Thanks again for sending me a couple of your projects!
One reason I haven’t fired up the Headrush looper pedal yet is I plan to dissect Anders’ projects. 
His usage is more advanced than mine, and he’s mentioned doing some things on a more basic (not advanced) that I haven’t tried yet like using smaller LEN values.
Im trying out the PM with my acoustic guitar and the first thing that comes to my mind is an auto record feature? (I have no footpedal)
yarp. threshold based sampling is much needed IMHO
After a few months of light OT use I finally got round to having a session dedicated to learning pickup machines. Ugh. Elektron really need to sort this feature out and make it more useable. Whether that means working hard and getting it to work how they intended, or slimming down the looper features just so it’s solid and useable in a better work flow kind of way. Either way, I had a very disappointing/frustrating evening 
the fact you can’t sequence loops and play them chromatically in to patterns without sacrificing another track just plain fucking sucks I need to read up on it today, some of my problems might have been user error, but I was getting a ton of ‘dub aborted messages’ so I checked forum and sawthat was due to my having tweaked pitch. So I started fresh project and didn’t mess with any pitch stuff and soon was still getting dub aborted messages. Plus master/slave loop seemed to be pretty random and a bunch of other oddness. I had no problems with basic record/overdub/start/stop functionality. But anything beyond this seems problematic. And I barely even touched the surface of things I’d planned to do with it, so there’s likely even more issues lurking around… I expected much more from the OT looper considering the potential there… Bummer.
If the users are to convey the issues with PUMs we’re going to need to be a bit more specific for future reference - the very fact that we all have issues on first approach means they are not what they might have been - looping is a simple technique - what to do with syncing is less obvious, particularly during recording
.
so, if you stick with it, try to isolate the issues, so we can present them in concise repeatable usage case scenarios - then, we may be able to get an explanation or a solution
.
this functionality was a large part of my justification for getting one and i’ve been subdued by the various foibles
.
our collective apathy is a bit of an obstacle to getting the gremlins looked at - quite frankly most people give up or do similar things using Flex m/c
.
a far more sobering observation posted elsewhere pointed out that pickup machines had been dropped from the OT feature highlights on promotional pages though !! and comparing old with new it had indeed been the case
If the users are to convey the issues with PUMs we’re going to need to be a bit more specific for future reference - the very fact that we all have issues on first approach means they are not what they might have been - looping is a simple technique - what to do with syncing is less obvious, particularly during recording
.
so, if you stick with it, try to isolate the issues, so we can present them in concise repeatable usage case scenarios - then, we may be able to get an explanation or a solution
.
this functionality was a large part of my justification for getting one and i’ve been subdued by the various foibles
.
our collective apathy is a bit of an obstacle to getting the gremlins looked at - quite frankly most people give up or do similar things using Flex m/c
.
a far more sobering observation posted elsewhere pointed out that pickup machines had been dropped from the OT feature highlights on promotional pages though !! and comparing old with new it had indeed been the case[/quote]
Yeah agreed. I found the looper function potentially useful enough to try to persevere. I’ll have another session on it tonight and try to whittle out things that could have been user error and make a list of remaining problems I hit and check I can replicate them. Then I’ll post here and also email Elektron. That’s pretty shady that they took the pickup machines off of the list of feature highlights. The hideous child hidden in the loft
ok… i see i am not the only one who struggles sometimes with the pickups…
a while ago i head successful session with two sliced flex, two statics with 1:20 long audiofiles (2 stems of a beat) and 2 pickups (one for Prohpet 08, one for OP-1 or Fenderbass or Helicon (i cant sing but for strange percussions)…
The 2 pickups booth routed through an EFX-Channel and then into Master TR8… On top sometimes a Jomox sequenced with midi…
after a while it worked perfect, except the buggy switch of the master PU(or slaves) kill the tempo when played in a not multiplied number of Measueres/Beats…
normally i live to record a whole “songstructure” of 1 min an more and in the second run add a bass or different whatever (doesnt make sense to use PU with staying within 64 beats :-))
after a while the setup worked better with activating QREC QPLAY to your favourite “pre-press before playing”… so the tempo doesnt change slightly after PU-Recording and after pressing rec you have a few beats before the PU-Rec starts to get prepared on your instrument…
with even setting the recording lenghts to (sadly just 256 beats) you can even assure the Tempo-Bug doesnt happen :-)))… still than you can double the slaves for longer parts (if i remember it right… did that one day i think) :-))
By 256 beats do you mean 256 steps? I think you could get more by setting dynamic recorders on and reserves off, and then setting the rlen to max. I haven’t tried this with PU machines myself but maybe it would work? You’d have to end the loop manually though.
High JSZ,
yes, sorry… for sure i meant steps.
and yes exactly… you can assign flexible ram and then record longer (and fill maximum the total ram)… the problem is if you for example synchronize the PU to a beat loop and then record off multiple bars (1 bar, 2 bar, 4, 8, 16, 32,) the PU will dial in a new tempo (mostly less than half) that kills your session…(means you cant play 9 or 10 bars)…
if you - in a jam forget the number of bars and stop to early, you are broke :-))
if you set the PU to a fixed lenght, this issues doesnt happen, but then you just have maximum of 256 steps (256/16 = 16 bars)
while writing: i think i am wrong… it was i believe a maximum 128 (8 bars)? have to look tonight :-))
By the way,
a nice alternative could be to just midiconnect your gear (if it is a synth) and then use the midirecording in a chained pattern… so you can add 5 patterns to a chain (each 64 steps) and then record midi ontop all patterns… if you come twice into the loop you can than modulate your synth live (wanted to try it with the prophet 08 and “local off”)
did anyone tried this?
Ok… i was wrong:
so:
PU maximum length 64 steps… play percussion or what else…
add slave with 2x, 4x or 8x play your play melodics…
lets go about scenarios and goals of PU:
ELEC TWISTING:
use your device… what ever sounds better
LIVE INSTRUMENTS:
Ableton: just record. ok!
With effects? forget it! latencies… love your NI guitar rig… in ableton? shit latencies… plug ins? thrid party effects? forget it!
… get your amp and effects as pedals, your mic, your preamp… just record and its ok…
OT: the same…
LIVE, EFFECTS, LOOPS, SOUNDS
Ableton: adding all that live-specialities is cool in live… you program beats and sounds? its cool… doesnt make a hint if you dial in a delay 20ms later…
you play a guitar, piano, real keys live? forget ableton… whenever adding plugs outside of abletons plugs… latency doesnt work… your drum loop has a cool compressor… nice… you want to loop your guitar live to it? latency problem…!!!
OT… simpler, less effects… still the effects work without latency… you want a filter on the beat parallel to your live guitar? works… you want a break effect or delay while playing a keyboard solo? works… less sound quality and possibilities then live… but it works…
OT VS LOOPER:
you just want to loop yourself playing any instrument? choose your tool of choice (OT or any looper)
you want your guitar beside playing with loops and rearrange beats? effects + recording + midisequencing? OT… no other choice…
I came up with this… you might have different experiences… but at all… playing with a lot of ingredients really live.? OT… playing with loops, where no exact timing is needed and you want a lot of opportunities? live!
CONCLUSION
A post was merged into an existing topic: What if a pickup shows both Master & Slave icons simultaneously?
Hi, I am using multiple pickup machines, do lots of overdubbing and sometimes get both the master and the slave icon to show simultaneously on one of my pickup machines (see pic below).
Please, can anybody explain to me what this state means? I searched both the 1.25 manual and the readmes of the OS updates, but alas, I found no explanation.
B to the U to the G
Still happens now on 1.25H 
Adding to this thread cause it was referenced in a new one…
Here’s what’s been “buggin” me lately:
I use several pickups starting with the sequencer running using qrec to get perfect loops in time withe the sequencer. I’ll start with one with rlen 64 to set as master, and then slaves will be rlen max with the pickup len set to x2 to get a 4 bar master and some 8 bar slaves. Trouble is, the slave loops often start looping from the middle of my recorded loop. Say the slave loop is recorded bar 1 through 8. When I get done recording the 8th bar, instead of going back to bar 1 to begin the loop, it jumps to bar 5 and starts from there, but then loops as expected. This does not happen all the time but happens often. I have tried many different settings to narrow down why but have found no logic to when it happens. Anyone else?
Bar 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8—5-6-7-8-1-2-etc…
Are there any behavioral consequences of this bug (that I have to circumnavigate), or is this solely a display bug?
As far as i can remember, because it all contributes to the turnoff from using them, it’s mostly a Display annoyance, not 100% sure on that 
Thanks!
I continue to use the Pickups as they are the only way to fulfill all of these simultaneously:
(a) recordings can be longer than 64 steps
(b) initial recording length can be set arbitrarily with one button press
© loops automatically after initial recording (either going into overdub or play)
I tried to use Flex machines for live looping (and read the thread about it), but alas I yet failed to fulfill all of the above. Please let me know if I am missing something.
Persevering is the best approach, many report getting along just fine and avoid (or sidestep/manage) issues … the bigger the active PUM user base the better imho, i’m still keen to learn the best way to get them working for me without noticing the little niggles … keep us posted, and see if you can establish when these UI glitches happen
OK, spend today playing with the pickup machines, here’s how I was able to reliably reproduce the “Pickup machine shows both Master & Slave icon” bug:
LEN set to anything ≠ OFF
I did this process repeatedly, clearing recording buffers at random, recording again into them, with the result that the master icon wandered around between the different pickup machines in a somewhat predictable manner (seems like the “youngest” slave becomes new master). Except for the graphic glitch (the slave icon not vanishing) I didn’t encounter any other misbehavior in this scenario, and a rogue slave icon on a pickup machine does not prevent that machine from becoming a master later on.
To me it seems that once a slave icon has been shown for a machine, its slave icon sticks with it, as the only way to get rid of them seems to power-cycle the OT. Stopping a machine, clearing its recording buffer does not make the slave icon go away, changing the machine for a track does not help (as changing it back to pickup brings the slave icon back), not even reloading the project helps.
I don’t know if there are other scenarios to reproduce this graphic bug. Please let me know if you know of one. I filed an Elektron support ticket with the steps above.