While setting up the OP-Z with the Oplab module for jamming with the Make Noise 0-ctrl sequencer, I realized that you can arm each of the 16 tracks seperately for external triggers. So some tracks can advance with an external trigger while the others just run with the internal clock. Madness! Plus a track can be armed/disarmed while everything is running, so it will pick up the new trigger on whatever step it happens to be. On top, the 0-ctrl can give every step its own time. Combined with the op-z tracks and Step components this is Polyrhythm on steroids… need to experiment with this now…
How does this work? Can you tell us how you set it up?
The ZM-1 oplab module has two options for input: MIDI and Trigger. I set this to trigger and connect it to the 0-coast Clock Out. I expected the OP-Z to sync to the 0-coast but nothing happened, so I checked the ZM-1 manual. It says to can arm a track to respond to external trigger by pressing Track + 0. Then press Play on the OP-Z, now it will wait for external triggers to advance the steps. At this point the last step in the sequence will flash white (I noticed that sometimes the first step will flash, not sure why or if this is a bug). It’s important to also set your external sequencer to the last step before running the sequence, because the first trig will set the OP-Z to the next step already. So far so good.
But then I noticed that the other (non-armed) tracks of the OP-Z still function normally (Sequences run based on Play button and internal clock). So while running, I armed another track via Track+0 and it now started running with the external sequence. The sync is rock solid, the 0-coast can run superfast and with variable step lengths, but still the steps always stayed in sync. Of course the sequence on the OP-Z can have a different number of steps than the external sequencer, and the track length can be way longer - This is really interesting in combination with the 0-ctl, as you can set different step lengths for each step (time from one step to the next), so depending on the ratio of the steps in each of the sequencers you will get different rhythms every time you run through the sequence. All this while other tracks can run with a completely different steady clock. I am still trying to wrap my head around the possibilities it offers.
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Thanks for such a great, detailed answer!
btw, you arm the track with Track + SHIFT + 0 , like setting the track length.
Just to say… If you are setting Tracks with Track + SHIFT + 0, you can use the step component JUMP + 0 (gate step) on other OP-Z tracks to trigger these tracks. Each time the Gate Step is reached the tracks set to [track + shift + 0] will go one step forward. Very usefull when you want to create very long paterns with chords progressions or pads controled by the other tracks. Cheers
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Cool, I didn’t know that - OP-Z is so deep… This way you don’t have to care about track length when you lay out a chord progression to go along with a melody, just call the chords from the melody when needed. I see how this can be very useful.
Here’s an idea. It’s possible to patch the oplab to the oplab from the gate out to the trigger in. That way you can set a track to advance on trigger from the module itself.
This video is about as bad as I could make but it’s a proof of concept that you can get really interesting rhythms from self-patching and hey, everyone loves a good self patch!
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