Re: Echoplex sudden total noise!

[Gio Gio <bluer.stuff@gmail.com>]

Thanks everyone for the very extensive replies, much much appreciated. 

I have been doing more testing.. 

So far I had always experienced this while having the Echoplex receiving midi sync messages from my laptop. I don't seem to be able to replicate the problem when the clock is not running.. exactly same settings but not sending any midi sync messages from the laptop... it seems to never happen.. it might be a coincidence but I'd be surprised since as soon as I turn the clock on again and do a couple of tests it happens again.. 

My unit is set as follows

SYNC:ON

MORE LOOpS: 4

Switch Quant: LOOP 

Quantize: OFF

not sure what else might be relevant.. 

ANd all I am doing right now is: 

1 - HARD RESET 

2 - record loop 1 

3 - next loop + overdub > loop 2

4 - over dub something on loop 2

and back to 1.. 

after 3 times or so.. bam! an old loop appears when switching from loop1 to loop2 (usually after a cycle). 

it plays for a bit and then if I let in run couple of times.. it switches to the burst of noise. 

So I am not doing anything very particular really. No reverse, no half speed.. 

What I find especially weird is that this happened even after switching off the unit.. zombie loops? 

I am gonna try re-seating the RAM now, as Mark suggested. 

@andy: hopefully I will be able to share some of this music soon. I am using the echoplex for a band project with 2 drummers and electronics. Never done this before.. 

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 5:45 PM, andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Gio,

Congratulations! few people use the EDP intensively enough to come across this.

I don't think this is what Per found, as
there's the fact that you're hearing sounds that were recorded prior to reset.


It's not a hardware fault, I've had it happen to both my  EDPs simultaneously
in stereo setup.

What's happening when you hear that burst of noise, or seemingly randomised recordings,
is that the EDP is running wild through it's memory.
The harsh noise is what gets put into the memory on boot up, before anything is recorded.

So, it's a bug, the EDP has lost track of it's playback position.
If you let it run, it'll eventually get back to where it should be in memory,
and will play the correct loop!

I never yet managed to find exactly which button sequence triggers this effect
(in Loop 3 in was Record>Insert>Reverse...but that's fixed in Loop4)


Some combination of NextLoop, Overdub and Reverse seems to be involved.

This is what appears to be the issue:

When you combine Reverse and Overdub and then go to another loop
before the EDP has had a chance to update its internal bookkeeping
you're sometimes leaving that loop in a state where the playback
address is incorrect.
So when you go back to that loop it plays from unexpected areas
of memory.

...but I haven't ever been able to reproduce the effect at will,
it happened a lot with one of my compositions, but only if I made a mistake
in the sequence of button presses. ...I never pinpointed what that mistake was.


andy butler
ps. now we want to hear your edp destroying music!

Gio Gio wrote:

Hi there, has anyone experienced something like this before?  I have had quite a few glitches since I bought this thing and I'm not sure if I would venture using it live. My echoplex (original model from 94 - updated to Loop IV) sometimes fucks up and generates this intense wall of noise kinda thing.. I noticed it does it sometimes when working with more loops and jumping from let's say loop 1 to loop 3. Other times it recalls sounds from the previous session, as in loops recorded BEFORE resetting it... pretty random..
Just wandering if anyone has had similar problems ever..
thanks ! g.