I’m interested in picking up an OP-1 but I have a couple of questions.
Is there a way to play back (hold) a sequence in time with the tape? Say I record a straight 4x4 kick to tape but want to try out a baseline line or drum top loop with one of the sequencers, I’d need it to stay in time. All the videos I’ve seen seem just show people stopping the tape, creating random sequences and then recording the sequence to tape; hoping it makes sense. Curious.
Also, can you program in velocity in any of the sequencers? So for example a 16th high hat with varying velocities into the pattern sequencer. Or those guerrillas.
I’m new here and my first post, if these topics are covered here please point me to them. No luck with a search, Internet wide.
You can record synced to the tape (as you probably already know - press record and then press a key to start seq and tape at the same time). But this does not work with playback. But for me, it is enough to just press play on the tape at the same time as starting the sequencer, when testing.
No velocities, but when working with samples, you can use a trick in “finger” sequencer: Put the same note twice in the same position.
Thanks fellas - this is helpful. It sounds like the OP-1 keeps you moving forward rather than getting you stuck in a loop the way computer music sometimes does. Also sounds like there's some creative workarounds to the velocity issue.
Another trick for getting different drum velocities is to set two keys to play the same drum hit, but at different volumes. It’s probably a good idea to mess around with your kits before using them, I find I often need to mess around with the volumes and so on before a sequence will sound right.
It sounds like the OP-1 keeps you moving forward rather than getting you stuck in a loop the way computer music sometimes does.
You cannot play both on drums and keys sequencer, so you have to record.
Once it's recorded, you cannot change easily the tempo, there is no direct time-stretch of your loop (there are ways to do this but it's not straightforward).
Anyway, playing with loops is doable. You can even jump to another loop of the same length so that once you 8 steps pattern is over it automatically jump to this next loop.
I like it to give up on Ableton's workflow, though :)
As you say, I like to see OP-1's limitations are invitations to write stuff and jump to the next idea. Less time on loops, more time on playing.
