I’m currently away on a work trip and as I’m now in the worse part of my 30’s I can’t be bothered going out every night any more, so I’m glad I have my OP-1 to keep me company in my hotel room. So glad I didn’t sell this guy. I have had it for 2 years and kind of doodled a bit, here and there. Kind of this nice book you always fall asleep to. However I feel that I’m finally scratching the surface of a bigger thing.
Last night I used sliced drum breaks and was initially using the endless sequencer to make a drum loop. But then, what if I was in a live environment and needed to get started on the spot? That’s when I realized the power of TAPE. I deactivated the sequencer, removed the grid from TAPE, decided on an [in] loop point, hit record and started punching in my drumloop from the keyboard and looped it on the fly with the [out] button. There was my drum loop. My timing was a bit off but eventually got it right after a few try outs.
Might not seem much for some of you but I think that I just realized that on top of being a synth, fx, sequencer, sampler, 4-track recorder, radio… it also can be used as a live looping device! With a bit of musicianship and practice you can build up layers and layers of looped sounds on top of each other… live and from scratch! Sky is the limit!
Anyone here using is as such? Interested in hearing your feedback.
I use this kind of approach to build quick loops, but I haven’t pushed this to the point I could play a whole song this way.
yeah dude - i love doing this!

MAN.THIS.IS.AWESOME.
Thank you so much for posting this!!
Looks like I’m not going out tonight either
Nice!And just have the record player going in the background, to capture the full performance :)
yeah, that’s what i thought too… but unfortunately that doesn’t work… i think recording onto the tape is as much as it can handle. was reeeally spewin when i realised you couldn’t dub it all straight onto the virtual wax. i had to use my comp for that bit.
@speckdrum Great video!! Reminds me of some de la/dr. dre vibe, it’s super hip! You’re cutting it a bit close to the 6:00 end game on the tape don’t ya think :o) BTW I like to keep the bars up but agree that disconnecting from sequencer and playing the beats live gives it an organic, personalized groove.
Cheers!
@speckdrum Great video!! Reminds me of some de la/dr. dre vibe, it's super hip! You're cutting it a bit close to the 6:00 end game on the tape don't ya think :o) BTW I like to keep the bars up but agree that disconnecting from sequencer and playing the beats live gives it an organic, personalized groove.
Cheers!
cheers dude, glad you liked it. 6 minutes? time is nothing when you’re looping all the time.
Great! Ey and no clicks or pops heard ; )
haha I was thinking that as well actually!
Great! Ey and no clicks or pops heard ; )
Great! Ey and no clicks or pops heard ; )
yeah… it’s weird that.
Great! Ey and no clicks or pops heard ; )
yeah… it’s weird that.
i made another vid of this too:
This is dope man ! Love your tunes @speckdrum
I find that drum / rhythm tracks are often far less susceptible to the zero-crossing popping than, say, a sustained synth sound; like a string swell.
@speckdrum Great video!! Reminds me of some de la/dr. dre vibe, it's super hip! You're cutting it a bit close to the 6:00 end game on the tape don't ya think :o) BTW I like to keep the bars up but agree that disconnecting from sequencer and playing the beats live gives it an organic, personalized groove.
Cheers!
I agree. Playing live, every once in a while some magic happens that can’t be reproduced. To me this is the essence of the OP-1 itself - spontaneity and happy accidents at the expense of fidelity and DAW-like editing options that would slow the creative process down.
The only thing missing from the OP-1 when used as a looper like speckdrum does is a “keep last” loop record mode where only the last recorded lap is kept. This way you can jam live until you nail the take…and if you screw up real bad you dont have to stop the live performance to lift/drop backup takes. I actually put in a request to TE for this functionality.
The only thing missing from the OP-1 when used as a looper like speckdrum does is a "keep last" loop record mode where only the last recorded lap is kept. This way you can jam live until you nail the take....and if you screw up real bad you dont have to stop the live performance to lift/drop backup takes. I actually put in a request to TE for this functionality.
i don’t reckon they’ll be able to implement this… worth asking though!
@speckdrum Great video!! Reminds me of some de la/dr. dre vibe, it’s super hip! You’re cutting it a bit close to the 6:00 end game on the tape don’t ya think :o) BTW I like to keep the bars up but agree that disconnecting from sequencer and playing the beats live gives it an organic, personalized groove.
Cheers!
I agree. Playing live, every once in a while some magic happens that can’t be reproduced. To me this is the essence of the OP-1 itself - spontaneity and happy accidents at the expense of fidelity and DAW-like editing options that would slow the creative process down.
The only thing missing from the OP-1 when used as a looper like speckdrum does is a “keep last” loop record mode where only the last recorded lap is kept. This way you can jam live until you nail the take…and if you screw up real bad you dont have to stop the live performance to lift/drop backup takes. I actually put in a request to TE for this functionality.
Well i see it like rehearsing with a band. You don’t necessarily record yourself all the time, you just practice and when you nail it, you just nail it. It becomes yours and you are ready to play live in front of people. Like a skateboarder learning new tricks. You have a track that sticks and you just keep practicing until you own it and keeps evolving.
@spectrum I’m starting to like this bleepdrum very much!
i put another one together this morning - let me know what y'all think.
It’s awesome. Watching your videos makes me realize i still have a LOT room to learn and master with this device, and it’s cool. Thanks.
Just came across this crazy little mf
The only thing missing from the OP-1 when used as a looper like speckdrum does is a "keep last" loop record mode where only the last recorded lap is kept. This way you can jam live until you nail the take....and if you screw up real bad you dont have to stop the live performance to lift/drop backup takes. I actually put in a request to TE for this functionality.
i don’t reckon they’ll be able to implement this… worth asking though!
i put another one together this morning - let me know what y’all think.
Nice vid! I especially like the stick work as alternate percussion.
As far as technical implementation, I’m an embedded systems engineer and would guess that memory constraints would be a possible issue because you have to keep both the original and last lap stored. Probably could just use pointers to jump between different parts of memory during playback/record. or worst case sacrifice whats in the lift buffer RAM and write there, then silently drop in place as required.