Live beat on keyboard with OP-Z?

OP-Z OP-Z Tracks
#1

I recently acquired an OP-Z. Great device !
However, as always, it’s never perfect.
And one simple feature seems to have been omitted.

OP-Z works with tracks (each related to midi channels) :slight_smile:

  • track 1 : kicks… all the available ones across the keyboard
  • track 2 : snares… all the available ones across the keyboard
  • track 3 : hihat etc.
  • etc.

Although I understand that such a layout is convenient for the sequencer, it is totally against the approach that drum-machines or OP-1 offer : It is impossible to use at the same time a kick, a snare and hithat/percussions on the keyboard at the same time.
Any “looper artist” would need such a thing, as it turns to be mandatory live operation (Check the Artist FKJ for example).

On OP-1, drumkits are made of all the required sounds of a drum-kit, laid-out over the keyboard. It’s convenient to play live over existing tracks, over a song or whatnot (But of course the OP-1 had other issues that doesn’t make it a good live device…)

The least I would expect from OP-Z is to be able to do the same : sometimes it’s cool to just make a simple live-beat over anything, for fun or for quick and dirty track recording.

Did anybody find a trick to do so ? I would have expected OP-Z to offer a sort of mapping for the keyboard to reach the right sound at the right track…

The 2 solutions that came-up to me are :

  1. have an external midi device on which you can configure each pad to reach the right note and channel (OP-Z track)… but yet another device to buy ! And I have no idea which device to take for this
  2. connect the OP-Z and configure a special drumkit on the track 4 (the one for samples)… but it’s rather limiting, since I’d have to do it again as soon as I need a different setup of drumkit

So, it’s puzzling that such a beautiful device missed such a simple feature. I wish they change this on next firmwares.

#2

u know u can make your own kits as u see fit and upload them to your device.

heck u could even DL many free op1 kits out there that u might like and use those too

just b/c its the kick track doesn’t mean it has to be only kicks. etc etc.
all 4 tracks are just sample tracks

3 Likes
#3

As @docshermsticks already mentioned… in fact there is no limitation as you see it.
Load up your own kits in whatever order you want. You can easily have 2 full drum kits on one preset (12 sounds per kit x 2 running across the 2 octaves span) under the kick track for example. That’s a lot of kits when you work out what is possible when doing this across 4 percussion tracks.

The only pain in the ass is that you have to find an efficient way to manage / create kits and then upload them as you want.

It’s then possible to play live as you want to. It’s also still possible to record multiple hits too - though percussion tracks are limited to 2 note polyphony. Nevertheless, you can still do a hell of a lot with this setup.

#4

Thanks guys,
I kinda figured-out your suggestions as the solution 2) I originally mentioned. And yes I guess you are absolutely right. Right in the solution and right in the fact OP-z is full of good potential.
I guess I was more wondering how to do this with the initial setup, without having to customize too much through the computer.
But ultimately, if the trick is to customize myself a drum-kit and upload it, so be it. I’d rather have preferred to be able to set this up without any computer connection and upload… but I will definitely give it a shot.

#5

Here I am hitting another wall : assume one wants to create a new drum pack… but from the existing native sounds of OP-Z…
If you connect to the computer, you see the folder “samplepacks” in which we have 1-kick, 2-snare etc. Each of them contain some packs… great.
But the original aif files such as “AlainKicks.aif” are… 0 bytes. I guess it’s because they are links to native files in OP-Z… but it also means that I can’t read the files to use the samples for another sample pack.

Did anyone manage to read native sounds (aif) from OP-Z to make them part of another pack ?

#6

I can’t find the stock sounds either. But if you have the op-1 you can record the dum hits you want to tape, then from tape to drum sampler, then trim the drums and move the sound pack to the op-z.

I like to put chopped drums on track 4. On the stock sounds the one with the vinyl crackle has a chopped drum loop at the end. I like to have them on track 4 because the performance track drum fills sound funny if chopped drums are on the bass, snare or highhat track.

The amen break chopped up on the performance track is lots of fun. @docshermsticks has some free chopped drum loops that work really well. https://op1.fun/users/docshermsticks
and sells a really good pack with a ton more chopped drum loops.

#7

So the stock sounds are always in the opz? Even if you change them out? That’s really cool … but I don’t get why you have to hook it up to a computer to beable to go back to factory setup, it seems like you should beable to without the computer if that was true.

#8

sample the existing packs yourself and then remake them as u see fit.
it takes like 10 minutes

i actually did this right before i sold my Z b/c i liked some of the kicks/snares and stuff.

#9

There is a key combo to reset to factory settings. I think you can do it with the configurator in the app to.

#10

I get you point. But I’d rather not want to do so… sampling a sampled sound… I’d have preferred to stick to the original quality… Anyways… I can live with this. Thanks!

#11

Just get a used for quneo. It’s a pain to configure but it’s sick when set up. Really.
You can map the pad to whatever midi channel and note you want. i even configured mine to trigger 4 different sounds per pad (one on each corner). With different samples live samples you set 4 variation of the same kick, snare and hi hat to sound more realistic
This way i discovered that the Op-Z actually records on all incoming channels AT ONCE, which is awesome.

The quneo can on top of this be powered by the Z on power save mode (pressing the 4 central pads upon startup). Just get a micro usb to usb c cable and you re off !

You also get sliders and some controls you can map to the cc you want :slight_smile: