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Looper's Delight
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Fellow Loopers- Just got back from the demo of Repeater in Marin today. Repeater was demonstrated by Don Goodeve, head software honcho on the Repeater team using late beta software which was described as "first candidate for general release". Don used his acoustic guitar, pre-sampled material, and material sampled live off a CD player. First of all, during the 60-90 minute long demo, the unit didn't crash. Not once. All the promised functions seem to be there, multiple tracks, stereo recording, pitch shifting/time stretching, reverse, time slipping, beat analysis, card storage, quick software updates via card (took less than a minute!), undo/redo buffer, quick selection and playing of different loops (this'll be fun!), resampling or bouncing down, all in all everything seemed there, and working well. Any negatives? No really strong ones. I noticed the beat detection at times was right on and at other times did the "Drunken Sailor" thing (apologies to any and all Drunken Sailors on L.D.). Until psychic beat detection software is invented, it seems to work as well as can be expected, and will probably just require a little practice to learn how to best use. I noticed the tempo "bobble" occasionally when messing around with the beat detection parameters, but again this is to be expected while the unit is "listening" and trying to determine tempo from audio input. The pitch shifting/time stretching sounded very impressive in small to medium intervals, not quite as impressive in larger ones like one octave up, or two down. The "mandolin" effect by pitching an acoustic guitar track one octave up sounded somewhat abrasive. To be fair all pitch shifters output vary depending on the source material, so an acoustic guitar track may not have the easiest for any shifter to deal with. And having the ability to pitchshift different tracks different amounts, resample, etc, makes this a really exciting feature. I suspect you'll all like it very much. I'm personally very grateful that Electrix has put the time and energy into creating such a perfect (or damn near perfect) looping tool, and suggest those of us on the list who capped on Electrix over their production snafus sit in the lotus position, face Canada and apologize humbly before we buy one:) When is it coming out? Well, bottom line, units should still be shipping in June according to Don. Electrix is basically in final bug-fix mode now. One other thing, I wouldn't have gone into this, but Rik Elswit specifically asked the audience to post this to L.D., so here goes- According to Elswit, due to a close relationship with Electrix and a large order of Repeaters, Bananas-At-Large will be getting the first units, before anyone else in the country. Elswit specifically wanted LD'ers to know that if they choose not to buy from Bananas, they will have to wait. This was confirmed by the local sales rep for the region as well. This reinforces a statement Rik made to me on this issue several months ago when I was doing some shopping at Bananas, when he told me "Alto Music won't be getting any Repeaters". Rik went on to complain strongly about the Alto Music group buy controversy (for those of you unfamiliar, essentially Alto had the temerity to offer an extremely low group buy price). It was suggested to me that Alto was probably run by some venture capitalists and would probably be out of business in the future. Now for all I know, Alto could be run by venture capitalists, imperial running dog lackeys, or the ghost of Elvis. And I really don't care. Evidentally Alto did a fine job with the EDP group buy some years back, and the few times I've dealt with Alto, they've given the best price I could find, without any hassle. As far as Bananas, I've dealt with them since the mid-70's (that's not a typo, mid-70's!), and had decent to excellent results over the years. I've dealt with Rik several times, and think he's an allright fella, as a matter of fact, I purchased my EDP from him and Bananas. But I find this whole matter somewhat disturbing. I can see where any company or businessman would get upset at being undercut by someone willing to make less profit. I wouldn't blame them for refusing to meet a price if it's too low for them to make the profit they feel they need to make. But I would very much resent them trying to arm-wrestle the manufacturer to lock out another retailer because they're too strong a competitor, and that's the subliminal message I get out of this. Damon, if you're out there, please comment on who gets what shipments when, why this is so, and what time delays could be reasonably be expected for those later in the line. The funny thing is I wouldn't have minded paying a premium to get mine early, but I don't like the way this has gone down. This afternoon's statement made up my mind, and I'll be waiting for the Alto group buy. Best- Mark