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Looper's Delight
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Of possible interest to looping guitarists (mostly): I was lucky enough to spend Thursday at NAMM, and spotted these cool new toys: Lexicon is going for guitarists in a big way, with their ãCustom Shopä, complete with Harley-Davidson-esque Logo (everyone KNOWS what macho bruisers we guitarists are, right?), and the input (endorsement?) of Eddie Kramer, who was wandering around the booth as I listened. The current product line includes: 1. A revamped version of the MPX -1, called the MPX G2, which will reportedly do everything the -1 will, but has a new analog section for distortion/preamp stuff and classic stomp box emulations (they list Uni-Vibe, Cry Baby, Dyna Comp, Vox...), an effects loop so you can position your own preamp (or whatever) after some effects and before others, front-panel EQ knobs and headphone jack, intelligent pitch shifting, AND.... 20 sec. of full bandwidth delay (stereo I think). Will be about $200 more than the MPX and is coming 2nd quarter 98---their R1 Remote Foot switch will be updated to handle it, and will include a readout for the tuner thatâs in the G2. Oh, it doesnât seem to have the digital I/O--too bad! 2. The Signature 284 All tube Class A Stereo Guitar Amplifier, optimized for recording and direct use, with about 6 watts of power and compensated recording outs that come after the power section and include passive loading--2-space rack mount, single channel with a boost switch and four tone knobs. This thing was designed by John McIntyre, who used to write for Guitar Player and is based on a similar piece he designed that the Lace-Sensor folks were offering last year. It too has an effects loop (tube driven stereo) and slave outs. I heard it played both thru cabinets and direct thru monitors and it was very sweet...the demonstrator could really do the SRV thing and it sounded almost exactly the same when he switched from cab to monitors. Should be about $999, and in stores in April. 3. Theyâre coming out with cabs, too--I saw a little stereo thing that probably had 2 tens in it... Theyâre also offering a low-end dual stereo multifx called the MPX100 with Vortex-like selection knobs, MIDI, digital outs, pitch shifting, reverb, and 5.7 sec of delay. When asked about looping, my contact claimed that theyâd been kicking themselves over dropping the Jamman, since they started getting big orders shortly thereafter, and would ãdefinitelyä be back in the looping game ãsoon.ä Electro-Harmonix guy told me that the 16-sec delay was still in the works, and would be ãexactly the same...ä DOD guy told me that their 98 pedal with 8-sec. delays was ãdelayed...but coming!ä tc electronicâs FireworX multifx looked extremely powerful, like a second-gen G-Force that even includes a MIDI-addressable mono synth, has programmable ãinsertä capabilities--like an fx loop using either the digital or analog i/o that youâre not already using, as far as I can figure--programmable feedback loops, modulatable modulators (including a kind of mini sequencer called ãfreeformä), and you can divide up the dsp horsepower any way you want, using multiple blocks of any algorithms that use less than 50% of the resources. The front-panel block buttons include Dynamic, Filters, Formant, Distort, Vocode, Synth, Pitch, Chorus, Delay, Reverb, Pan, and EQ...and there are ring mod, noise, and reverse delay options, altho the delay times didnât appear to be any longer than on the G-Force (well under 2 sec). Other toys: Danelectro is back making guitars...copies of the originals that will list for $299...no Long Horns or sitars,...yet! Plus they have a vintage delay pedal (and a tuner)... The New E-Bow has an octave-up switch... Digitechâs Space Station pedal sounds good doing its reverse-delay thing, and ring modulating... Rocktron has a new floor version of their Taboo preamp/fx...the Taboo Artist... Mesa Boogie has a new 1-space non-MIDI preamp, a 3-channel job with stereo recording outs, fx loop, footswitch and graphic EQ thatâll be $699...they call it the Formula Preamp. Roland had some neat stuff (a 24-bit 8-in, 16-out version of the VS-880 with a bigger screen, a super phrase sampler that caches directly to a zip drive for about 26 minutes of stereo sampling and used 2 simultaneous Dimension Beam controllers to modulate fx or control audio....), but nothing new on the guitar front. The VG-8 is still in the catalog, tho... If youâve got a Mac and like to make sounds with it, MetaSynth is a little wonder boy! Eric Wenger, the inventor of it (and Bryce...jeez!), gave me about a 20-min demo that was sheer amazement...cross convolving audio morphs, granular synthesis, paint-brush filter creation, all the typical fx and sound design algos, works with imported audio or generates its own sounds using up to 400 oscillators (on a 200Mhz Mac)....$250. Believe me, it was PAINful to have to leave the show before I saw more! david