Re: Looping pads and ambient sounds / likely repeater correction

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 04:28 AM 9/9/2001, Hedewa7@aol.com wrote:
>mark landman said:
> >This is an interesting point, certainly my feet or fingers aren't fast
> >enough to end recording by pushing record, then enter overdub by pushing
> >it
> >again without introducing a noticeable gap, the very thing I'm trying to
> >eliminate.
>apparently, ya missed a l'il bit of my point:
>if repeater is in *overdub* mode *before* ye begin recording, then:
>ending *record* w/another *record command* commences *overdub*.
>so ifya leave the repeater in *overdub* as a default-state, there are no
>extra button-presses.

David-
I think you should go check this, cause my Repeaters definitely do not 
work 
this way! What you are saying to do just ends record, but does not leave 
overdub on. You have to press record again for overdub to come on.

The overdub button on repeater doesn't turn overdub on or off, it just 
determines whether the overdub mode is "overdubbing" or "replacing".  So 
that button is more of a parameter setting and not a function, which is 
not 
very obvious if you don't study the manual before using repeater, as I 
discovered. Having it in Overdub mode doesn't make any difference for this 
case.

When you have a loop playing, you turn overdub on and off with the Record 
button. (the crux of the problem, I think.) So when you are Overdubbing, 
the Record button is lit up same as when you are initially recording the 
loop. The "overdub" light doesn't tell you if you are actually overdubbing 
or not which is a bit confusing. Basically, the Repeater seems to think of 
Recording and Overdubbing as the same thing. When you are recording a loop 
and end recording with a press of Record, it is also like ending overdub. 
The Record (overdub) LED goes off, and you are not overdubbing (recording) 
again until you turn it on again.

In fact, you can't even go into overdub very quickly with a quick second 
press of Record. If you press Record again quickly after you finish 
recording a loop the display shows "NOT READY" !!!  Not ready? not ready 
for what? Anyway, you will wait a good second before that display goes off 
and then you can push Record again to get Overdub to come on. And no, it 
doesn't remember that you already told it to go into overdub and just do 
that when it is finally ready, you have to press it again. So if you push 
it too early you are going to get a big gap while you wait for this 
display 
to clear plus however much longer after that your reaction time is to 
press 
the record button again.

How long does Repeater need after it records a loop before it is ready to 
do an Overdub?  I'm not doing video game button presses here, I'm double 
pressing Record about half the speed I double click a mouse, and still get 
"not readies" sometimes. Is it one beat? some absolute amount of time? 
don't know. I haven't got the timing of it down, so I frequently don't 
wait 
long enough, then have to wait much longer for the "not ready" display to 
go away. So forget about trying to minimize this gap with quick presses in 
order to get smooth textural sounds, your gonna get a big gap.

It also does this "not ready" thing when you are in play and try to jump 
in 
and out of overdub quickly several times in a row. This is a technique I 
like a lot. Have a sustained sound, then do quick rhythmic taps of overdub 
so that you get quick little rhythmic stabs of the sound in the loop. I 
get 
the not-readies when I try to do that on repeater, bummer.

The nature of overdubbing is such that you don't hear the overdub until 
the 
loop repeats, obviously. So if you are not looking at the Repeater when 
you 
try to use Overdubbing and it is giving you "not ready", you won't even 
know. What you think is getting overdubbed will be lost. So forget about 
looking at your instrument, or making big-emotional-moment facial 
expressions, or making eyes at that cute chick in the second row while you 
do all your cool stage moves. you have to keep looking at repeater to make 
sure it did what you told it to do.

kim



______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com