Time Stretch: I've never used it

I’ve had the OT 7years and never really dove into the Timestretch menu … never really had a sample that I thought required me to dive into that menu… what, if anything, have I missed.

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It’s fun to mess around with. Degrades the quality of your sound slightly but can be used to good effect. For starters it lets you change tempo without fucking up the groove of your pattern, which often comes in handy since the OT’s tempo is global per project. Also good for playing stuff chromatically sometimes. Try pitching vocals or guitars up with tstr on for that wobbly, watery sound that is kinda in fashion now.

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I see. Too often I use the OT like a drummachine and external sequencer. hence why I prolly haven’t had the need, but i’ve grown tired of doing so and have plans for longer samples (vox, for instance) and this will most likely be needed.

do u have any examples of the wobble sound from Timestretching?

still thinkin about gettin an OT just for the timestretch and i would love to hear some examples of its quality…or should i get an used mpc 1000? the second hand prices are almost the same.

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first 10 seconds of this.

not octatrack, probably some shitty guitar pedal, but it’s that kind of sound. the OT timestretch is not as clean-sounding as Ableton’s but it falls apart in quite a nice way if you push it. sorry I can’t provide any specific examples, I don’t have an OT anymore :crying_cat_face:

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sounds almost like paulstretch to me :joy:

I would deviate from the original tempo to wildly(the further you utilize the time stretch the more promenent the artifacts are), but longer sample on the octatrack are what make it stand head and shoulders above something like the Digitakt(which is also great). The octatrack lets you play with longer audio with more dynamic alterations to its source. That’s only if it’s playing one track all the way through.

There’s still slicing which allows you to play it in separate pieces which is also fun.

Again, if the sample is intended to be at the forefront of your track I’d try to keep the tempo in the neighborhood of the original- because there ARE artifacts that come through, but if it’s a background sound- you’re more liberated to go wild with it

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Set RATE to TSTR.

OT timestretch quality

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As said above - wouldn’t deviate too far from original tempo.

The time stretching algorithm hasn’t aged well at all IMO. I was getting better results, particualy on drum breaks, with Recycle 2.0 about 15 years ago.

However prepare samples in your DAW beforehand, and the inspiration you can get from sample manipulation in the OT certainly makes it great for long sample playback and looping.

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Same quality with OT’s slices, with some envelope Hold /Release settings. You can go further using lfo on slices, change speed drastically with plocks, reverse slices order, random, still synced.

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Sorry I agree the OT is far superior and capable than Recycle. I simply meant that I preferred the algorithm used for changing tempos drastically using Recycle over the OT.

I love the OT but I was simply saying there are better solutions for drastically changing tempos, which you can then import into the OT for a best of both worlds type approach :slight_smile:

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Hahaha this is trippy as hell

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Strange, i do not see it as " aging " … More of a sound quality that once dig or not…

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Yes of course. :wink:
I don’t like timestretch in general.
I usually use Ot’s timestretch as almost freeze fx. With loops with human feeling and timing “errors” I use my DAW (Samplitude) to perfectly correct each beat with timestretch, so I can use slices with perfect timing.

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While I’m happy to have timestretch available, more often than not I think it gets in the way. Because I don’t like the way the timestretch sounds, I have to go through each drum loop and change its attributes to keep it from auto timestretching. And then I have to make sure that my project tempo matches my sample tempo to keep it in time, otherwise I have to fiddle with the rate parameter to get everything synced up correctly. This isn’t a problem for production, but it interferes with loading samples on the OT as a means of free improvisation.

What would be a truly great (and far from resource intensive so it’s current hardware-compatible) would be something like Ableton’s re-pitch warp mode, which simply speeds up or slows down the sample to automatically keep it in time with the project without timestretching. Considering how many people consider the timestretch to sound outdated and how CPU intensive improving the algorithm would probably be, I really hope Elektron pursues this as a potential solution.

Or perhaps I’m missing something and the OT already does this? Any ideas?

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You may already have heard it without realising. Some long drum samples (eg. crashes) get recognised as loops and the OT decides a tempo for that sample. If that’s not the tempo of your track the sample gets timestretched (unless you turn it off). It’ll also get looped unless that’s turned off too. That you will notice!

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um, that’s awesome

TOTALLY AGREE! That’d be great. Less ressources indeed. Still possible to calculate tempo, but sadly tempo and pitch precision make it approximate. Maybe a chart would help.

You have to multiply tempo by 2^(1/12)=1,0594630944 if you increase by 1 semitone the pitch (without timestretch of course). I think we can find a better formula for OT and that purpose.

@grit (Retrokits), do you think it would be possible to analyze OT’s clock BPM and make it correspond to a CC value, calculating from a tempo reference?

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I think so, you can count clock on ms interval yourself in /DUY but there is also a function in the RK002 which can return the actual BPMs:

unsigned int RK002_clockGetTempo()

Get the current clock tempo (either internal, or measured from external).
returns beats per minute x 10

after that you can use that value to set a CC or whatever.

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In case it helps you can always turn off timestretch in the flex or static setup page. Setting TSTR to off or on overrides the attributes setting, setting it to auto makes it use the attributes setting. After setting it to off any sample you load to that track will always play with it off, the setting is saved in the part so save the part to have it not revert on part reload…

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