the workaround is a good idea at least on the drum samples. I’ll try it.
Ok that workaround does not work unfortunately, the attack envelope only applies to the beginning of the sample no matter which end it is.
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My workflow to avoid clicks, for me:
When I’m recording a part, I normally know in advance that I’ll want to loop it. Eg a drum or bass part, or some chords.
I set the loop points around the bar(s).
Whether using Endless or playing live, because OP-1f is an ‘overdub always’ style Tape Recorder, ie the erase head is disconnected, I stop playing at the end of the bar but always let the tail / decay wrap around and get recorded into the front of the loop. That way it loops perfectly when cut and pasted, rather than hearing a click at the start.
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This is a good idea, thanks. It’s working pretty well for me but occasionally I get a flanging sound at the start of the bar where I’ve overdubbed a little bit of the kick, for instance. It’s tricky. I’m better at it if I slow the tape down by half, play an octave lower and half as fast, or just play half speed when recording drums.
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It. Sucks. Period.
It’s annoyingly frustrating.
Last week, I spent maybe 10 minutes mixing an op1f track…and 15 minutes chasing and fixing clicks.
Almost made the track unusable.
Neat trick indeed.
Gotta try it.
I tried to make a song « the very old fashion way » the other day.
Had an inspiring chord progression with a pad and a huge reverb.
Since I didn’t want to lose the reverb tail every 8 bars, I thought I’d give it a try and record the whole song in one pass.
And although it helped with the pad, the drums ended up suffering from clicks. The sampled bass too.
It’s a crazy affair.
But your tip is pretty cool. Gonna try it on various scenarios. I can see it help a lot when doing ambiant tracks.
Hmm all good ideas.
I found a recent workaround with a clicking drum loop that only clicked when I lifted and pasted a bunch of bars, but not when I looped a single segment. So I just recorded that for a long stretch into the album without the pops and then re recorded a long pop-less take back onto the tape from the album.
But I also reached out to TE about both issues, loop crossfade and drum sample decay/crossfade whatever you want to call it. The drum stuff should be like a peace of cake to fix with a firmware update. Both should. I hope it’s with the next one, it’s been a minute since the last update. It would speed things up immeasurably.
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Love the workaround. Gonna give it a go with the latest drumloops I imported. Some of them are old personal faves, but they are riddled with noises and stuff - so prone to clicking when looping.
And kudos for keeping TE up to date. I think, ultimately, this is like the Velocity update : the more they get asked about it, the most likely they will address it.
I own a Helix Floor from Line 6 and most of the latest features were just addressing people’s wishes.
So. Fingers crossed.
TE responded that they have sent it off to their development team, so fingers crossed.
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If I’m not mistaken, that’s what they reply to everyone. Me included (about a month ago).
But since power is in numbers, let’s hope they do make something out of these many requests!
Thanks for helping making TE aware!
Really? This is a huge short coming for both the original and OP-1 field. No amount of time learning these instruments will ever make this less annoying.
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I think we are noticing this on the Field more than on the original OP-1 - and it’s because of the Mother reverb. Any amount of that on a track, if you lift/drop it, you are likely to get a clash of the cut reverb tail with the level of reverb on the piece you dropped in… just like real tape, in fact!
I would love to see a “drop and overdub” (perhaps the infamous ‘.’ could be used for this) which also applies a subtle level matching if dropped next to another piece of tape with something on it.
I’m learning to love the clicks anyway.
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The click in itself is hard to love for me - whatever the cause.
But I love your philosophy of accepting it!
I guess the FXs don’t help indeed.
And I do think there are ways to implement some fade tools (plural) easily in the machine.
We’ll see.
Not the fanciest update - but a crucial one, I’d dare to say
I think the clicks are lovable on the original OP-1 because they sort of match the vibes of the sample engine in general. But they stick out much more on the Field (imo) because everything else is so hi-fi.
I’ve been playing around with sampling loops into the regular sampler. The regular sampler has a (imo) more usable envelope, so it’s possible to isolate single drum hits much easier with it. Then, record those drum hits onto the tape, and finally lift that whole section of tape into the drum sampler.
It’s still not very good for “choppy” breakbeat style stuff, but it works well for sampling single sounds and drum hits.
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Now, that’s some forward thinking! Love it.
And yeup. I gotta say you nailed the « why it stands out so much ».
The OG vibe was lofi for lofi. Hell…it kinda created the lofi trend.
But on the field, it’s not a musical thing anymore. It’s annoying af.
Here’s a weird, really weird thing I’ve started to notice-
If I have a drum loop going on a track, record something in with the line in from another source, I’ll often get these pops at the end of the track as it loops back over.
Sometimes this leaves a micro cut/slice on the recorded track. Or even seems to if I hit shift forward key to the end of that track.
lifting out the slice and/or then the entire recorded track and dropping it back in often gets rid of the pop.
It’s really weird. I also then re adjust the end point of the loop to the newly dropped track.
I can’t tell if this makes the loop shorter or what is going on. But it seems to be helping with the pop for now.
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It is just poor implementation on the OP-1 tape and this along with the lack of undo is the perfect mix for user frustration.
I own the OG and the only way I learned to live with it is by not using tape for anything other than sketching out ideas or experimenting\resampling at various speeds. I record the OG as any other instrument and I do so for his quirky sound character, by that I mean that while it is digital I’ve always struggled to replicate some of his sound peculiarities using plugins or other digital instruments.
One the reasons I’m not buying into the Field, is because besides not liking choices made on the design, graphics and lcd display, I also have little to no interest on using it as an instrument since most of what I liked on the OG about the sound character is changed and is now closer to my typical plugin or digital instrument…
However this is just my own opinion, there’s people using OP-1’s tape limitations to their advantage and creating beautiful stuff with it as a standalone device, be it OG or Field.
So I’m well aware that this is likely in part a limitation of the device and in part a limitation of the user.
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A crossfading tool is mandatory at that point.
Should not even be a discussion.
And yet, they don’t implement it.
It’s not exactly a fancy request - it’s one of the most important tool when you want to make any recording bearable.
And their CS - although very positive and responsive - keeps on telling people to « just play in time ». A sampling engine with no fade tool is a big no no in my book.
And yet, I have to admit that I own the Field since July and already have 200 demos out of it. Recording all kind of stuff.
But I’m using it and keeping it ONLY because I own declicking tools.
It’s horrendous, takes time to process, but it works for most purposes.
Still. Not tolerable. TE dropped the ball on this one.
I love your philosophy behind the OG1. Almost purchased one a while back. But I’m on the fence to buy an SP404 mkII for half the price.
Let’s hope TE’s watching this forum and that this crossfade tool makes it to the OP1f
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maybe u already aware
but lift and drop is your tape undo
its been there the whole time
lift and it will save your tape in the buffer until u lift something else
drop it back down… do your overdubs or whatever
if u dont like it
drop your original take again
viola undo
rinse and repeat until u are happy
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