Re: cheap samplers / loopers

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

Dennis W. Leas did some serious work:
>Lately, I've been considering really cheap looping devices.  These 
>interest
>me for two reasons:
>1) I like "multiple-track" unsynchronized loops - the more the merrier

Isn't that like spreading chaos? Don't we search for sincronicity?

>2) I'm a loop evangelist - if more musicians had loopers,
>the world would be a better place :)

I tend to hope that, too (otherwhise I would not have invested 7 years and
quite some of my fathers money into it). Probably most of the list agree,
otherwhise would not be here, but we should keep the critical sense.
One thing I am sure of: If the world ist full of or fanatic for *anything*,
its not a good place ;-).

>I haven't reached a conclusion yet, but your message prompts me to share
>what I've found so far.
>
>1) REALLY cheap $44.95 (in quantity one) - the Jameco "Digital Voice
>Recorder Kit", part no. 116484, product no. JE920KIT can hold a 20-second
>loop with lo-fi bandwidth.  This would take some modification, a box, 
>in/out
>jacks, etc.  Sounds like it would be fun to build a batch and sample
>audience members!

We (Aurisis) have a ready project for a cheap version of the Plex (no MIDI,
no sync) where all the components would cost about this. But there is still
the PCB, housing, wall wart, work, marketing... cost.

>2) cheap (about $75) - the Jameco "Digital Voice Module", part no. 124871,
>product no. DVM58D.  Can be populated with 16 Mb of DRAM to hold 5:35
>minutes of full audio bandwidth (44.1 KHz sample rate) or 17:20 minutes at
>lo-fi bandwidth.  Again, would require some modification to be used as a
>looper.
>
>Neither permits overdubbing, which to me is a requirement for even a cheap
>looper.

Definitally. The growing and fading seams to me like the condition for the
musical and personal developping side of looping.
The freezing side I don't trust so much ;-).
In our project, all of the editing functions of the Plex are available,
more or less immediately.

Unfortunately, Oberheim does not seam to have time to build it... someone 
does?

Matthias

PS: As for the subject, I hope that in the future, looing and sampling will
join into the same unit since it requires about the same HW.