RE: Gibson update

[James Keepnews <keepnews@node.net>]

First, Kim Flint writes:

> yeah, yeah, yeah... we're workin' on it!
>
> dreaming up completely new loop functions, then trying to figure out how 
>to
> make them work elegantly with all the other loop functions is no simple
> thing....more like wine making than engineering....but we're getting 
>there.
> Believe me, we want to be finished working on the new Loop software
> generation just as badly as you want to begin using it!

Then, as if to slip into a pair of slyboots, Kim Flint goes ahead and 
writes:

> Once again, THERE IS NO NEW ECHOPLEX BEING PRODUCED. No new designing, no
> new schematics, no long engineering cycles, etc. Its the SAME echoplex,
> with just a delay in production while they figure out some byzantine
> business organizational issues.

Well, er, uh, please to forgive me for prying, KF -- your time is your 
own, as far as
I'm concerned, and provided it's consensual and not within the Great State 
of Georgia,
what you do with codes and diodes is your own charming affair -- but, em, 
er, if, as
you remark with such dramatic elan, "THERE IS NO NEW ECHOPLEX BEING 
PRODUCED...Its
(sic) the SAME echoplex, with just a delay in production," I, ep, umm, 
well, what in
tarnation are you spending all this time "dreaming up completely new loop 
functions,
then trying to figure out how to make them work elegantly with all the 
other loop
functions..." if it's to be the same, without these dreamy new functions 
and suchnot
added? Why not go out dancing? Or stock up on Fresca before the End Times 
hit? You take
my meaning?

Some clarification, please, on this old EDP/new EDP rollout -- are they 
going to make
the old right up to the point that there is a new? Will your software be 
an upgrade to
what already exists or will us loopies need to shell out for a whole new 
bundle of
hardware? I seek to know "when" only in relation to "what". Thank you.

However, as if the aforementioned weren't enough, Kim Flint goes on and 
writes:

> We're always open to feedback and suggestions!

Well, since you brought it up...here's suggestions:

1. The capability of dividing any loop length by any integer..."but, but, 
Jamie,
th-that would mean, I don't know, dividing a six-second loop by, goodness, 
one of those
loathsome prime numbers, like seventy-one, w-wouldn't it?" You bet your 
g-dd-mn f-cking
-ss it would, you craven little girlboy (sorry...talking to myself 
again...). Perhaps
each of these irreducible fractions treatable as a "virtual" loop, to be 
taken apart,
conceivably, out of sequence or treated separately in the series they were 
divvied up
in. Along these lines:

2. A loop "sequencer" -- needn't be much more than ye olde analogue fteppf 
fequencerf
of yore, just something that says to the EDP "play loop 1 twice, play loop 
2 once, 3 is
straight out, then play loop 4 backwards, then 1 on a ramp from quarter 
speed to full
speed again within the length of the loop; repeat. Serve hot." with 
multiple "songs" to
be stored. Along these lines:

3. More speed flexibility, including ramping functions like the one 
discussed above --
if we can no longer spin a knob to speed things up and slow them down, let 
them crunch
numbers. Similarly, like my first suggestion, the possibility of coming up 
with your
own sick, sick ratios, like 16/97, or 2/1, and the ability to ramp between 
the two
within a given time frame. While we're dreaming:

4. Back-uping EDP "macros" (i.e., the loop, the speeds, the "songs," etc.) 
onto Zip
drives or other SCSI-enabled storage devices. Also, the ability to read 
these in, and
other file formats as well (e.g. AIFF, WAV, QuickTime, AKAI, SDMI 
(psych!), etc.) -- if
it's a sampler we loop with at the turn of the century, the dad-blamed 
contraption
ought to behave like one. Along these final wishfully-thinking lines:

5. Digital I/O, yo.

Not one of these may be implemented by the EDP but I bring them up 
because, with
patience and the urge, MAX/MSP can do these today. Five years, gang, and 
we'll all be
bringing PowerBooks (or their 2004 equivalents) on the gigs. Now, if 
someone will
create a USB-to-1/4" converter...

-----------------------------------------------------------------
   ~      > --- James Keepnews --- <  "Don't quote anybody, Sir!"
 (.-.)    > -- Multimedia Yahoo -- <
    \                 *                           -- Krishnamurti
   -      > -  keepnews@node.net - <
-----------------------------------------------------------------