Live Looping Tips - Record Arming and Track Switching

OP-1 field
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Disclaimer: I’m very new to the OP-1 (Field). I’ve found the manual to be very basic and have been figuring out live looping workflows through trial and error. I finally had a breakthrough and thought I’d share here, for any others new to the Field.

The problem I was running into was that it was easy to initially arm a track for recording (shift-record), but once in that state you couldn’t switch tracks. And once I exited record mode (hitting play button), I couldn’t figure out how to re-arm the record state again. I’d have to press and hold the record button, which was annoying.

Instead once a track is playing, you use the record-play button combo to arm the track for recording. Maybe that was obvious to others, but took a long time for me to realize that.

So workflow at the moment for live looping:

  • Choose initial track for recording and set your loop point. Use shift-record to arm track, press play to start session.
  • Once you have your first loop, press the play button (this exits record mode and allows track switching) and switch to next track.
  • Now press record-play and that track is now armed for your next layer/instrument.
  • Rinse and repeat.

Any other workflows folks have found? I’m just experimenting with live looping sessions and seeing what I can come up with.

Note: I’m guessing this info might be in the OP-1 section, but thought I’d share here with my findings.

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Another trick is to press and hold record while a track is playing, play something, and then let go when you’re done. Recording only happens while the button is held down.

This lets you quickly “punch in” snippets of recording on the fly.

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Here’s a tip:

For live looping type duties, many complain that when you select track 2 when track 1 is playing back, the sound cuts out. But you have to select track 2 to record there! Here’s the work around:

Press and hold track 1 which is already playing. At the same time press track 2 and release it. Track 2 is selected. Release track one. Track 2 is still selected, and no cut out happened at all.

You can do this with more tracks too. Eg hold 123 and press and release 4 to select that etc.

The cut out behaviour is because holding a track button is the solo function.

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I had wondered why it did that!! Thank you!!

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Very cool, I’ll have to give that a try. That definitely felt like a missing piece!

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