Hadn’t had any major pops/clicks for a while but tonight it totally killed what I was doing. Can’t figure out if there’s a set of circumstances that increase likelihood of getting them or not? Anyone got any ideas on it?
Situation was as described below, doesn’t make sense to me…
Recorded a few bars of a repeated synth melody freehand in to tape track 1 (no metronome/off grid).
Played it back on tape and hit in loop start and end points by ear, using the tightest section of my sketchy playing
Loop played back perfectly. No pops.
Needed to duplicate the riff to have enough duration to have it play over the top of two different bass notes.
Pressed ‘stop’ to snap to loop start point. Cut the segment.
Needed to cut the segment at loop end point. Hit a problem here. Anyone know how to snap perfectly to loop end point? Stop + Right goes to end of current audio segment, but that was outside my loop Seemed the closest I could find was to place the ‘now’ cursor at loop start and then tap ‘left’ once so it moved to end of loop. But this was audibly off compared to the timing accuracy of my loop point. Tho still no pops when I looped it.
At this point (due to the loop timing being off) I gave up on it being any kind of potentially ‘final’ recording and started to look at it as just a memo/sketch before I forgot stuff.
I finally duplicated the segment with lift/drop. Big click/pop on the join between the original and the adjoining duplicate???
If a loop of tape doesn’t click/pop when being played back on loop, why does the same section click/pop if you lift/drop it next to itself? I can’t make sense of it…
@graves thanks but the shift + blue function doesn’t really help. Surprised there isn’t a ‘snap cursor to loop end point’ button combo? Maybe I missed it, I’ll look through the manual.
Yeah the clicks/pops are really weird. I don’t see why a ‘popless’ loop would suddenly develop a click/pop when you lift/drop it? Ugh…
I don’t think there’s a way of accurately snipping the loop end point. Yes, would be nice to have a key combo to move to the loop end point as you mentioned.
Regarding why the audio doesn’t pop when looped on tape but does pop when duplicated and placed adjacent on tape could perhaps be related to the way they’ve tackled pops and clicks in the update? Pure speculation, but perhaps when you play the audio with loop points on tape it does some non-destructive mini cross fades between the end sample and the start sample or something, but when you duplicate the loop it doesn’t apply that. It would be good to get confirmation from TE about what’s expected.
I think @yoof is spot on, the cross fades are non destructive on the loop points.
Yeah that would explain it. Hope TE expand on it for the finished OS so it works on any kind of audio segment on tape. Otherwise it’s kind of ridiculous how crippled Tape is when used outside of a certain workflow. I know that workflow’s cool and yields grest results a lot of the time, but I’d hoped for something less restrictive in linear usage as a feasible option too, kind of thought that was part of the idea behind ‘tape’ as opposed to multitrack sequencer…
Wondering if this would be of real benefit in linear (non looping) use?
I’m still trying to get past my frustrations last time I got emersed and pops ruined my tracks.
So hard for me to keep the op faith right now but, then I read how many regretted selling theirs & bought again.
Not sure if I’d fall into that regret camp though. Juries out.
@chet yeah I guess you’re right… If pop/click reduction isn’t in effect throughout the process of cropping an off-grid loop to facilitate duplicating that section along the Timeline, it does make that workflow (and the mentioned workaround) kind of redundant depending on luck of the draw with pop/click…
There’s enough creative avenues that work great in OP to keep me happy keeping it, but learning all these little hindrances/problems is a downer for sure.
@chet do you do final mixes in DAW? Wondering if maybe I’m getting unnecessarily hung up on the pops etc. I sometimes get pretty harsh clicks/pops in DAW on tracks where I’ve carelessly comped a bunch of takes together (normally notice it on bass guitar tracks.). Never really worries me tho as Waves X-crackle normally gets rid of them with one click… I’m gonna make a throway track on OP next session without stressing about pops and clicks, instead I’ll actually try to make it happen as often as possible. Then see if that waves plugin fixes it no prob in DAW. I’ll normally mix OP stuff as separate tape track exports in DAW anyway so if that works out I can just ignore them, knowing they’ll get fixed during mixing. I don’t mind lofi but big pop on loop start or end can grate one me so this might be solution… I’ll let you know how it goes if it’s maybe worth you grabbing that plugin if you don’t already have it.
@callofthevoid I do final mixes in daw but, often to tape 1st.
I don’t have that wave plug you mentioned but might look into it.
TBH, I don’t like the idea of making excuses and developing work arounds and extra steps for something that to me seems to be such a blatant oversight by TI. Moreover, they seem to not be interested in a dialog about it. (I emailed them to mention it and respectfully ask, but haven’t heard back thus far)
I’m truly trying to hang in there and be a bit patient, experiment etc.
If an update comes soon that addresses it, great. But it may be a while to see if that happens.
I can’t help but find it odd that such an engaging and useful tool has a thwarting bug that is seemingly somewhat ignored. I keep wondering if I’m missing something or doing something wrong (being so new to it) but it seems to be a reality so far when used in a linear way.
In trying to lay out a simple ARP track, I can’t get through more than 1 1/2 minutes without RANDOM POPS. I just don’t get it. (also did a factory reset)
I mean really, am I (& callofthevoid) the only ones experiencing these god awful artifacts that kill the vibe workflow and force me down the road of I’m done with this thing ?
It’s doubly hard because there’s so much about it I get and truly like and see it’s value.
Can you maybe share a vid of your experiences? I get pops and clicks, but mainly working in a live jam / looper workflow and the new OS has almost removed them completely.
@chet are you getting clicks/pops on loop points or ‘random’ artifacts? I’ve only experienced them recently on loop points. Sounds like you’re getting something more like clicks/pops due to CPU struggling if they’re occurring while you record long linear passages?
@ghostly606 Not sure a video would help tbh. It’s just as simple as random pops/clicks while recording to tape linear (not loops)…different tracks, different spots, different synth sounds….? Been doing some tests this way but have yet to find a pattern.
@callofthevoid Yes while recording linear passages. Anywhere from 1 min in to 1 1/2 minutes into the recording.
My last track recorded had pops at 34 sec and 104 secs for example, but other tracks will differ in “where” in the time line the pops happen.
I’m not even messing with loop points at this time due to this totally freaking odd behavior that I have yet to get past.
I’m honestly not intending to be negative at all, I love this things creative potential and all in one package tool for what it is.
I simply don’t get it. I’m starting to wonder why I’m seemingly alone with this significant issue.
Maybe my next experiment in trying to rid the op-1 of these artifacts is to go back to the last official OS release.
Unfortunately that would mean saying bye to the Arp.
Seemed the closest I could find was to place the ‘now’ cursor at loop start and then tap ‘left’ once so it moved to end of loop. But this was audibly off compared to the timing accuracy of my loop point. Tho still no pops when I looped it.