OP-1 Drum Sampler — Can we petition to Limit Polyphony or add Mute groups?

Hey gang. Long time OP-1 owner and forum lurker, first time poster.


Loving the OP-1 especially with the new OS, but one thing really bugs me about it that would open it up to a whole new world musically. I’m talking about adding mute groups or limiting polyphony to 1 on the drum sampler.

I’m sure like a lot of you, the drum sampler gets most use for me chopping breakbeats and for recording stabs from various instruments. But for the life of me I can’t get “that sound” I need, the sound of manic amen drum n’ bass/jungle breaks. I need to throw a music phrase in there and get wild pretending I’m making 90s hip hop again.

From all the demos it goes without saying the Teenage Engineers are techno/house/edm fans. Maybe they don’t understand this kind of workflow. How can we petition to get this added to the next OS update? Are there official or unofficial channels?

One last thing…wouldn’t it be great to be able to lift from the tape and drop directly on a “drum sampler” key? Why can’t we do that either?
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Pardon my ignorance but can’t you get what you want by not single-shotting your sample chops? You’d just have to release the keys at the correct time I suppose.

^ What @crudeoperator said, just turn the one shot mode off on the samples you want to chop off for 90’s vibes. I do think mute/choke groups would be handy for sure, I wonder how difficult it would be to implement though.

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That would work, if you were sequencing the OP via midi. I use it generally in standalone mode though, and having one-shots that auto-cutoff is essential when playing that way live. At least for me.

^ What @crudeoperator said, just turn the one shot mode off on the samples you want to chop off for 90's vibes. I do think mute/choke groups would be handy for sure, I wonder how difficult it would be to implement though.

I’m assuming mute groups might be difficult, which is why I could live with limiting one drum sampler program to all one-shots with polyphony of 1. You could accomplish mute groups by using different drum programs while recording. That way it’s really not even adding something new. It’s just adding a restriction to the current programming. I’m sure it wouldn’t be much of a hassle for them to turn on. Sort of how synth programs can play in mono, poly, or unison.

Actually yeah I hear what you’re getting at by limiting polyphony, but that wouldn’t quite cover the other classic reasons of having choke groups (like having open and closed hats cut each other off). Might be one for the custom firmware boys, see if there’s some hidden polyphony settings somewhere in the drum sampler

There was a recent thread here where someone shared some great chopped breaks. Running them in Endless at the right tempo is endless fun and exactly what you’re looking for.

Get them here: https://m.soundcloud.com/reanimator-3/sets/op1-jungle-drumkits

wouldn't quite cover the other classic reasons of having choke groups (like having open and closed hats cut each other off).

There could be a “choke mode” that assigns choke groups to keys like in the standard sample layout… so the open/closed hihat would cut each other, but also the “bass” keys or the last eight keys (or even a bunch of sequential white keys in the middle?) could be monophonic, so it’d be possible to have eight slices of a breakbeat assigned, but also layer with other drums…

There is an app called Beat Hawk which offers choke groups. I wonder if that can trigger the op-1?

All that is needed is mono in envelope screen like the other engines…
Mute groups are not elegant enough for OP-1 workflow.

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A mono option in the envelope screen would be good, but mute groups would be much better.


If there were 2 mute groups, they could be added to the orange knob’s options for each key, e.g. oneshot, gate, loop, mute 1, mute 2

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There was a recent thread here where someone shared some great chopped breaks. Running them in Endless at the right tempo is endless fun and exactly what you're looking for.

Get them here: https://m.soundcloud.com/reanimator-3/sets/op1-jungle-drumkits

Thanks, but not exactly how I chop my drums. I generally like taking a pre-stretched loop and chopping it in 8ths or 16ths, then playing like that. Turning on one-shot, then playing in monophonic fashion achieves the sound I’m looking for. Hard to describe I guess. I’ll make a demo if I get time later.

Yes I totally agree OP. I think swapping synth envelope with drum envelope (option) would be good, especially to offer up mono for drums and continuous loop for release on single cycle wave forms in synth,as bonus.

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I wish you could either do monophonic/legato… or ideally mute/choke groups. I suggested this an entire age ago to TE and they said it would be cool to have. I suggest to hit them up and see what they think again? can’t hurt

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