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Is it currently not possible to record the same instrument twice over without wiping the old recording (or priming another sample/ AU slot with a second instance of the same instrument?). I can understand why say an AU instance can only be used with one patch at a time, but if the instrument is polyphonic it ought to be possible to stack up a few layers on one instance.

Also, to replicate the sound on sound features of some pedals, is it possible to set keygroups to automatically arm their recorders, so for example you could select an 8 bar recording length, lay down a bassline and then switch to a lead instrument and play the melody in the next 8 bars without having to switch over AND arm the recorder?

Same here, I've been wanting this also. It actually seems that EigenD has access to the previous takes, they're just not exposed. I think the scheduler should indicate all recordings that you made in the order of their creation, there's enough room for that, even on the Pico. There's just the issue of actually re-doing takes and throwing away those that you don't need anymore. However, this goes back a pet peeve of mine that I've had since the beginning, sometimes recordings linger around in the scheduler, even after they've been deleted from disk. Maybe Eigenlabs should add a 'scheduler delete key' (just like a mode key) that will allow you to press it and simultaneously press the recording that you want to delete. It seems to me that this is in the spirit of the rest of the Pico setup (and possibly Alpha) setup.

Hi all,

Thank you for your posts. Our Software team have been talking about this subject and are planning to add a functionality that allows you to record and play back several takes per recorder within the Factory Setups.

We will keep you posted on our progress.

Regards

Aaron
Customer Services

I'm unsure as to when the recording actually starts - is it when you first press a key? I've been playing on a borrowed Pico, and it seems that if I:
- start the metronome
- then arm an instrument for recording
- record some stuff
- then turn off the metronome
then afterwards, if I start the metronome I get several bars of drums only before my first recording take starts to replay. Shouldn't it start straightaway, or does it depend which bar the Pico thinks you started playing on?

I'm not sure the Eigenharp recordings have a concept of a global loop start/end point, they each have their own length and starting point.

Another thought that comes to mind, although it would seem to require the loops all to share a starting point, would be the ability to defer changes to the drummer, and defer re-recordings until the end of the loop. That way you can take one loop off playing to queue up a whole selection of things - eg you could toggle off your chords, queue a change to the active drummer patterns, and request a re-record of your lead instrument, leaving the bass unchanged. Everything you've queued then changes at the same time, with the lead recording dropping out, but by that time you can switch back to playing mode and jump in with the next part of the song.

Ah right.
I've now played with the recorder on my Alpha and the borrowed Pico I had for a while, and it's beginning to make sense.
I still think that having the loop start points all synch up to the first one would be a good option to have (not quite sure what the exact mechanics of this would be), since it makes more musical sense to have parts drop in/out at the start of a repetition instead of somewhere in the middle. At the moment you are forced to stagger the start points of your takes, or else wait for a whole repetition in order to start playing where you know the start of the previous take is. Playing multiple takes on the trot is difficult as you have to take time to switch instruments.

Two more thoughts, and a question occur:
Question: When you arm something for recording, what is actually being armed? Are you arming the instrument, or the keygroup on which it is being played? The Alpha has per keygroup arming controls, while the pico has per-instrument controls but I wonder if they are silently arming keygroups, with the keygroups on the Pico having a one-to-one mapping to instruments.

Thoughts:
1 - it would be nice to have some kind of centralised arming controls on the Alpha, either per instrument or per keygroup depending on how the arming behaves. At the moment to arm 4 keygroups you have to go into their respective splits and prod the arm key. Having the arm keys altogether would be nice to arm 4 or 5 things at once like you can on the Pico.

2 - This depends on how arming works, but it would be nice to be able to point the instrument selection keys at a different keygroup (much like you can point the scale selection keys at any keygroup). This way you can split the keyboard, leaving playing keys in a large keygroup, and instrument selection keys in a smaller keygroup. These selection keys would point at the larger playing keygroup. Then you can arm several instruments (i.e. this requires that an instrument be the thing that is being armed, not the keygroup), then play one take. As the take comes to an end, you can use one keypress on an instrument selection key and immediately start the next take.

Thinking about this, maybe a better way would be to have some way of swapping between splits with a single keypress, that way you could put one instrument per split, arm all of the keygroups, and then at the start of a new loop you can select the split quickly and have everything ready (instrument, arming status, octave settings etc.).

Thanks, that clears things up a lot. Good candidate to stick on the wiki too....

That's the idea :)