More midi loopers

[Mountain Man <mtman@cloud9.net>]

Mark,  Every time the subject of midi loopers comes up, someone mentions
the MC-505.  The 505 is NOT a midi looper, at least not the sort that
the EDP or Repeater is.  One of the members of this list (who will go
unnamed) waxed so rhapsodic about the 505 for live looping that I bought
one; it sits unused.  The things that makes loopers work for me, is the
ability to hit record, play a phrase or a whole song, hit stop, and
thereby define the loop length and tempo.  The Repeater even has the
great feature of letting you dial in the tempo settings *after* you
record the loop.  The 505 requires that you set a loop length and tempo
before recording, and then forces you to play to the metronome.  For my
money, this is not looping.

What I really want is a stand-alone midi recorder (NOT PC-based!!!!)
that lets me punch in/out, tweak tempo settings, pitch, etc (all the
basic Repeater functions), and has a 4 (or better yet, 8) track mixing
console (this *is* one feature of the 505 that shines).  The ideal box
would have user-controllable decay (probably implemented as changes to
note velocity) on overdub.  I sure would love to have one of these !!!

Elby


> I've been told that this would be something pretty easy to configure
> in
> MAX.  Not sure if there's a PC version yet, but I bet there is an
> equivalent.
>
> Maybe not, because I keep hearing this request and never do I hear of
> someone doing this.  It's something that's been in the back of my
> mind,
> but frankly it's not that important.  I can get most of the MIDI
> looping functionality out of my E-MU XL-7 that I need.  I've heard
> others say the Roland MC-505 makes a good live MIDI looper with it's
> dedicated UNDO button.  No easy UNDO function on the XL-7, but it
> does
> have an ERASE button that lets you hold it down along with the bad
> note
> or track and make it go away.
>
> I've also been told that the best off the shelf live MIDI sequencer
> software is MOTU's Digital Performer.  To be honest I have not
> explored
> it for it's options.
>
> What the main downfall from making any of these things EDP like?  One
> word: Feedback.  100% feedback no matter what.  Seems like a function
> that could be easily implemented in the MIDI realm.  My guess is that
> manufactures don't even know people want it, or not enough of us do
> want it.  Maybe it's a job for a small developer.  I used to be
> friends
> with Jeremy Sagan, the man who wrote Metro, an amazing Mac based MIDI
> (and now audio) sequencer.  He was really open to stuff like this and
> came up with "Rhythm Explorer" soon after I showed him a photoshop
> plug
> in called "Texture Explorer" that's a part of the Kai family of
> Photoshop plug-ins.  Unfortunately, I've lost contact with him.
> Though
> I found out he now distributes the software himself.  If enough of
> his
> users requested a function like this I'm sure he'd be up for it.
>