diff --git a/configFiles/StandardConfig_MOVEME.m b/configFiles/StandardConfig_MOVEME.m
index 7db22fa3..f70619b0 100644
--- a/configFiles/StandardConfig_MOVEME.m
+++ b/configFiles/StandardConfig_MOVEME.m
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 % options for determining PCs
 ops.spkTh           = -6;      % spike threshold in standard deviations (-6)
 ops.reorder         = 1;       % whether to reorder batches for drift correction. 
+ops.nskip           = 25;  % how many batches to skip for determining spike PCs
 
 ops.GPU                 = 1; % has to be 1, no CPU version yet, sorry
 % ops.Nfilt               = 1024; % max number of clusters
diff --git a/configFiles/configFile384.m b/configFiles/configFile384.m
index 7db22fa3..f70619b0 100644
--- a/configFiles/configFile384.m
+++ b/configFiles/configFile384.m
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@
 % options for determining PCs
 ops.spkTh           = -6;      % spike threshold in standard deviations (-6)
 ops.reorder         = 1;       % whether to reorder batches for drift correction. 
+ops.nskip           = 25;  % how many batches to skip for determining spike PCs
 
 ops.GPU                 = 1; % has to be 1, no CPU version yet, sorry
 % ops.Nfilt               = 1024; % max number of clusters
diff --git a/mainLoop/extractTemplatesfromSnippets.m b/mainLoop/extractTemplatesfromSnippets.m
index d8f749c7..f0066068 100644
--- a/mainLoop/extractTemplatesfromSnippets.m
+++ b/mainLoop/extractTemplatesfromSnippets.m
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 ops = rez.ops;
 
+nskip = getOr(ops, 'nskip', 25);
 % Nchan 	= ops.Nchan;
 
 Nbatch      = rez.temp.Nbatch;
@@ -14,7 +15,7 @@
 
 k = 0;
 dd = gpuArray.zeros(ops.nt0, 5e4, 'single');
-for ibatch = 1:100:Nbatch
+for ibatch = 1:nskip:Nbatch
     offset = 2 * ops.Nchan*batchstart(ibatch);
     fseek(fid, offset, 'bof');
     dat = fread(fid, [NT ops.Nchan], '*int16');