Like many before me, I’ve grown to love the elektron workflow. I’ve been in the Digitakt camp for a couple years now and finally took the plunge on an Octatrack.
So here I am, grooving, feeling the rhythm. Feelin’ da beat!
But then a sample wants to disrupt my flow by just NOT matching the tempo.
I’ve literally spent the past hour fiddling with SRC rate and Pitch, the Recording attributes, EVEN THE ENTIRE BPM OF THE WHOLE PROJECT. I just COULD NOT get it to sync properly. I didn’t understand, but I know from my recent plunge into this Octa universe, that my frustrations and momentary thoughts of Elektron having sabotaged my life, I came to realize I made an error. It was me.
Well, I was about to just call it quits on the sample completely and move on.
Then I decided to just watch the downbeat in real time.
But this time, actually following the beat, page by page.
And somehow. At some point. (SABOTAGE!?) I discover a trigger, LITERALLY AT THE 16TH STEP ON THE LAST PAGE!
I figured this had to be shared as I’m hoping I’m not alone in this masochistic endeavor we all share.
happened to me live during a huge show opening for Acid Pauli in San Francisco to a packed house !
whats worse is the sample was already super polymetric and hard to follow without having a clear downbeat on the 1… so shifted one sixteenth note, it just sounded like hot garbage for a solid minute until i figured out i’d accidentally put a step on the last trig
My favorite trick to solve looping problems is to micro time a trig all the way right on the last step with 0 amp. Stops unwanted pattern bleed/looping nonsense.
I came to a similar solution when I tried making a loop then sequencing drums. It would fall apart at the end but be good in the beginning. So I just chopped the 16 loop into two samples, so in a sense its kinda similar. Stopgap the sample when looping.
A couple years ago I used the PAGE button to double the length of a pattern and it took me at least 15 mintues to figure out that things weren’t working right anymore because I had forgotten about the record trigs that got duplicated.
Isn’t there an option called “disable page auto copy” somewhere in the settings menu?
I swear I saw it. Maybe not related to OP issue.
Correct me if I am wrong
I have recently started using OT MIDI sequencer more. I occasionally cannot hear my thru track anymore and go searching for problems with the MIDI track. Until I find out that I somehow accidentally deleted the first trig of my thru track .
One of my projects ove rthe last couple years is a duo that plays entirely online, and for a few reasons I need to use note 35 to nudge the start time of the OT from the DAW at the beginning of every session to make it run in time. I use the OT mainly for live looping in this context, but for a while I was also using the MIDI sequencer and I don’t even know how many times we had a false start because I had accidentally left the OT in MIDI mode and its transport didn’t repsond to note 35 at all. You’d think after having it happen once or twice I’d remember to check before we started, but I didn’t.
I also did what you’re describing a fe2 times but I don’t have any idea when or how I deleted the trigs on the thru tracks.
Exactly, I also think „no way, I never left MIDI mode“ every time. But who knows. I feel like this is part of OT experience, with so many functions and moving parts, accidents are inevitable. But in time, you identify causes easier. Still would keep me from using it live as the main tool.
Done that waaay too many times. Or forgetting an armed rec trig and getting recorders overwritten. Or forgetting to unmute a MIDI track… Each pitfall a lesson, I’m just a very slow learner.
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