Track recorders and pickup machines – Elektron Octatrack User Manual
Page 60
TRACK RECORDERS AND PICKUP MACHINES
48
TRACK RECORDERS AND PICKUP MACHINES
There are two ways to sample with the Octatrack. Either by using track recorder sampling,
which can be performed manually or by using recorder trigs, or by using specialized
machines called Pickup machines, which essentially work like loopers. Read more about
track recorder sampling in the section “TRACK RECORDER SAMPLING METHODS” on
page 52. Pickup machine sampling is covered in section “PICKUP MACHINE SAMPLING”
on page 54.
When performing track recorder sampling or Pickup machine sampling, track recorders are
always used. Each project features eight track recorders, one for each track, and they can
be set up to record audio from the external inputs, from the main and cue outputs, from the
individual tracks and from various combinations of these sources. Track recorders do not
have to be assigned to the tracks as they always are available. The RECORDING SETUP
menus, covered on page 48, are used to control from which sources and in what way the
track recorders should sample.
By default the track recorder memory is used when sampling, meaning each track recorder
can sample for about 16 seconds. The reserved track recorder memory can however be
increased or decreased. It is even possible for the track recorders to sample directly to the
Flex RAM memory. Settings relating to RAM memory distribution is found in the MEMORY
menu, which is covered on page 39. Read more about the general handling of RAM mem-
ory in section “PROJECTS AND RAM MEMORY” on page 25.
Samples captured by the track recorders are stored in recorder buffers. The eight recorder
buffers are located in the Flex sample slot list. To play back a sample captured via track
recorder sampling, the corresponding recorder buffer needs to be assigned to a Flex
machine of a track. Since track recorder sampling is independent from playback, the same
track can be used for both sampling and playback of the sample. It is also possible to
assign the same recorder buffer to several Flex machines of a pattern. Each Flex machine
track can of course still contain individual settings and sequencer trigs. Read more about
recorder buffers in section “PLAYBACK OF CAPTURED RECORDER SAMPLES” on
page 53. Playback of recorded Pickup machine samples works a bit differently. If a Pickup
machine is assigned to a track, it will be hard-linked to both the track recorder and recorder
buffer of that track. No recorder buffers thus need to be assigned for Pickup machines to
play back recorded samples. Samples captured by Pickup machines are still stored in the
recorder buffers though, making it possible to save and edit these recordings.
Recorder buffer content is not automatically saved. If a recorder buffer contains a sample
and the corresponding track recorder starts to sample, the original buffer sample will be
overwritten by the new sample. Also, samples in the recorder buffers are not retained in
memory after switching off the Octatrack or changing projects. If you want to keep recorder
buffer samples they need to be saved to the Compact Flash card. This operation can be
performed in the RECORDING SETUP EDIT menu, accessed by pressing [FUNCTION] +
[BANK] while either RECORDING SETUP menu is active. Alternatively, saving can be
done from within the audio editor. This is covered in the section “FILE” on page 104.
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For tutorials on how to sample, see “TRACK RECORDER SAMPLING” on
page 130.