Re: Using computers as a Live Looper - software alternatives

[dcoffin@taunton.com]

Loopers Construction Kit requires Kyma.

There are several live looping tools that work very well in Reaktor,
available from the user library, and the delay options are extensive.
Anybody seriously interested in working out a complex, customized looping
environment in software (as opposed to hoping somebody else will do it)
would be well advised to check it out. Reaktor's not without problems, but
they seem mostly to be related to using it as a plug-in; it works very well
as a standalone app., and judging from the very active forums, lots of
folks are using it live. The forums are at least half the strength of the
product, imho; lots of generous, clever folks who delight in offering help
for other builders/users, much like this one, indeed! (And it can be ALMOST
as contentious...) Compared to Bidule, Max/MSP, and even Kyma, the speed
with which you can get lots of useful replies in the forums, the elegance
and flexibility of the user interface, and the vast resources already
available in the user library make Reaktor the development tool I'd
recommend first.

I've only made some rudimentary loopers in Reaktor, since my looping
preferences are for simple, multi-delay-based devices...and I've got an EDP
(which I also use in a rudimentary sort of way), but what I've enjoyed are
the very flexible routing and modulation options, the GREAT
effects-processing, and the elegant program-change and MIDI-control
interfaces. It was easy, for instance, to build a routing scheme with four
parallel effects chains going into a mixer, one of which was a 20-sec.
stereo looping delay in front of a step filter, and to put a
foot-pedal-controlled distributor in front of it so the pedal position
controls which chain or blend of chains gets the live audio signal.
Overdubbing  is just a matter of  pedaling over to the input of the running
delay chain. Feedback control, mixer levels, and everything else can be
easily assigned to external controllers, automated, sequenced,
tempo-synced, etc.
There a literally dozens of sampler-based looping/deconstructing tools in
the user library, all easily incorporated into anything else you've
built...
dc