Alright fellas. I think I know the answer to this one as im not a complete OP1 newbie, but I've not performed live with tape and I'm just curious to see how others approach it.
When working on tape with a view to performing live, what sync settings do you work in? I've always liked working with beat match so I can use strict loop in/out points to tempo but if I had a live set each segment would likely have a different tempo....
My question is do you work off grid with multiple instances of loops in different BPMS or do you just stick to one tempo in beat match for a whole set?
Any techniques or advice welcome. Many thanks
Comments
I like to turn off looping and let the play head advance, then shift+loop when I get to the next loop. In between loops you can have a little clip that contains a gradual tempo increase/decrease to make the transition smooth...it does eat up a little tape real estate, but it's a pretty convenient way to do tempo transitions.
The downside of this kind of tape setup is that you can't quickly and cleanly go back to a previous loop because you'll likely land the play head somewhere in the middle of a loop when using shift+< >.
I like to keep a mental (or physical) record of the BPM’s of my loops then I’ll adjust the op-1’s BPM when i get to a different tempo so that the sequencers can sync to the new tempo. The tape’s beat markers should line up too as long as the loop was recorded on-grid (When the loop is aligned w/ the grid I know I’ve matched the tempo). I’ll also group same tempo loops adjacent to each other. For example, 8 2-bar loops @ 126bpm, then 4 bars @ 96bpm, then 2 bars @ 117bpm etc.
I’m thinking about a live set-up too and this is my game plan.
Good luck!