| Given my basically non-defensible resistance to buying a EDPro (needing two for stereo, and being pretty much satisfied with under 10-sec loops, has a lot to do with it...), I've been exploring some less-than-typical looping gear: Korg's new DL8000 delay. My impressions so far:
DL8000: This piece is quite a serious little delay line marred by a non-standard, and not-different-for-any-good reason interface (unless you need to see delay times from across the room), and a minimal manual.
As a hands-free looper, it needs some add-on pedals, but once fitted out with a stereo volume pedal to control audio input to the delay and an expression pedal to control feedback, it'll quite elegantly do up to 4 seconds of true stereo looping or 10 sec of mono (I patched it to the main outs of my primary mixer, so I can send it whatever's happening on any channel with a few button presses).
Additional foot pedals (or front-panel buttons) can add bypass, hold, and tap tempo (which will allow you to define loop length, at least in mono). Virtually any parameter can be adjusted with the expression pedal, but you can only tweek a few delay parameters a very small amount without introducing soon-quite-boring squeals and shreiks.
It does a bunch of other stuff like flanging and chorus, and has some neat preset rhythmic delay taps, EQs and audio-triggering modes, but I haven't explored these much, since looping is what I wanted it for. Programming it is not a picnic, as the interface is hard to get the hang of (or enjoy once you do), and the manual doesn't help with any application hints, but for $440 (pedals extra!), it was worth it for stereo, IMHO.
|
