Two Octatrack Qs that I haven't been bothered to ask

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

Good evening one and all.

So, I’ve been a user of the OT for a fair while and have had a couple of things that I can’t get to happen as I want them too. But you know the OT, it’s versatile enough to get past these things typically.

Anyway, while sat here with my computer I thought I would actually make an effort to lazily ask the community of OT users how to do the two things that I have little problems with.

So, if you know ways of doing these things please let me know.

Number 1

I have a 4 bar or 8 bar looping sample that I want to fade in volume wise automatically. I can use an LFO on Once to raise the volume but when the trigger trigs again the LFO resets thus reducing the volume. If I set the trigger condition to 1st that’s cool but often the loop I have playing isn’t quantised and I actually need the sample retriggered without the LFO being retriggered.

So, how do I increase the volume over time of a sample that i need retriggered every 4 or 8 bars?

Number 2

I am recording loops from my synths into the OT. I have the length of the flex recording set to MAX. It’s recording beautifully. I’m adjusting the parameters on the synth and recording pure goodness. But I want the recording to end perfectly at the end of a bar. But the recording length is 64 steps then max. But I am recording 128 steps or 256.
I know I can stop the flex recording at any time but when I slice it, it will slice incorrectly because of the silence at the end or the over run as I return to the OT from my synth noodling.

I can trim the sample but often struggle to find the point in the audio where the bar finishes.

How do I say to the OT the beginning of this recording is 6 bars long at 125 bpm and anything after needs discarding? Therefore leaving me with the perfectly in time bars that I need?

So, they are my longstanding IT questions that I have been working around for the last 2 years and haven’t been arsed to ask.

If you could point me in the direction of solving these I would be very grateful indeed.

Many thanks for you help,

Adam

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#2

For the first question you can play your ‘once triggered lfo’ on step one of the sequence, then use the last step of the sequence and micro timing to set the loop for repeating bars.

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#3

Yep, liking that idea. That may be a solution.

Cheers

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#4

Q2. In the audio editor, you see a bunch of numbers at the bottom, one of those numbers relates to bars. So use that for trimming, if you want a 6 bar sample, make sure that number is 6.

Check manual for more detail than my brain can recall right now.

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#5

q2: Make master steps 128 but track 64 steps at 1/2 time

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#6

I don’t think this is the solution he wants because it seems to me he’s asking for the recording to be quantized on the way in and for it to stop recording at 6 or 8 bars. If it records a MAX length and he tells in the audio editor to be 6 bars then it will think the whole recording is 6 bars.

A nice workaround to this issue is per track scaling!! Which @neimad just beat me to as I turned on my Octa to remember how to do it…

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#7

Many ways to skin an octacat. Always multiple paths to the same result. Which ever one works for you is the one that works.
Personally I like to trim samples. :slight_smile:

#9

Exactly.

I want the sample trimmed to the exact bar count AND discard the audio beyond that point.

The individual track lengths I take full advantage of, but I want the sample trimmed to the bar lengths exactly. :thinking:

#10

Didn’t test it yet, but this way it seems to work.

#11

Couldn’t you use « hold » for record trigger and use a midi track to loop back the correct duration ?

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#12

Unfortunately RLEN is independent from scale.
64 steps setting will record 64 steps whatever the scale is.

RLEN…This setting is dependent of the BPM of the sequencer but disregards any scale settings of the track.

You can change OT’s tempo to record 128 steps or more, changing scale accordingly (or not). Can be problematic with other midi clock synced gear.

For 128/256/512 steps recordings you can use QREC, ONE2 recording. Press RECAB/CD or SRC3 to start/stop the recording.
For 1024 steps (64 bars) you can use QREC =PLEN and set Pattern Length to 1024.

For Trim I calculate the exact number of samples, IMHO the Bar indicator is not precise enough for a perfect loop (+/- 0.005 bar precision).

Edit : tested again, you can find the best value from the first value you get from a whole bar value. Clear as mud so :
Example at 120 bpm :
Choosing END with Knob C, first value with 1 bar is 87 759 samples
Divide it by 0.995 and you get 88 200, perfect value at 120 bpm.

Not sure if it works perfectly for all bpms, correct me if I’m wrong because it’s late, but I think you can get a much better value than the first one! But anyway, isn’t it better to calculate the right number of samples? :content:

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#13

This can be programmed into the sequencer with a trig, right? A 1st only REC trig? So the OP does not have to take his hands off the synth to time the recording right?

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#14

I didn’t realise that about rec length steps being affected by the scale in that way.
I think that’s that problem solved for me.

#15

Cheers for your help everyone.

Couple of little changes to my practice thanks to your feedback.

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#16

Just to be clear, rec length is NOT affected by the scale at all.
Nothing perfect.
I edited my previous post.

@thoughtstarZ mentioned something interesting recently with Reserve Length, if you set it with 1 sec more and trim it after (or not).
It depends on tempo, but for example you can record more than 64 steps and play the recording with 1/8 scale (=512 steps) without thinking of recording stop.

#17

When you set the pattern length and use max record length will it stop recording when it reaches the start again? what trig would you use to do this?

#18

Trig conditions don’t work for recorder trigs (you can use midi loopback to trigger recorders with conditional trigs, though).

You can use one shot recorder trigs (yellow trigs). They have to be armed (press trig) and then only fire once.

From the track trig menu (where sample trigs, slide trigs and swing trigs are entered), or from recording setup press Function + Trig to enter one shot recorder trigs.

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#19

I was talking about QREC, using REC buttons, in ONE2 mode. You have to press the button twice to start / stop the recording.

You can also start the recording with a one shot, and stop it with a REC button.

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