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RE: post your issues with loop machines



Funny the problems that crop up.

I use the Deja Vu as a looper because of the bucket brigade analogue distortion/modulation. It's perfect, but the thing that drives me mad is that the feedback control is only usable in about a 1 degree range somewhere near 3 o'clock. Tiny bit more and it regenerates until it feeds back. tiny bit less it dies away and doesn't loop. I would give anything for a trim pot there.

Also irritating on setting the avartan (loop/cycle time) . It can be dialled between nothing and 4 seconds, then from then on it's only tap control. I want to be able to dial in 10/12/15/20 etc seconds, but can't. I also have a Headrush which I use for tape-saturation delay sounds. I would so love to be able to dial in 10/12/15/20 etc seconds avartan. then I could start both pedals as 15, or one at 12 and one at 15. or one at 9 and one at 18 or whatever.  I love their sound so much I won't replace them (nothing on a computer comes close) but this drives me mad (especially as the Deja Vu is hold-down-for-duration-of-loop and the Headrush is tap-start-tap-stop, so I can't even do it with a tap dance). Also I have to remember to make the Headrush into Tape mode - wish I could have it remember settings.

For the purposes of the survey - no mechanical problems, both are second hand, and the Headrush at least is secondhand ex moderate live use. I think the Deja Vu is an ex shop demo.  No line noise, crackle, know crackle any of that stuff

I have run both of external LiON batteries for half an hour.

Only serious irritation is the outs. The Deja Vu has the phase inversion stereo, but if you use it into a mix the input signal is massively deadened.
The Headrush has four outs, and proposes that you can run them for each head position, but after the initial four repeats the sound all comes out of the first head. I got a mini-mixer to do a stereo spread for that, and it's useless for it - misleading avdt etc. But you can switch off the inputs by putting a jack into it, which is a nice use for it (I keep on intending to wire up a sidecar with switches to make that happen, but time...)

I also have a secondhand Boomerang III which I only use for the live multitracking kind of looping, absolutely no problems with it at all (well, I've never managed to upgrade the firmware, which is very irritating). But mechanically it's the best bit of music kit I've ever owned - the buttons are all large pads pressing into heavy duty microswitches, good for a hundred thousand duty cycles. And the sound can't be beat. I tend to use it for live recording rather than a Logic or Cubase or Wavelab, because it's so much easier to control.

I also have a secondhand Timeline which I underuse as it is fiddly. I recently got an Oz sidecar pedal for it and it makes it a much accessible as a looper.

I'd like to put in a quick mention of the Superego freeze, which I use a huge amount and hasn't given any grief at all. It's not strickly speaking a looper (well, I would argue it is, but it might not match other people's expectations). I mention it because the same switch is being used in the new Nanolooper 360, so I would hazard a guess that it is indestructible too. I keep on nearly buying one because it is non-volatile and stores 12 loops and is battery powered.

Hope that is of use



> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 12:37:54 +0000
> From: akbutler@tiscali.co.uk
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: post your issues with loop machines
>
>
> Huh, the RC-50 didn't sound great regardless of bit depth.
>
> Really the need for 24bit converters isn't a quality issue as such, it's to do with headroom.
>
> If you have a stompbox with no volume control on the input you need 24bit
> to handle the variation in levels that the user will feed in.
>
> If there's volume trim on the input then a bit depth beyond 16 is only going to
> help if the rest of the circuitry is 'studio quality', and you're in a studio.
> Live it's not going to make a perceivable difference.
>
>
> good question though :-)
> will have a think if there's any relevant data I can send you.
>
> andy
>
>
>
> On 05/12/2014 11:41, jrploopers wrote:
> > So for instance i am dispappointed by BOSS downgrading the bit depth of their rc-300/505 series to 16bit
> > (while the RC-50 sounded better on 24),
> > by bad converters (Boss again for instance sound really flat and harsh on large PA systems),
>