Steve Reich/William Basinski style phase shifting loops on the op-1 field

As seen in this Loopop video:

How would you go about achieving this on the op-1 field?

The closest I’ve got is using the drum sampler and dropping in the parts I want to loop. It’s annoying because when I set the playback to loop I have to hold down the key and the 20 second sample time makes it really limited. Anyone have any better ideas on how to achieve this?

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I only have the OG-1 but I would record one sample to tape and loop that, then play same/another sample with a sequencer, e.g. the endless sequencer with only one step and set it to hold (shift + red encoder, from memory…). So you can have the tape running/looping and have the other sample play over it. Now you can apply an LFO to the sample start/end point or other parameters that will make the live playing sample wonky, plus play with the tape speed/direction. Just an idea…

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Another option would be the same as above, but minus the tape. Instead, use the delay looping trick as described here, to loop the live playing and ever-changing sample, while the sequencer continues to play over it: OP-1 as a looping delay

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Hm, this is the first time I noticed there is no hold sequencer for drums on Field. Big omission precisely because of use cases like this one.

You have some interesting ideas here! Gonna have to try them out later tonight.

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Yeah seems like a huge oversight. They could just add a “gated loop” as one of the play modes in the drum sampler.

It’s been a while since I touched my OP-1, but I don’t think a single step in Endless is going to let your sample loop forever – it will retrigger at the end of each step.

However. IIRC you can input sustained notes into the Endless sequencer: hold shift, press+hold your key, then with those things held, tap > until you hit the end of the sequence (128 steps).

If you change the sequencer speed to 1/4 (or whatever the slowest speed is, maybe it goes down to 1/2 or 1, I forget), now you’ll have a long period of time where there’s just a single sustained note which will let your looping samples play without being retriggered.

(Note: this might be totally wrong! Specifically, I almost never use the drums on OP-1, so this is just assuming that Endless works the same in drums mode as it does for synths; that might not be the case. IIRC you can loop stuff with the synth sampler too though, so that should definitely work.)

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You can hold a note with the endless sequencer using crank mode. Input your note, then hold shift and turn blue encoder to enable crank mode. Turn blue to trigger the sustained note.

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Doesn’t endless do 999 steps now?

This works! The problem with this method though is that it only allows one note to be played at a time. And if you switch between the sampler engines the sequencer turns of.

After experimenting a bit with this I’ve found that the best method is using the synth sampler combined with the new Hold sequencer. This together with the delay effect allows for great layering and phasing of loops. The biggest constraint with this method though is the 6 second limit that the synth sampler has. My biggest wish for the op-1 field right now is that the hold sequencer gets added to the drum sampler as well. This would allow for some real creative experimentation.

Is that true though? AFAIK the endless sequencer allows for multiple notes per step. When you enter the notes, you need to hold SHIFT and also hold all the notes you want to enter on the step, then release all keys.

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Of course! Totally forgot that you can enter multiple notes per step.