Re: dream box

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

At 9:34 PM -0400 9/6/00, Brian Mulvey wrote:
> I have a dream box.. maybe tho, it's possible with hardware i have yet to come across.


Are you vehemently against using a laptop computer as your hardware? If not, I might be able to help, assuming your dream is durable enough to be reasonably patient.

> But anyway, what I'd like.
>
>
> Long loop time... (single loop is ok.. but up to 5 mins) should be alright.

No problem there...


> The ability to control the pitch (with a knob) and speed (same) at any point in the loop.. and be able to record with those changes,

I am not sure what you are asking exactly. An example will clarify: imagine you play into the loop, then twist the pitch knob until you're hearing the stuff you just played at half speed. Then you continue overdubbing into the loop. Finally you crank the knob back up to "normal". Does the last stuff you recorded now play at double-speed? Or do you mean, you'd like to record the gestures you make with the knobs also?

Also, when you have the knob at half-speed (or 3/4 or 17/19 or 2.17281728 or whatever), would you want the "old" material to  keep shifting further and further away with every regeneration, or just play back at the same fixed varispeed setting indefinitely?


> much like the Line 6 lets you record backwards and half speed.. but with more control.
> And finally, and most importantly.. the ability to loop smaller points of the larger loop, and overdub over those.

Ah yes, this is a tricky one, because when you stop looping the sub-loop an d go back to a longer loop, you might end up with clicks at the edges of the sub-loop. I have been trying to solve that problem with little crossfades at either end of the sub-loop, but I want to be able to keep playing the larger loop while recording into the sub-loop also, and haven't quite figured out how to keep the crossfades perfect at all times. I was ready to bail on this feature but it's cool to hear that someone else has thought it would be useful, so I'll try and get back into it.

> Hmm.. any ideas folks?

Please let me know if you would be philosophically, pragmatically, spiritually, nutritionally or legally open to a software solution. I can't promise a release yet but I am taking the looper I have been working on for the past three years a wee bit more seriously lately, since there seems to be more people interested in live radical loop-munging then I previously would have guessed. I think the hardware products are great for what they do, and they do a lot, but I do not know of any that let you overdub simultaneously into multiple backwards varispeed loops, while playing complex sequences of subsegments of other loops, in 5.1 surround, and that's the sort of sonic mess I like to make.

-Alex S.