Re: Akai E1 Headrush

[Tiktok <tiktok@sprintmail.com>]

>Man, I tried an AKAI head rush. that unit just doesn't do it for me at 
>all.
>I was really disappointed. Even the salesman at the store was embarrassed.
>Maybe it was a defective unit?

If you didn't like the actual sonic quality, I'd suspect something was
amiss.  If you found the interface and feature set a bit puzzling, that was
business as usual for the Headrush.

Like all loopers, it has at least one feature that only it does, and at
least one thing that you can't understand why it won't.  The totally unique
aspect of the Headrush is the four-head tape echo simulator, with four
separate outs.  How really usable this is for you is something only you can
decide.  Everyone jizzes at the idea of running it into four separate
channels on their mixer and applying a different effect to each channel and
then panning all the channels to...you get the picture.  It's neat, but
probably not something that you're going to do at every gig (or even
two...).  BTW, you can use the four-head simulator with fewer than four
outs, and it's still quite neat sounding.

The almost-unique feature of the Headrush is the ability to define a
"foundation" loop, overdub ad infinitum and then erase all the overdubs,
leaving only the foundation loop.  You can do this with an EDP, to an
extent, depending on how much memory you've got loaded, but at some point
you'll always exceed that, and then you lose the last layer of undo.

The use the Headrush for two main purposes:

1) Working out harmony parts using the "undo" feature.  I can quickly throw
the HR into the signal path of anything I'm using with much more ease than
patching in one of the EDPs.  This is what I originally bought it for.

2) Using it to split my signal to up to four separate looping devices
without having to carry a separate mixer.  Everything gets recombined at my
Roland KC-300, which has a bunch of inputs.  This is what gets the most
miles on the HR.

My advice, as always: neglect your other responsibilities in life and buy
all the toys.  You always find a use for them.

TravisH