Re: Headrush vs. Headrush (Delay vs. Sampling)

[James Keepnews <keepnews@node.net>]

So, I gots me the Headrush ($169 plus 5% off at www.musiciansfriend.com
-- how do they do it? amplitude...), kinda likes me the Headrush. Kinda.

Certainly, as someone whose sole dedicated looping hardware has been a
slowly-disintegrating Digitech EchoPlus pedal (the PDS
something-or-other) from 1989, the Headrush beats the Bush era with a
stick the size of an oar straight out of the rowing scenes in Ben Hur --
an era surely asking for it, to boot. I'll second my Svengali lover and
fashion consultant, one Kenneth Douglas Baldwin, that that's alot of
stick for $175, with 2-3 days shipping time, even.

But, I'm troubled. Why Korg went to so much trouble to create four
separate outs to create that not-exactly-cried-out-for four-head tapped
tape delay is surely beyond me. It is a convincing emulation of such a
vintage effect, but how many intend to ping that pong across four
outputs more than, say, three times, ever? My extremely negligable
knowledge of signal-processing hardware manufacturing practice leads me
to suspect that, had they not striven to achieve this and left room for
other types of effects processing (filtration of delay line, reverse,
etc.), this whole 'rang v. 'rush imbroglio would go the way of, I don't
know, Fred Travelena and/or other vintage emulators. The switching also
strikes me as counter-intuitive, but that's simply a matter of
familiarity.

Here's the nut of it (and it could lead to an interesting thread, if
anyone else on the list feels similarly) -- the ontology of delay vs.
that of sampling. Loopers created before the JamMan/EDP era were
souped-up delay pedals -- think of the EH 16-second or my own beloved,
disintegrating EchoPlus. Post-JM/EDP, this has been replaced with the
sensibility of sampling, a chunk of data that reflects the sensibility
of the snapshot, not the fed-back repeat. As we read in the specs, the
'rush allows for the aforementioned, disturbingly extensive four-head
delay, 11.3 second "sampling" looping and 23-second straight-up (or so
one might be led to believe) "delay."

Thus, the first question I asked when I busted out the 'rush was,
"Where's the infinite repeat for the delay?" Ha ha, foolish,
presumptuous boy; there isn't one. "Infinite repeat" is clearly a dead
dog in the new looping era; that's a function only a "sampler" can
utilize. So...one can get 23 seconds of delay that can only be added to,
not set into place and soloed upon or messed with to any degree, less
the decaying of the line. Great for "a capella" Frippertronics (as
distinguished from "soundscaping," you understand...) and/or pieces like
one Kenneth Douglas Baldwin's "The Long Dance" (hey, Doug, you gonna
sell them "Solo Guitar" tapes on tour?) but basically a delay that is
additional or subtractional but by no means loopable.

Indeed, how much is it really "delay"? Like the "looping" mode, one is
required to set in/out points for the extent of the delay line,
something one shouldn't expect of a delay process; that should be
well-determined in advance, unless you _want_ to tap a tempo. This
approach is demonstrated on the 'rush when one tries to increase or
decrease the "coarse" time dial. In the EH/EchoPlus worldview, this
would speed up or slow down the pitch of the delayed signal according to
whether or not the delay time, once set, was decreased or increased,
respectively. Lovely chattering aluminum locust or pre-cambrian
swampscape effects, respectively, could obtain from such actions in the
old-skool looper. The Headrush? Fuggedaboudit. The "delay" becomes
either clipped or extended but with the only effect from my experiments
being the basic interruption of such a delay line, nothing else. I never
thought to investigate this difference pre-purchase and more fool me.

Kim recently discussed this pitch-shifting knob-twist as being cool but
off the page as far as next-gen EDPs go. Which is fine -- a nicely
tricked out "sample" oriented looper does things these old
"delay"-oriented loopers will never do. But I'm still puzzled by the
choices made by Korg for this pedal and mournful of the loss of
functions I've come to expect from The Way of the Delay Pedal. I don't
know if the Line 6 box will bring back the era of the true delay looper
but you just might see a Headrush for sale on this list, shortly...

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