Hi OP-1ers,
I’ve really been liking my OP-1 with the exception of the tape recording workflow. I find that I have to keep stopping to erase my bad take, locate and lift my backup take, then locate back to where I was recording and drop my backup take. Then I record again, and if I’m not happy with the take I have to repeat it all over again. This really kills my flow.
Is there some way to emulate a “keep last” loop record mode where only the last completely recorded lap is kept (as either the first audio on the track or the overdubbed audio on the track). This would allow uninterrupted playing until the take is nailed without having to keep stopping to lift/drop backups. If not, maybe this could be implemented with (Shift + Loop) in a future OS?
Thanks!
Why don't you use album for this ? Of course you would have to solo the loop you like... But this would give you 2 memories :)
And you can record on the fly.
Now you may also use a synth or drum sampler to record up to 12s of your favorite loop, and snapshot it for further use, giving you a huge number of memorized loops.
thanks LyingDalai. I thought about your approach initially. The problem is this would effectively be a bounce down of all tracks, plus you would have to stop and do all this editing afterwards. “Keep last” would allow you to maintain individual tracks without stopping.
btw, I realize the OP-1 is not supposed to be a DAW but I believe this functionality is basic enough without negatively affecting it’s character or existing functionality.
One way I can think of, off the top of my head would be to set up a long series of the loop you want. I’m assuming that you’re recording a loop using some other loop as the backdrop. In that case, lift, say, your one bar drum loop, and drop it 20 times. Set the loop to be these 20 bars. Move to the empty track, start the loop and record yourself for the 20 bars, then cut out the best bar.
CB
If you lift once,you don’t have to relift after dropping.So one lift before recording ,then stop and drop after every poor take.Drop replaces,so no relifting.
hmmm… a combination of Spheric_El’s and cloudburst’s techniques might be the best compromise, but you still have to stop in those cases and as a result get out of the groove’s pocket. plus, laying down 20 bars will screw up my arrangement since I have to shift around all the recordings ahead on the tape to prevent them from being overwritten, then shift them all back when I’m done editing for the best of the 20 bars.
I’m still crossing my fingers for a “keep last” loop record mode, because honestly I often play a groove for several minutes before I nail the feeling perfectly.
But when your arrangement isn’t already spread over the whole tape you could do the 20 bars in the back of the tape where nothing is recorded.
speckdrum gives a great example of the OP-1 as a live looper in the other thread about looping on the fly:
https://youtu.be/K-cDrk8scOg
this is how I use the OP-1 (unquantized) and it is just so underrated to the creative process to keep jamming without stopping to do editing if you didnt nail the performance on the last pass. Especially for live performances it would blow people away or on youtube if you loop guitars and vocals on top of the built-in sounds you could do a whole song without stopping
I put in an official request for “keep last” with TE. If they add it, I’ll ditch my DAW and go all live instruments into the OP-1. that’s how special I think the tape mode could be!
i’m not sure if this has been mentioned or u are already aware, but when you lift any audio, it saves it in an internal buffer until you lift something else again. you can continuously keep dropping that section of audio.
so once you have your original take in the lift buffer,
you don’t have to erase your take, lift your original, then drop it back in.
you can just drop it back in and it will overwrite what is currently on the track.
this is how i work it. doesn’t seem to fuck my flow up that much.
thanks docshermsticks. Yes I do this now, but I’d prefer a non-stop method so that I can stay in pocket indefinitely until some magic gets captured. also, I plan to do live performances building tracks off of improv.
Lift track while playing will erase track.maybe useful.
i found w/ using the op1 over time that i got way better at focusing and just doing it in one take more often.
mess up enough times and u will be real motivated to keep things simple & smooth.
sometimes i feel like the op1 is that gravity chamber in dragon ball z compared to the normal gravity of other devices haha.
good for sharpening your skills
So Teenage Engineering thinks “keep last” makes good sense and they will consider it. Of course, they also said they can’t guarantee anything.
Better than nothing, right? Keeping my fingers crossed
