Re: Boomerang survey - please respond

[Mark Hamburg <mark@grubmah.com>]

On May 19, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Grant <grantmepeace@mindspring.com> wrote:

>> The one other big issue for me is that I want an option when working in 
>> any of the sync modes to >have loop lengths synced without having to 
>> sync the point at which recording starts. For >example, if I record a 
>> base cycle into loop 3 and then want to record a possibly longer layer 
>> >into one of the other loops, then I want to be able to start recording 
>> immediately without >having to wait for loop 3 to come back around. The 
>> loop logic just needs to know that I started >recording partway through 
>> the loop. Start and/or stop might still be synced to loop 3’s cycle 
>> >boundaries — I haven’t worked through that as deeply — but if the 
>> natural point to begin the >layer doesn’t come on the downbeat, I 
>> should be able to do that.
> 
> If you plan to stop and restart loops created like this I think there 
> could be problems since the system doesn't know your musical intentions. 
> Suppose you had a loop 3 and another loop with a length of multiple loop 
> 3's. Then you start and end the recording of another loop at some 
> arbitrary point relative to the first two loops. This would seem fine as 
> long as you never stopped any of the loops. But if you did stop some or 
> all of them how would the system know where to start them again?
> 
> There may be an answer to that but in the meantime here are a couple of 
> workarounds that might help:
> 
> 1- Begin recording loop 3.
>   End loop 3 by pressing loop 1.
>   End recording of loop 1 and begin recording loop 2 by pressing loop 2.
>   At the next restart of loop 3 loop 1 will begin playing back and loop 
> 2 will be recording.
> 
> 2- Use a MIDI clock and the "Free" style. I think this would allow you 
> to start/end recording or playback of up to 4 loops at the nearest 1/4 
> note regardless of the loop lengths. I need to try this to be sure but I 
> think it might work. Obviously the player would then be responsible for 
> restarting stopped loops at the appropriate times.

This only applies to the cases where we're synchronizing to loop 3 and 
hence it works just like it does now with loop 3 defining the cycle 
boundaries. This is just a call to allow one to start recording a synced 
loop at any time during the cycle just as one can start stacking at any 
time during the cycle.

One implementation for this would be to record the loop as normal but 
round the length to a multiple of loop 3 and store an offset from the 
start of the recorded loop to the start of loop 3.

That said, there are interesting questions about how to handle start and 
stop. Let's assume that the loops are loop 3 (master) and loop 1 (synced 
but skewed start). If one loop is playing and the other isn't, then 
starting the non-playing loop preserves the relative skew between the 
loops and probably waits for the recorded cycle boundary for the loop 
being started (if we don't just start immediately). If neither loop is 
playing, then start should — absent any other sync constraints — start the 
desired loop immediately at the point where recording was initiated. So, 
if loop 1 has a little bit of a lead in, then we hear that lead in. Stop 
similarly can either be instantaneous or can wait for the cycle boundary 
of the loop being stopped as appropriate.

Mark