Two OP-1 questions

OP-1
#1

Two things I’ve been searching for but couldn’t find any comments on:


1. When you are recording on tape in loop mode, recording a sequencer, how do you keep it from doubling on the second pass? I just have to quickly press stop at the end and hope I do it at the right time. Is there a better way? One method is to temporally take it out of tape mode when recording, then cut it it, but sometimes I’m recording in a part that has something after it.

2. How do you deal with tempo changes in the Tape when using Beatmatch. Like above, I use a lot of sequencers that are locked to a tempo. So I make little sketches in different parts of the tape, but when I change the tempo on one sketch it messes up the grid for all the other tempos.
#2

  1. You basically mentioned the only two options: Be quick or disable looping and record just a bit longer and cut.

  2. Turn the white knob, not the blue one. That’ll keep the markers while changing the BPM. Unfortunately it can only be adjusted on a very coarse scale. If you keep the blue knob at 125 before you turn the white one your markers will match up even after a power cycle.

#3

So is 125 BPM thing a bug or something intended?

#4

Dunno. Maybe it’s just a reasonable default for electronic music. Could be coincidence as well though

#5
  1. Yeah I use both of those methods. If it is drums, then being quick is usually good. If it is something that requires bleeding over and cutting, you can just jump further down the tape or use a different track and then copy/paste.

    2) The 125 BPM thing isn’t a bug. There are two ways to treat the tape. First you can consider it a constant speed tape track – if you adjust the tempo, the tape is recording at the same speed and just changing how many beats per minute of tape there are. Second you can consider the tempo to be linked to tape speed – here the tape is always 125 (or something else) beats in 1 minute of tape – then you are adjusting the speed the tape is moving to get those beats to come more often (higher tempo) or less often (slower tempo). Affecting the speed of the tape affects the quality of the recording, I believe. There are 6 minutes of tape – recording to them in a way that has more than 6 minutes of material compressed onto it will mean that you have the quality of 6 minutes with the length of more.

    I tend to end in a DAW, so just accumulate sketches at various tempos and them dump them in Live. You could adjust tempo until the bars match up. Keep in mind that the bar markers move with the tempo with a linked tape speed. So if you record 10 sketches at different tempos, those bar markers will always realign at the correct tempo for each sketch.
#6

Pressing PLAY will stop the recording too, without halting playback though.
I rarely use the sequencers in general but for looping drum sequences I’ll do this sometimes:

  • Make a loop selection the length of 4 or 8 bars of drums
  • hold REC and then press and hold a key to start recording (once recording starts you can release the REC button)
  • while recording is in progress and key is held down, go to SEQ screen and set HOLD (then release the key being held down)
  • go back to TAPE and press PLAY as the loop ends to prevent overlapping sounds
  • turn off HOLD on the sequencer

It’s not much different than the STOP method but you’ll hear right away if the loop was cut on time.

#7

When you’re sketching your ideas o. The tape at various tempos, you can make a quick note of the time stamp + bpm on your phone or other note taking device.

Another handy way to keep track of sketches is to use the scissor to cut at each bar / 4 bars / whatever on at least one track. This will allow you more looping options with shift + loop. Also use the scissor at the start / end of your loops, at the bar markers, before you change BPM, this is important if you have a bit of extra region length and saves fiddling when you come back to a sketch.

Another tip - whenever possible, set your bpm to double, I’d you’re using bar markers, as it gives you more auto slice points.

Peace <3