Op-1 - Tape techniques to wear/mangle tape

…and you can prepare a fluttering tape while recording in „hand cranked recording mode“

this way you can simulate an old tape and record your new takes on top of that.

I just can’t get any of these techniques to work properly.

The hand cranked technique just sounds like super fast forward tape (even though I’m cranking very slowly)

And the recording to ear still seems to let in so much unwanted noise and turns the sample to high pitched. It feels like a science to get that right.

Bouncing to tape and back again is a mystery as well. It just isn’t recording anything except a squeal.

I don’t want to waste anyones time but its pretty annoying that I cant do this simple task.

An honest question to you guys, how do I get better at this device? I feel like I cant get much out of it. There hasn’t been a “click or ah ha” moment for me. The OP-Z I completely understand - I imagine a piece of music, I make it and it’s done.

I don’t know how to play a keyboard or piano. Do I need to start learning chords to understand the keyboard more and get more out of it maybe?

why do you want to make things so hard for yourself?
if you want tape-based artifacts, then record your audio to a tape deck. then record tape output into the op1? it’ll take two minutes. i’m sure there are digital tape emulators if you don’t own a tape deck or reel to reel. and so what if you can’t emulate tape artifacts on the op-1? move on. it’s not going to make or break your tracks.

you don’t need to learn chords – look up scales and chord progressions online and input them one note at a time to the sequencers. or sample a chord then play it back on the keyboard at different pitches (middle c, then 5 and 7 semitones up or down the keyboard will sound good together, for example).

what you do need to do is to get your bass, chords and melody to all sound right together – and you do that by making sure they are all in the same key. the easiest way to do that is to get all your samples from the same song.

don’t give up – the ancient greeks held that “aporia” or confusion/frustration is an essential and important step in learning. if you’re not getting aporia, you’re not learning.

1 Like

are you using the „crank“ accessory for the hand cranked recording?

the OP-1 is no traditional sequencer or composer, it‘s full of capable areas which you can combine and that will lead to a more musical way of recording instead of just placing notes on a piano roll etc.

best thing is to learn how make loops on tape and then adding different sounds, one by one

a combination of Hand played stuff and automations by the sequencers will lead to unique results.

3 Likes

https://teenage.engineering/guides/op-1/tape-mode#8.10

No, I am not using the crank accessory (that looks insanely expensive doesn’t it?) but thought I could hand crank it but sounds like i need it.

I think I just need more time with the OP-1 to understand it more.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

2 Likes

A few resources:

Synthdawg’s OP-1 ebook (and check their OP-1 microsite):

Easy music theory lessons (focus on keys and chords):
https://lotusmusic.com/lm_contents.html

The magic of chord maps:
https://mugglinworks.com/chordmaps/

I hope this helps, don’t try to do everything at once :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thank you so much! I’ll check these resources out!

I think with your noise problem resampling was to do with the mic button.
First hit shift & mic to select source. Set this to ear. Enter synth/sampler mode and press mic again to make sure its switched on. It will ask a prompt to start sampling. Trigger sampling (manually or via threshold) and go to tape mode to wiggle blue for pitch warbler. (Experiment with tape speeds to here too).
Or do the tape to album by recording to album when wobbling blue, then record album back onto tape via the Ear selection process - just make sure Ear is switched on before pressing record on tape and play on album.

Agreed OP-1 doesn’t make finished tracks the easy way like other gear ,unless you are going to actually play some music yourself!
But it is an amazing swiss army knife of audio with sampling and resampling as one of its strengths, combined with interesting sequencers and a killer tape.
It’s an instrument, that wants to lead you in experiments and it’s way of doing stuff.

1 Like

I have tried what OP is trying, and the reason you can’t do it is because when you change the playback speed you are simultaneously changing the recording speed, so you don’t get the effect when you play it back at a normal speed.

You have two options 1) record to album with your custom flutter, then use ear to bounce that back to track. Be careful with your master compression/EQ, i usually make it neutral for this because you will then be applying EQ/compression again after. I find this method cumbersome and annoying but it gives you a lot of options

  1. Play back the stem you want as a drum sample, but apply Vibrato LFO to it. The vibrato works by adjusting the playback speed so it will give you a tape style vibrato. Downside here is that you only get 12 seconds (unless you record the sample really fast, then use drum sample to slow it WAY down, but you will get lots of artifacts which could also be cool).

  2. I haven’t tried this yet, but what if you take your stem, drop it into sampler synth, and apply legato/portamento, hold down c then every once in awhile move to B natural or C sharp, this should give you the same effect of a tape speeding up and slowing down. The negative with this method is you only get 6 seconds. However, once again you could pitch the sample up really fast to get around this, then use sampler again to pitch it really low giving you much more time. Once again, lots of artifacts from this which may or may not be desirable.

3 Likes

https://teenage.engineering/guides/op-1/tape-mode#8.12