A Repeater suggestion

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@altruistmusic.com>]

Hallo loop list,

I want to chime in with a point of view here, in light of the current
talk about the lack of a wet/dry mix and its supposedly being a design
flaw.  I also want to address a gear-related issue that's been bugging
me for a while.

First of all, with respect to the wet/dry issue: I believe it was either
Jamie or Damon who told me at the NAMM show back in January that one of
the core concepts for Repeater was to make "a hardware version of ACID."

Based upon the present feedback (no pun intended) from Repeater owners,
as well as the slant of Electrix's promotion, it seems to me that
Repeater is clearly coming from more of a multi-track recorder point of
view.  When was the last time you saw individual track wet/dry mixes on
an ADAT or a reel-to-reel tape recorder?  I would suggest that the
absence of same on the Repeater is not a design FLAW -- it's a design 
characteristic.

My perception at this point, which is of course only my opinion, is that
there's now a bit of a letdown present at the realization that the
Repeater is not, in fact, the be-all end-all Uber-looper of doom.  Yes,
there are some things you can do with a Repeater that nothing else on
the market can do.  There are also some things that have been on the
market for many years with feature sets which the Repeater doesn't seem
to share. 

There's a reason guitar players might have both a Les Paul and a
Stratocaster in their rig, and might run them through either a Fender
Twin or a Marshall stack.  Recording engineers carry a variety of
microphones with different strenghts and weaknesses.  Drummers will use
different types of kit components depending on the musical situation. 
And so on.

What I'm trying to say is this: Don't just judge any musical instrument
or piece of gear on what it DOESN'T do.  Think about what it DOES do as
well.  Approach it as an individual thing with its own strengths and
weaknesses, and learn what those are.  

Choose your tool based upon the job you need to do.

When I use an EDP, my creative process is being shaped as a result of a
specific design architecture and philosophy.  Like any good instrument,
it's the product of a particular creative idea that's followed a
specific arc to be brought to fruition.  I'm sure the Repeater is the
same way, and I'm sure that each unit will lead a user down certain
paths that the other one isn't well equipped to travel.

With all due respect to all the new Repeater owners, and without wanting
to offend anyone, I think it's a bit ridiculous that people are asking
for new design features in the unit mere days after having recieved it
-- especially after having waited a year for the current model to take
shape as an actual, workable, stable, real-world unit.  

It's taken years for a vocabulary of EDP techniques and approaches to
build up.  That's the way it should be, as it is with any instrument. 
Don't expect to master something like a Repeater in a few days -- and
don't expect it to be the final word in real-time looping.  

Learn your instrument.  Get to know it as a creative tool.  And don't
blame the instrument if it turns out that it wasn't what you thought it
was going to be, you know?

Anyway...

--Andre LaFosse
http://www.altruistmusic.com