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
If you keep your loops trimmed (to tempo), you can use shift+loop to loop the active piece of tape. Meaning you can play all different tempos with out beat match. The issue is transitioning between the loop. I’ve played with other gear (volcas, pocket operators) that I would have running between loops and change tempos to match what’s next. Takes some planning and practice, but it works!
Like @sammyjams said, remember shift+loop.
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+< >.
Hi @lescour1 I definitely agree w/ @sammyjams & @3sleeves to keep loops precisely trimmed to a beat matched grid & use shift+loop when you get to a new loop point on the tape.
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!