Re: Suggestion about looping gear

[Douglas Baldwin <coyotelk@optonline.net>]

Yo Mark!
    I think we have a rich point of discussion to mine here. Just after I
wrote that the DD-20 *could* run in "virtual sync" with a drum machine, you
wrote:


> Then the DD-20 (I looper that I own and love) will not
> work for you at all.  Why?  No device can loop
> perfectly forever unless it can sync to a MIDI clock.
> You'll get drift.  It sneeks up on you pretty fast and
> very quickly you will not have a loop that is synced
> to your drums.

    I would amend your warnings about non-MIDI-sync'd loop-and-drum setups
by paying attention to the following rather strong words: "at all" and
"perfectly forever." For you, the DD-20 won't work "at all" as a syncing
looper, yet for me it runs in "virtual sync" for comfortably long periods 
of
time - fifteen minutes to a half hour before audible drift occurs. For me,
that's not sneaking up pretty fast. No, it's not "perfectly forever" but
it's workable. I suppose if I had the bucks I'd try some other hardware, 
but
for under $400 I have my two DD-20s which run in a very acceptable sync 
with
each other AND in sync with my under-$200 Zoom drum machine.
    Let me also make clear that it actually takes a little effort and
advance preparation to get my DD-20s and my drum machine to run side by 
side
in sync. If my drum machine is bapping away at 80 b.p.m., I have to whip 
out
my calculator and solve the magic formula: delay time of one beat in
milliseconds = [60 x 1000/80 beats per minute] . Solved, this equals 750ms,
so if I want one beat to loop over and over, I'll set my DD-20s to 0750.
>From here, I don't find it too hard to calculate for four beats (750 x 4),
eight beats (750 x 8), or for way groovy rhythmic displacement like 10-1/4
beats (750 x 10.25). While this minute or so of calculating doesn't bother
me in the least, it could prove annoying to someone who just wants to turn
on a drum machine and loop (relatively) instantly, then tweak the drum 
track
up by 4 b.p.m. and expect the looper to follow suit.
    I'll tell ya, I would LOVE-LOVE-LOVE to see a delay-based looper-like
piece of hardware like the DD-20s with a friggin' MIDI clock input. I know
there have been discussions about why this some kind of severe problem for
engineers to design, but man, a DD-20 with MIDI sync would cause my poor
heart to skip a beat (maybe I will need MIDI sync for the day I may need a
pacemaker!)
    DD-50, anyone?
Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large
www.thecoyote.org
coyotelk@optonline.net

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