Hey Bob,
Sounds like a cool project! Most of my wishlist would likely be in the
realm of bells and whistles rather than core competency, but here it is
nonetheless for whatever it's worth:
Favorite features from Mobius that I wouldn't want to lose:
- Active development and awesome community - This is THE
number-one selling point. If I have a problem, I can e-mail Jeff
directly, and 99% of the time he fixes it or helps me trouble-shoot.
Occasionally, feature suggestions I've made have even been implemented,
and that makes me feel very loyal. And even though he does it for
free(!), I and most of the Mobius core group would happily pay for the
product simply because it's always improving, and we're grateful. Most
hardware units (the looperlative excepted) cannot claim this kind of
constant development.
- The ability to write my own scripts to add fun behaviors and
share with the community - A chunk of my set (and Per's) depends on
auto-panning, tremolo, pitch adjustment, and other scripts that are not
part of the Mobius core product.
- Sync features with other software / hardware units.
- Multiple ins/outs with easy setup - on this point, it
would be great if the hardware looper could also function as a
USB/Firewire audio interface and allow the user to insert VST/AU
effects and instruments into the signal chain as well as record audio
on seperate tracks. That would be something I've yet to see another
looper accomplish!
- MIDI control - It's always a plus when I can use one MIDI
controller to control several things simultaneously. Obviously this
would be added to whatever hardware controllers you're building.
- Visual Feedback - I have no suggestions on how this could be
implemented, but the lack of visual feedback has scared me away from
most hardware units.
Bob Weigel wrote:
Like I say,
my intent, if I delve into this, it to produce a product that has
enough hardware to easily add innovative features as people request
them....hence developing this indeed into an 'ultimate looper'. That's
the goal. Will I accomplish it? I dunno. You certainly won't if you
don't aim for that though.
If I had claimed to have already posessed such a thing I can see order
for some of the discussion. :-) As it is I'm just trying to express
desire to build something that will have the features of increased
track accessibility, smoother control at low volume levels, elaborate
yet intuitive speed/meter control and some other features which I don't
want to discuss at this time like I say because a few surprises at
release time *are* nice for the designer. But as I said to some also
would love to hear people's wish list of course so as to make this a
product which fulfills all forseen needs if possible.
Hence...the use of 'ultimate looper'...once again. I really dont'
*get* the rub here. It's almost like people think I'm insulting the
looperlative by insinuating that it leaves something to be desired or
something. It's a GREAT sounding product...for probably a large
percentage of the people out there. Of course if this winds up being
very near the price point then it won't look quite so good I suppose in
comparison. But that's all to be seen. So please..at this point just
send me suggestions if you'd like to see this happen.
The unit will likely use AD products btw. Considering whether it will
be necessary to employ a TigerSHARC or if a SHARC will be adequate
headroom. As I tried to note, the PIC chip will only do the button and
controller processing, displays, etc. -Bob
andy butler wrote:
Bob Weigel wrote:
So anyway I'm fairly fresh with PIC
programming from that project at
A more powerful chip needed for the dsp surely?
etc. btw..one of the very important
features of this unit will be that it has my single pedal volume
control interface. We probably can get by with 10 bit A/D there
because if need be, there will be a movement sensing in s/w which gates
the selected CV's directly to the pedal voltage! This allows for
absolutely smooth transitions to extinction.
128 steps, as Jeff points out, when smoothed is ok for most audio
applications.
Except that it's not good enough for a slow fade to zero.
I do a lot of shaping the sound with quick pedal movements, and the
'shapes' produced just aren't as smooth as they could be using 7-bit
res, even with smoothing. ( with the smoothing fine tuned it's
acceptable though)
The whole objective also is to make this more like the Jamman which
nicely syncs loops so that you dont' have to press buttons precisely.
The sync in the JamMan is primitive and glitchy.
There's often a little scratchy sound at the loop-start, even when just
playing the loop.
One of the "hard problems" in making a looper is how to handle overdubs
while synced. Just try it with the JamMan to hear how bad it can be.
Actually this sounds like exactly the sort of problem you'd enjoy
solving :-)
...but maybe you don't want to overdub onto the loops ??
We may have it with a couple *modes* and
call that 'tight' mode or something and have an 'open' mode which
allows people to do polyrhytmic overlays if they want :-). But
minimally we want it to be capable of tight looping regardless of when
the user hits the start button.
A host of other nested possibilities with tempo tapping/sliding are
being considered also. And some other options that I probably shouldn't
mention at this time :-). -Bob
>From watching the video of your client, what you're basically intending
is something like "8 stereo JamMans" in a box, all of them in Loop
Mode.
Just using each loop to record one layer only.
That doesn't sound too hard to implement, so I'd support your optimism
in thinking it's easily possible to do.
As you described from your experience, it's much easier to design when
you know all the requirements at the start of the project.
I think some of the more "unbelieving" comments on the list here are
provoked by the "Ultimate Looper" moniker. There's a lot of people here
who would find the "8 stereo JamMans" approach somewhat lacking in the
features that they rely upon.
If you want to make the "Ultimate", then it's going to take a lot of
time and sweat, possibly starting with a review of the ways in which
people use their devices to create structured music.
As a designer, I'm sure your familiar with the term "feature creep",
where a program picks up extra features during development, ultimately
making it almost impossible to make it bug free. Be warned, a looping
device attracts feature creep in a big way. Loopers think that Beta
Testing is an excuse to get their ideas put into the machine :-)
Good luck with your venture.
andy butler
( yes, I was tester for the EDP )
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