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>At 12:24 PM 2/6/97 -0800, you wrote: >>On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Kim Flint wrote: >> >>> wow, a cyclone user! When I was at Gibson no one really knew what this >>> thing did, but people were still buying it every now and then. I >remember >>> being at trade shows and meeting fanatical cyclone users. You thought >>> looping was a niche..... >> >>Can somebody give us a thumbnail description of what the cyclone does? >>Any relation to the Vortex? ;-] >> >>--Andre >> > >It's a midi arpeggiator. Comes in a cheap plastic box, and has a >notoriously >difficult user interface with about 4 buttons and a few red leds. From >what >I understand, once you figure out how to program it, nothing compares to >its >arpegiating power. It's been out since the late 80's, I think. > I sold mine after a 5 year love/hate relationship with it, opting to limit options and put more energy into interactive music via audio (JamMan, Logic Audio, and playing with other humanoids). Wouldn't mind having it back though :-) It is pretty powerful. The unit is the midi equivalent of a JamMan, etc as it is meant for live performance and real time modulation (ie live improvisation on top of a loop or arp). It has a small sequencer. The live (midi) input can be arpped in subdivisions of the beat (up/down, random, etc) , or using the rythm input in the sequencer, and/or transposed using an 'algorithm' which you put in yourself, the latter being one of the unique, powerful and difficult to master aspects of the box. It has a versatile modulation matrix, so you can map foot switches (2), velocity or midi controllers to note duration, dynamics, transposition, etc. It slaves or sends midi clock at 96 ppqn. Vast options in a little plastic box with two 8 segment LEDs. There are 3 (keyboard) zones playable simultaneously, including the recorded phrase in the unit itself. It can doubles each 'zone' on seperate midi channels (up to 4 times I think). I got some complex arps and sequences out of it in conjunction with a quadraverb delay synced to midi clock using a K2000 and Proteus 1 making liberal uses of sliders on the K. On one particular occasion all the ingredients were simmering just right, and I remembered to record to dat, thankfully. Results: sort of Acid (Philip) Glass Industrial which could never re-create, unless I remembered to write every note and modulation down. I will upload some samples from that to the Loopers site at some point. The biggest downside of the unit is the user interface. However, it would store in its RAM the sequence data (like we wish the fantasy looper would!. Anybody else have experience with the Cyclone? Neil ngold@teleport.com Portland, OR USA