User Manual

9. TRACK RECORDERS AND PICKUP MACHINES
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Recorder buer samples are not retained in memory after the Octatrack MKII has been
switched o. If you want to keep them they need to be saved to the Compact Flash card.
This is done either in the audio editor, described in the section”13.2.5 FILE” on page
86. or in the RECORDING SETUP EDIT menu, which is accessed by pressing [FUNC] +
[REC3].
Before starting to sample using the track recorder sampling methods, it is often a good
idea to first assign a recorder buer to the Flex machine of a track. The recorder buer
should preferably correspond to the track recorder you are going to use when sampling. If
for example track recorder 1 is used, recorder buer 1 could be assigned to a Flex machine
assigned to track 1. When sampling with track recorder 1 you will then immediately be able
to play back the recorded sample.
9.3 PICKUP MACHINE SAMPLING
Pickup machines oer a specialized way of sampling and are oriented towards building loops. By using Pick-
up machines it is possible to capture loops, add overdubs, repeat looped sections, add new loops and even
adjust the general Octatrack MKII BPM to the BPM of captured loops. Pickup machines can be controlled
with for example MIDI foot controllers, making them very well suited for live manipulation of audio.
Pickup machines are still dependent on track recorders and recorder buers, but can be regarded as an
alternate way of controlling them. As soon as a Pickup machine is assigned to a track, it is hard-linked to the
both the track recorder and the recorder buer of that track. Pickup machine behavior is thus controlled by
the settings available in the RECORDING SETUP menus. The source they will sample from is set there and
the same goes for recording length, fade in/outs and so on. Since Pickup machines are linked to recorder
buers as well, no recorder buer assignments need to be done for a Pickup machine to play back record-
ings. Note that for a Pickup machine to be able to sample, the track it is assigned to needs to be active.
Given Pickup machines are focused on loops, their playback works very dierently compared to Flex and
Static machines. Pickup machines are not possible to sequence, nor parameter lock. The screen graphics
for the Pickup machines also dier a bit compared to other machines. Where the sample name is normally
shown, the playback position and loop length, expressed in sequencer steps, are shown instead. To the
right of the loop length, information about which trig mode that has been chosen for the Pickup machine is
shown. One block equals ONE, two blocks equal ONE2, a standing block equals HOLD.
9.3.1 MASTER AND SLAVE PICKUP MACHINES
The first Pickup machine that records a loop acts as the master. The BPM of the Octatrack MKII will
automatically change according to the calculated BPM of the recorded loop. If Pickup machines are
assigned to other tracks, the loops they record will be slave loops. The length of these loops can be de-
pendent of the length of the master loop. If the LEN parameter of a slave Pickup machine is set to X1, the
loop that machine will record will have the same length as the master loop. It will also force the slave loop
to be in phase with the master loop. If set to X2, the slave loop will be double the length of the master
loop. If playback of all Pickup machines is stopped, the first Pickup machine that records a new loop will
be the new master.
The master/slave relation is visualized by the track icons. Two pixels located at the top left side of the “P”
indicate a master Pickup machine. Two pixels to the bottom left indicate a slave Pickup machine.
In the illustration above, the leftmost track icon depicts a master Pickup machine while the right icon
shows a slave Pickup machine.