrack, but I’m crap at the guitar, so it’d be nice to have >64 beats lead in to get the rhythm going.

Am I being thick? Point #2 is of particular annoyance, but also if RLEN is set to a limited duration why does the recording continue (it switches from + to + after that duration, regardless of being in GAIN or DUB mode.)

Running v1.40

I really like this forum and I have a lot of fun with the OT, but really want to nail the guitar/live playing element without going mental buying a controller pedal. Solving this would do it.

Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

#2

Set qrec to plen and make you pattern have the length you want by enabling scale per track and using the master length.

Set PU machine rec mode to “hold”. Now when you press the rec button, recording will start on pattern start and will record for that many steps before switching to playback.

#3

Thanks @JSZ that HOLD tip has helped with locking off the recording after a single pass, most helpful. Surely that disagrees with the manual which states the point of that button is to hold for recording in that mode!?!

In terms of the first statement “qrec to plen and make you pattern have the length you want by enabling scale per track” this is not making sense to me. I’m guessing scale per track is 1x, 2x and so on, but why are there QREC >64 which is the maximum length of a pattern? Can I get this 2x PLEN lead in I’m after (128 steps) by setting QREC to 128, or double that even as is available. If not, no problem, but what are these values >64 for? I’m after a bit of intuition here, as it’s not forthcoming (unfortuantely I’m a programmer so I’m probably trying to work this out too logically, or not enough, maybe I got too close to the project :stuck_out_tongue: …)

#4

Oh woah, I’ve just started checking out 12.15.2 PER TRACK. Blinkin’ 'eck this manual is a convoluted beast. Leave it with me and thanks again for the response :slight_smile:

1 Like
#5

It is because of the qrec setting. I don’t know about the problem with qrec larger than the pattern length, never ran into that.