Re: stereoizing mono loop with vortex

[buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)]

Speaking of Vortex (and going off tangent from looping):

This reminds me; does anyone know of any good web
resources for the Vortex?  As was noted here before,
Andy Butler's page seems to have gone away.  I don't
know what was on it to know what I'm missing.  Searching
with search engines turns up hundreds of pages, most
of which are actually just mailing list digests and
out-of-date for sale lists; my attempts to narrow the
search down further never produced anything interesting.

In terms of _other_ info about Vortex:

I'm currently producing a list of manual addenda,
and if anyone else has any, I'll be glad to put them
all together in a document.  At the moment, the list
is very short (how long it will grow will depend mainly
on how many other bugs I find):

   at least on my Vortex (this _could_ be a problem with
      all, or it might be just mine, I'm not sure which is
      more likely), mono output is achieved through hooking
      the left output, not the right as is asserted in the
      manual and the back of the unit.  (This could just mean
      my outputs are reversed... I haven't verified the
      actual L vs. R routing.  Is it possible that this is
      actually just grabbing the "phones" output and Y-ing
      them together?  At a minimum, I definitely claim that
      using the right output alone does _not_ result in both
      L & R channels mixed together, at least on mine.  Those
      of you using it in mono might want to check yours out
      and see if you've been missing anything.)

   In Mosaic B, the manual indicates that Echo 1 is connected
      directly to an output (after going through Echo FX Level).
      I discovered that it is actually routed through
      Mod FX Level on the way to the output (but not on the
      way to the next echo).  (This seems likely to be a software
      bug rather than a manual bug, since it doesn't really
      make any sense configured this way.)

I will probably be making an exhaustive sweep though all
of the algorithms during the next few weeks, checking for
further errors of this sort (well, actually, that's not
the main goal, but I might as well check, since I'll be
doing it--and I really need to know this, because I do a
lot of "I want an effect that's wired up like this" and then
go hunting through the manual for one, so when it's not wired
up right it takes me a while to figure out why it's not doing
the right thing).

Hey, but don't take this as a slam against the Vortex.
It's very hard to write software that's completely bug free.
And the Vortex does lots of things right.  It always bugs me
in other effects boxes that the designer has limited the
range of the parameters to values thought to be "musically
useful".  I often used to turn one of the two knobs on my
Boss chorus pedal up all the way, and think "I could still use
more", and I still remember the day I actually turned both
knobs up to full to record a guitar track (creating a very
pleasant vibratoy tremolo effect that sat well in that
particular mix), when I once had never thought it would be
reasonable.  The Vortex's LFO rates are a good example of this
(ignoring their use as ring mod sources).  In general, the
extremal values in Vortex parameters seem--well, extremal,
which is great, since it covers the difference between the
designer's opinion of musiciality and mine (or else it means
the designer had a ludicrous definition of musicality and
should be shot, but I digress).

If I could fix one thing about the Vortex, I don't think it
would be MIDI, or front panel controls, or more slots to
save programs in.  I think I'd like Envelope to effectively
range from -64..64... technically, make it 0..63, but make
32 be "no envelope effect", 63 be the same as it is now, and
0 be "envelope has full effect in the 'reverse'" sense.  I'm
a big fan of orthogonality.  Maybe it would turn out all of
these settings would be useless, but I'd like to try a
"reverse ducking echo"--i.e. an echo that got quieter as
I played quieter and louder as I played louder.  I'd like
to be able to make my panning speed up as I play louder, instead
of the reverse. Etc.

Oops, end rant mode.  Nobody's going to change the Vortex,
and nobody's going to make a new one, so not much point
in saying what I'd change.

Besides, it's a lovely box.

Sean Barrett