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Procrastination feature ideas



Hello Ken,

wow!  thanks for your reply.  I'm saving up for MSP right now.  I already
have MAX, and love it.

I would love to be involved with this project in any way I can be.  I use
my powerbook in a live situation as an effects processor (as well as for
other things.)

I have four main things I'd love to see tis program do:

* tap tempo
* time display
* two more modes:  loop/overdub and loop/replace
* selectable internal routing

These features would make the program work like four Lexicon Jam Men with
some routing ability.

__tap_tempo__

What I meant by tap tempo would be more clearly stated "I'd love to be able
to tap in the loop length like this:  click to start a loop running and
then x seconds later click to close the loop, at which time the sound
recorded after the first tap would start to come out.  I like the way my
Jam MAn does this with looping and delay.  It allows you to lock the delay
into the rhytm of music.  That would be VERY useful and would likely
transform the way most loopers do their music.

Also cool on the Jam Man is the ability to tap a delay period and then
divide it.  It works like this:  tap on the 1 of a bar and then on the next
1, making a loop exactly one bar long.  On the jam man you can then DIVIDE
this period by 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4... making a delay period be a half a bar a
quarter note triplet (in 4/4) or a quarter of a bar.  I use this in crazy
ways to get my delays to work against the time...  an arbitrary division
would be awesome.

You might implement this as a blank labelled divisor where you can type in
a number.  Making this dynamic so that you could switch the divisor without
stopping the sound would be great, but seems hard, maybe it could switch it
at the beginning of the next iteration?  The dynamic switching wouldn't be
as important as the period division feature.




___time_display____

I think that the best way would be to put a countdown timer in the window
for each buffer.  something that showed the seconds counting back.  Also,
like the jam man you could have the TAP button flash with each cycle of the
loop/delay. These things would indicate some timing info for each delay and
would help a user tell what was coming from where.



___two_new_modes___

A switch on each buffer that would toggle between loop/replace,
loop/overdub and delay mode would really expand the abilities of the
program.  This is another feature which would be similar to the Jam Man's
funtionality:

loop/replace:  Tap to start the loop, the buffer fills until the next tap,
which closes the loop, which then plays on until another tap starts the
process over again, clearing the buffer.

loop/overdub:  Tap starts the loop, the buffer fills and a tap closes the
loop, the next tap puts the player in 'overdub' mode, which dubs the played
sound on to the loop, the next tap takes you out of overdub mode.  This can
go on till you hit clear and reset it.

Delay mode:  adjustable feedback delay with manual or tapped tempo.

In the two loop modes the manual time setting could be used instead of a
second tap...  if you set the period to :35, :35 after you tap once the
loop will close.


____internal_rounting_____

Something that would also really add power to the thing would be the
ability to 'patch' the ins and outs of the system.  where the L + R audio
goes and where the out of each delay bank goes, finally to the L + R audio
outs.


If you read this far, thanks for staying with me, these are just the
suggestions for my dream program, not anything that I would expect anyone
to slave over just for me.  However, know that you would sell a ton of Macs
if these features were a reality.  You would change the way a lot of
loopers made music with this -- it could be one of the most powerful audio
tools out there.

thanks for your time and write mw for a reason or no reason at all,




 _________________________________
/robb monn -- robm@nytimes.com  |