Re: Cycloops / Soundbite Micro

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 2:07 PM +0000 4/14/08, phillip wilson wrote:
>
>So im now looking at buying a soundbite micro... [snip]
>the only thing i was wondering was, does it function like a normal 
>looper with one button push starting record then the next stopping 
>it when ever i want to begin looping, or is it more like the 
>kaossicators looper when everything is goverened by bmp and that has 
>to be set first...this is less intuitive for me as a musician but i 
>can see how it would work for a dj.

I picked up a Soundbite Micro a few months back, most likely 
following the same train of thought you've probably got.  I'd been 
looking for another cheap & tiny looper for a portable setup, and I 
was trying to decide between this and the Boss RC-2.  In short, I 
should've gone with the Boss.  I've now got the Micro sitting in a 
pile of stuff I was supposed to have Ebay'd (but didn't have time) 
before leaving the States.

Your latter concern in the quote above hits its biggest Achilles heel 
right on the head (or, er, foot, as the case may be).  It's locked 
into BPM for pretty much anything you do, which makes it rather 
aggravating for use as a "free looper".  There is tap tempo, but it's 
rather iffy to get into the right ballpark.  You've got to go through 
a process to set loop length and tempo before even thinking about 
recording.  Not much for spontaneity.

Also, another big aggravation was the feel of the UI.  You need to 
have at least one hand free and dedicated to operate it properly; I 
couldn't find a way (short of tearing it open and getting out the 
soldering gun) around this.  The little membrane switches are pretty 
much useless for manipulation by any other appendage (ummmm, I'm 
thinking about toes but, hey, if your imagination wants to go there 
too... it's all good).

What else?  Oh, levels are auto-set.  No way 'round it, so forget 
about fine tuning the gain staging for your setup.  Also, there's no 
mix output.  The outs are Loop Only and Dry Only, so you've got to do 
some summing at the mixer to get the loop and instrument out the same 
bus.

I also remember a big aggravation with the slots, and the length 
values that you could possibly preset them to.  There's not a whole 
lot of latitude there -- you can only change the default slot length 
by some way too restrictive factor -- so this plays hell with trying 
to set up anything creative.  The first slot is stuck at such a short 
interval as to be pretty much useless, IIRC.  And the last slot was 
too long for most of the loops I was trying to put together.

That wouldn't be so big a deal, except that there's no overdub or 
undo.  You're expected to just use another slot.  But if, for 
instance, you wanted to get around that by simply assigning 4 bars to 
all 4 slots... nope, not possible.  Can't configure all (or, really, 
more than two) slots to the same length.  Oh, and there's no 
odd-metered multiples at all, so forget about polyrhythms. 
Everything is a straight derivative of good ole 4/4 (no triplets, 
even).  No feedback control either, but you probably knew that.

And navigating between the different slots isn't much fun either.  I 
always had trouble muting and/or switching between the different 
loops after I'd had them recorded.

Okay, I don't want this to be a complete slam-fest, especially since 
this is really designed as a DJ tool.  You can see, though, that it 
really is aimed at the DJ market.  To be honest, its beat detect is 
pretty good.  While playing acoustic licks (with no obvious beat) it 
was almost as good at correctly picking up the tempo on its own as it 
was by using the tap tempo (don't get too excited though; as I 
mentioned, the tap tempo was no great shakes).  I would imagine that 
with a real "four-on-the-floor" beat, it should be able to nail the 
tempo straight out.  And it does a really good job with the 
time-stretch function.  Unfortunately, you really have to use the tap 
tempo or beat detect to track that.  And it outputs MIDI Clock based 
on the beat detect, so it could prove to be a nice little studio tool 
for that function alone.

But, like you, I thought I might take a gamble and see how it could 
perform with an application (Live Looping) that it wasn't really 
designed for.  I'd say I got burned (but, eh, it happens).  It really 
is not a standard looping tool, and is optimized almost completely 
for DJ performance.  Unless that happens to be the type of gig you're 
doing, I'd give it a pass.

        --m.
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