Re: Eventide Timefactor looper vs DL4 looper

[Patrick Bishop <pjbmhb@aol.com>]

The DL-4 actually has 28 seconds of delay, not just 14.

PJ

-----Original Message-----
From: Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>
To: Looper's Delight Mailing List <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Fri, Jul 30, 2010 1:08 pm
Subject: Re: Eventide Timefactor looper vs DL4 looper

cnovey@gmail.com schrieb: 
> Hey guys- tired of my love/hate w my DL4- any experiences with the Eventide? 
> Well, yes and no. Following your email, I decided to have a look at the Timefactor algorithms in the Eclipse. So I can comment on the functional aspects, but not on package/useability etc. 
 
I'll start with the Looper: 
 
1. General concept: 
Mono in/mono out in both cases. DL4 offers additional mod delay (which the Eventide does not). Maximum looping time is 14s in the DL4 vs. 12s in the Timefactor (or 40s in the Eclipse version), but see below in section 3. Eventide responds to MIDI Start/Stop commands to start and stop the loop and can be beat-synced to MIDI clock as well. 
 
2. State machine: 
If we leave out additional features (see section 3 for this), both use three footswitches for basic operation: Record, Play, Stop on the Eventide, Record, Play/Stop and Play once on the DL4. 
To me, the concept of the Eventide seems superior, simply because you can stutter (by repeatedly pressing "Play") and don't need to worry about restarting the loop precisely at the moment it has ended as on the Line6. If you want "One Shot" operation, this can be set as a paramter (see below). 
 
3. Additional Features: 
The DL4 has halftime and reverse (which share one button) and looper level, that's it. 
 
With the Eventide, there's parameters controlled with knobs: 
speed - which goes from 25% to 200% (three octaves in total - which also pushes the maximum loop time to 48s or 160s in the Eventide). This can be quantized to various steps, including chromatic, octaves+fifths and octaves only. This is real varispeed. 
decay - feedback (or secondary feedback in EDP lingo). Something the DL4 hasn't and which many long for... 
loop length - allows to preset the loop length, and to adjust it post-recording. Together with the next parameter, 
begin - adjusts the position where the loop starts, this allows some granular synthesis stuff (extremely cool btw!) 
 
The behaviour of Record can be set to either overdub or replace, and to latch or be sustain type (also cool!). 
 
Then there's either a high/lowpass filter (same on on the input and output) which you can add. 
 
There is no reverse! 
 
Summarizing: 
The big disadvantage is the lack of a reverse option. All other things are much cooler (including the three-octave speed range, only found in stuff like...Möbius comes to mind, and of course the granular thingies). 
 
The delay effects: 
haven't worked with them that much. It's dual/stereo delays all the way through. Plus, the "Tape" algorithm gives you varispeed. 
 
Hope that helps, 
 
  Rainer 
 
-- http://moinlabs.de 
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