How does the tape mode work? (Details)

I have seen videos talking about the tape but they never dive in and explain it in more detail. I have seen some youtubers when they start up the op-1 they have many different segments in the tape mode and they fast forward ahead of those and record a new segment. How would that work if there is only 6 minutes of record time? How could you have multiple songs made? Is there an option to save songs or projects you have made and open them up later? I’m just confused about that one thing that’s all. If someone could explain it way better and answer the many questions I had that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Small sections recorded using loop markers :slight_smile:

See “Making a track from scratch” - one of many great videos in “OP-1 Tips and Tricks” thread.


https://youtu.be/zz5PZb8ChZ0

You can backup and restore the album recordings, tape tracks and your patches (drum and synth) via USB. Unfortunately the sequencer data cannot be saved/restored.

You can’t save whole projects on the OP1 sadly but if you work off 5-10 second loops you can transfer it to another segment of the tape or even keep all your loops in one track of the four (providing you don’t really use that one track much) to use later.


Otherwise you have to save the sounds externally.

Like @darenager said, a series of short loops that you play/mix live can be one whole song…you could easily fit a handful of songs on one tape.

Here’s a video where I play through a whole tape and make a 20+ minute set out of loops on a single 6 minute tape without stopping, just use shift + > to jump ahead.

Handy to know, if you set the master tempo to 80 or 160 BPM it divides the 6 minute tape tape evenly (this will come in handy when selecting and lifting loops from the tape into either the synth sampler or drum sampler as it’s easy to select 6 and 12 second loops using the tape markers as guides).

slow the tape speed down to get more tape time


can’t recall from memory how low the tape speed goes but u can get 12 minutes maybe more

@docshermsticks you can slow down the tape to 25%, so max time for lowest speed is 24 minutes.