Putting external files into OP-1 as the album files?

Can you put a 6min stereo .aif file onto Op-1 as the album file?
Anyone tried that?

Have you?

Yes, and it did not work.

So am curious if anyone was successful doing that…

Interesting thought. You could have a huge library on their for recording samples.

I think it’s a bit more than just an aiff file.
For example all the presets etc are all just aiff files too but manage to have effect info in there etc too.

i hadn’t tried this until i saw this post, assuming i could but i had not done so yet.
i copied ‘side_a.aif’, opened it in audition, replaced the audio, made sure it was exactly 6:00 and resaved it. i dragged it to the album folder on the OP-1 and replaced the existing one.
when i ejected the OP-1 it rebooted and defragmented the hard drive, after that my new ‘side_a.aif’ played just fine on the OP-1.

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That’s pretty interesting trojan!

I’m going to give it a try with tape tracks 1-4


It would be a great way to archive little loops that make up songs within a Tape ‘live set’.
Then when you were playing a gig you could put together these loops into a timeline in something like AbletonLive. Export out as 4 seperate tracks and import into the OP-1 and you have a tape full of loops to play a live set.

Has anyone tried that already?

@trojan so you are certain that the file you put back in actuall y played?

I am asking, because i even tried putting back on the OP-1 an album file i previously copied from it, and it still did not play…

Tonight I tried exporting an aiff mono file from ableton live and replacing one of the tape tracks.,

It copied onto the OP-1 but it re-formatted it to its native file type - damn :frowning:

I guess the only way to archive tracks and put together tapes full of different songs from archives would be to construct them in ableton live or similar then record into the OP-1 into individual tracks if import doesnt work.

I’m pretty sure that someone would be able to create something like the Drum Utility program that converted 6minute wavs into the correct type of aiff file that the OP-1 would think was ok.

I will have close look at the album file to see why importing a new aiff is such a ball ache.

What do you mean take a close look at it? Analyse the file somehow? If you are then also check out why tape import won’t work too.
It would be amazing to find a way to make it work!

@spacetravelmadeeasy if you change the file name to track_1.aif it will work. That includes changing the file extension to .aif even after your computer warns you not to. .aiff and .aifc will not work. Have fun!

@trojan so you are certain that the file you put back in actuall y played?

I am asking, because i even tried putting back on the OP-1 an album file i previously copied from it, and it still did not play…

yes, positive. i did it twice to make sure, since the first time i uploaded the wrong file and wasn’t certain it wasn’t already on the album. the second time i made the track very distinctively different. i am assuming it will work for tape tracks as well, in fact, i think i have done that previously. i plan to set up a few songs exactly as spacetravelmadeeasy said. setting up as many sets of grouped tracks as i can fit in 6 minutes, each group being a song.
my thought is that i can cull tracks i have made on the OP-1, back them up, then later put them all into a multitrack session that is 6:00 or less, save out each track to load into the OP-1, then set loop points in those tracks so i can play them back properly.
the reason i opened, edited and re-saved the file i had taken off the OP-1 was 1) to ensure i was at the correct sample/bit rate and 2) in case there is any header info or meta tags or some shit that i don’t know how to “take a close look at”.

Thanks @sammyjams will try that tonight

I will have to try this then @trojan
i was able to make, and place the tape tracks on the OP-1 just fine. but it did not work with the album.
will try using the original file, and just swapping content.

Just tried replacing the tape files and it works!


I created some dummy tracks at 120bpm in ableton live.
exported them as mono aif files
put as tape tracks
set bpm to 120bpm too and can seemlessly loop and navigate through the dummy set.

This is almost a gamechanger for me! :wink:

very interesting stuff in this thread thanks all!@

beats me why TE don’t just release enough technical documentation to enable desktop apps extending the OP experience.


For people trying to put together sets out of tape stems, remember that you can loop an area of tape by holding shift and pressing the loop button on the tape screen. Then you can mix loops that don’t have to be in the same tempo or time signature.

Also, you can cut your tape to different lengths on different tracks. What might be an 8 bar complete loop can be broken up into two bars on track 1, four bars on track 2, one bar on track 3, and eight bars on track 4 for instance to allow you to shift+loop different regions of an arrangement on the fly.

I remember the first battle on ohpeewon, if I recall it correctly, we got a side_a.aif file and just put that on the album. It was the Paris in April thing from Duke Ellington…