RE: Sooperlooper or Mobius? Going back to software.

[kkissinger@kevinkissinger.com]

Quoting Jeff Larson <jeff.larson@sailpoint.com>:
>
>
> Then if you want to be REALLY accurate, you should measure the
> distance between your ears and your monitor speakers, calculate the
> speed-o-sound delay and add that to your output
> latency compensation :-)
>
Jeff,  interesting you mention this -- for many applications this may  
seem to be overkill.

However, latency -- even a tiny amount -- impacts one's ability to  
play the theremin.  I always monitor my theremin as close to  
zero-latency as possible.  My monitor speaker is on a stand, shoulder  
height, about 2' from my right ear.

When I play at the Loopfest, I don't have such a monitor speaker (no  
room to pack it on an airliner) and I have to resort to a  
pitch-preview (in ear) monitor.

The problem has to do with trimming the theremin to pitch -- the  
process is a tight loop:

Hear pitch --> adjust --> Hear pitch --> adjust ...

Latency can wreak havoc on this process:

Hear pitch --> adjust --> (latency delay) --> Hear pitch --> adjust  
--> (latency delay) ...

What happens is that one will constantly overshoot the adjustments due  
to the delay.   This is because one will stop the correction at the  
same time one hears the correct pitch.  The problem is, one stops on a  
pitch that is beyond the target because by the time one hears the  
correct pitch one has already moved past it.

Besides the latency issue, one of the strategies with a theremin is to  
position the speaker so that you (the player) can hear the note head  
and tweak the pitch before the note is so loud that the audience can  
hear it.   This is somewhat related to latency -- if one monitors via  
distant floor monitors or (horror of horror) the mains then the  
audience hears the sound before you do!

So, if you have occasion to work with a thereminist and find him/her  
to be fanatically obbsessed with balance, speaker placement, latency,  
etc... it is because if something is wrong they will be unable to play  
in tune!

This is a good thread and I've enjoyed reading Jeff's and others responses.

-- Kevin