OP-Z step sequencer: how many steps are possible?

Yes, please do!

Came here to figure this out before I bought my OP Z (thanks) so thought I’d give my practical example. I’ve been playing around with long step lengths for a live set with a guitar where I need the OP Z to do lengthy sequencing on its own at times. I’m replacing a Yamaha QY70 (loved it but it can no longer leave the house without a factory reset), which was designed for full song sequencing but was so fiddly for someone who grew up with DAWs that the OP Z has been amazing to work with, even with its limitations - what I’m doing isn’t really what it’s designed for anyway, so that’s fine.

Basically, the more notes you’re trying to play around with, the shorter you should try and keep your track length. I’ve found that a 4 bar loop gives you a decent amount of freedom, but you might lose the odd top note where you try for a couple of chords in the same step. A 5 bar loop was awkward to work with, I guess because the step splits are kind of un-musical and so the trigger limitations cut in and out at unexpected points. For this I just split to a 4 and a 1. An 8 bar loop is doable but you’re really limited for complexity, especially with any polyphony.

After that you have a 32 step pattern sequencer to play with (pattern chain). So, providing you can fit all your loops / splits of loops into the 16 in a project, which is a decent number, you can easily get full songs going. Eg, if all of your patterns are 4 bar loops, you’ve got 32 * 4 bars - 128 bars or 4:26 ish at 120bpm (I think). So yeah, a song. Plus step component tricks too, for fills and extras.

Anyway, I’m already finding ways to OP-Zify some of the songs so will probably do less of this chaining and try to interact with the patterns more, something which my old QY70 made pretty difficult. I guess this is the payoff in the end - the more complex the sequencing power, the less likely you are to get something unexpected and ‘live’ out of it. But the OP Z does the former quite well, and the latter amazingly well.

Question on this from day three with my OP-Z (WHAT a machine!) Let’s say, as in @tomjohnhall’s example, you’re running a four-bar loop. You’ve entered a chord sequence with two chords per bar and some played phrases. Is it still possible to play with the step components for those notes which now fall ‘between’ steps?
Hope that makes sense. The op-z is a huge leap for me, but I love it so far. Working my way through the guide and watching Cuckoo’s mega tutorial to get to grips with the basics.

I hope I understand your question correctly.

The phrased notes will be ‘grouped’ together to one step on the grid. For this step you can then specify step components.

So, let’s say three notes are grouped to one step. You specify a step component for this step. This step component will now affect all three notes that were grouped to this step.

Let me know if things are unclear, I can prepare a demo video for you.

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Thanks, @bolandross. Yes, I think I understand. So I’ll still be able to use step components, but one component will affect everything on that step. In traditional musical terms, I might have played an eight note and two sixteenth notes on beat two of bar three, but because I’ve extended the length, all of these notes will be assigned to one step.
That makes sense. I want to let these limitations and opportunities inspire me musically. I really appreciate the response. A video would be great if you have time - it’s useful to see the theory in practise.

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what up with your buttons? did you paint the led outs?

I am using stickers to dim the lights.

Now, my OP-Z is not winning beauty contests anymore, but my eyes are thankful. :sunglasses:

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haha I like it. reminds me of one of the first proto units

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Great, thank you. What a helpful community!

Notice the encoder is popping out on the proto :see_no_evil:

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yep seen that. :expressionless:

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how on earth could those tiny leds, be hurtful to your eyes? They are so dim as it is.

Well, people are different and so are eyes.

Also, the size of a LED doesn’t say anything about the strength of it. To make things even more complicated, there are different kinds of LEDs (for example clear ones and ‘matte’/diffusing ones) and different kinds of electronic ways to dim a LED (for example by pulsing them quickly on and off, so they appear darker). Some people get headaches by looking at pulsing lights for longer periods of time. A good example are smartphone screens that use PWM for screen dimming or OLED screens with low refreshing frequencies, making them ‘flicker’.

In my case, I am often using the OP-Z in low light situations. So, having my eyes adapted to the dark environment of the room, looking at bright LEDs of the OP-Z is not pleasing.

That’s why todays smartphones use ambient light sensors to dim the screen when used in darker environments and to increase the brightness when used outdoors. Cool, isn’t it?

please don’t take any offense friend! I wasn’t being that serious :upside_down_face:

I’m thinking maybe my unit may have some defunct LEDs then, cause mine don’t seem all too bright even in a dark bathroom… :thinking: or you have much better vision than me! :+1: which is also possible, i have astigmatism so seeing the lights it kinda spreads out and isn’t very focused. Like in movies when theres a soft focus and lights in the background have that bokeh effect. That’s kinda what the leds look like to me in the dark. Cheers :100:

Cool thanks for sharing!