Elektron-Users

Hey everyone. I'm brand new to Elektron gear but have recently bought myself an Octatrack to replace my computer on stage. I'm having an obscene amount of fun with it, but was a little confused about a design decision that I was hoping someone could help me with.

I'm using one shot trigs in patterns to trigger long chunks of atmospheric audio along with my more 'grid-locked' sequenced stuff. One thing I've noticed though ... say on Pattern 1 I have a rhythm on Track 1, a tune on track 2, and then a one-shot trigged chunk of sound on track 3, and then the same for Pattern 2, and then I switch to Pattern 2 while playing Pattern 1, the one-shot won't play. Which is intentional, according to the manual. It says that once you've triggered a one-shot on a Pattern, it disables all one shots on the other patterns too.

I can't quite work out why this would be the case. Does anyone have an idea about how to switch Patterns in live performance and have your one-shots play like normal trigs? At the moment I'm having to switch pattern, then quickly hit 'Yes' to re-arm them in time, and the timing can be tricky.

Thanks!

Well, hit yes with record button deactivated just before you switch pattern. All one-shot trigs will be enabled and play play in time.
I don't really understand your problem.

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I understand that works, and that's how I've been doing it, but the timing can be tough because I often work at high tempo 16-step patterns and the one-shots are on the first step, which means that I have a quick 16 steps (not a lot of time at high tempos) to perform two actions: trigger the next pattern, and reactivate the one-shot trigs. So if I fail to perform both I'm either retriggering the one-shots of the old pattern, because I haven't had time to trigger the next one, or I'm not reactivating the one-shots.

Apologies if I made it seem like a big deal. I can definitely learn to be faster with it. I'm coming from an Ableton background, where triggering a new Scene immediately starts the audio up on the corresponding channels. I guess it would be like if to trigger a long chunk of audio on a Scene change I had to trigger the Scene change, then hit another button to arm playback of the that clip.

I'm mostly just curious about why one-shots work in this way, why triggering them in one pattern deactivates them for others. It's obviously a considered feature, so I'm keen to understand what scenario this functionality is designed for.

Good question, I'd be interested in the answer too. I think the idea might be so you can change patterns and not disturb any long-running audio. This would then run through into the new pattern seamlessly (I use long ambient bridge patterns to do this deliberately).

Personally I think a user config option "re-arm one-shots on new pattern start" would cover it, then the control would be in your hands.

Thanks smokyfrog, that makes sense.

you can asign the crossfader (X-level ) but changing pattern in the same time you use the crossfader is limited by the length of your fingers. (Pattern+Step 16) or you have
three hands.
Trick No.185: Use your Nose for the Crossfader

Working a little more on my set today, I've got another related question. I'm getting a little better at rearming the one shots while changing patterns, but I was also hoping to dip in and out of the arranger to perform hard tempo changes. So, one track's moving along at 120, but then I move into the arranger, select a row which contains a new pattern and new tempo, and then I exit the arranger to continue with the set at, say, 130 bpm. The problem is again with the one-shot trigs in the pattern. Is there a way I can arm the one-shots from within the arranger itself? At the moment I'm having to arm the one-shots, go into the arranger, hit the desired row, all before the next pattern rotation starts. It's quite the task!

what is if you make a wav. with 16,32 or 64 steps silence before the signal gets loudness ?
( in the beginning of the sample is 16 or64 steps silence before the real track gets volume)

so you have more time for some tricky changes.


take a wav, put 128 steps of silence into it , make a new file of that and so you have enough time after triggering for putting somthing into a rolling paper. + scene changes.


i hope this is a solution that helps you.

Hi microcosmos. Thanks a lot for the tip. Not sure I understand though. Won't that just mean that the tracks I have playing will be cut off by the steps of silence, rather than the actual audio?

I guess what I'm after is just a way to rearm one-shots in the arranger. Does anyone know if you can you do this?

Thanks a lot.