RE: Using tap tempo on Repeater

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

>At 04:51 AM 9/8/2001, Mountain Man wrote:
>Right - can't get it to slow down.  That's exactly my experience.

<snip>

> > From: "Tim Goodwin" <deepbass6@earthlink.net>
> > Yes.  I've had several problems arise when jumping back and forth 
>between
> > the sync modes as well.  It seems that the tap tempo does much better 
>when
> > tapping in a tempo that is faster than the current tempo.  Sometimes it
> > takes only two taps to register.  Other times it takes three. 
>Otherwise, I
> > have trouble tapping a tempo any slower than about 70 or 75 bpm (I 
>think my
> > record is 67).  It seems like the gap in between the taps is big 
>enough to
> > make the function reset and read the next tap as the first tap (or 
> something
> > like that).  Faster taps are more easily recognized for sure.
> >
> > I also had some problems getting the user and midi modes to sync after
> > using beat detect.  At one point in the evening, beat detect 
>erratically
> > jumped up
> > to a very fast tempo and when I switched to midi sync, it remained at 
>that
> > same tempo which was much faster than the master clock was sending. The
> > same thing seemed to happen in user mode (it kept wanting to jump back 
>to
> > the fast tempo that was established in beat detect mode).  But I'm 
>checking
> > into it.  I may have overlooked something (like a simple reset or
> > clear when switching modes?)  I don't know.  There are a lot of 
> variables so it's
> > likely that it's my own fault.


I have these same problems. Repeater does not seem to like slow tempos. I 
also had it go haywire switching from midi sync to beat detect or user 
sync.

If I have a loop going and I try to tap at half tempo in user sync mode, 
say from 100BPM down to 50BPM, it doesn't do it. It actually changed 
tempos 
faster on me and then jumped around. Going from 200BPM to 100BPM I was 
able 
to do.

in a reset loop, trying to directly tap in a slow tempo, say a 50-60BPM or 
slower, often doesn't work. Repeater doubles it.

It wouldn't record a loop at all if the initial tempo was set with the 
knob 
to slower than 20BPM. It tells me "Tempo Slow".

The beat detect mode doesn't work for me below about 86BPM, and that is 
using simple drum patterns. Oftentimes Repeater actually doubles the 
tempo! 
I guess doubling is better than using 86BPM for a 65BPM rhythm, which it 
did sometimes, but it seemed a little random what it would do. Tapping the 
tap tempo to help it didn't always work. at least not at these tempos. 
Generally the tempo detect worked better at faster tempos, in the "dance 
music" tempo range. I've also had it report half the tempo on faster 
inputs, like stuff over 200BPM. You can hold down the tap button to force 
Repeater to refigure the tempo. Sometimes that gets it sometimes not. 
Bebop 
at 250BPM always seems to be 125BPM for the repeater in Beat detect. When 
I 
tried to tap it, it gives 236-240. (Repeater stops at 240BPM for some 
reason, even though jazz doesn't.)

When I record my drum loop in those situations it seems like the tempo 
matching thing sometimes loses it and the rhythm of the drums in the loop 
is a wobbly mess. One time what was a steady 60BPM pattern became a loop 
that drifted from maybe 90BPM down to 60BPM across the two bars, then 
repeated that as the loop... Another time I had a 200BPM pattern going and 
Repeater thought it was 134BPM. I recorded anyway without trying to fix 
it, 
and got another sliding tempo loop. I guess it is pretty cool that the 
tempo stretch engine in Repeater can do something like that and it still 
sounds like drums, but I would prefer to decide to have it do that rather 
than it just happen.... I tried a second time on that one, and that time I 
think the Loop Point Assist jumped in and did something weird, so my 
resulting loop point was not even close to where I tapped it. Maybe I had 
the tempo lock on for that, not sure. It would be nice if there was a way 
to turn off the Loop Point Assist thing.

Beat detect works better at faster tempos. It picked up 100BPM ok. But 
when 
I record a loop in the Beat Detect mode and play it along with the 
original 
to check the timing it flams a lot and drifts around the beat. (I have 
that 
same problem with midi sync in.) I guess that is ok if your music isn't 
very tight rhythmically, but to me it was irritating and affected the 
rhythmic feel. I suppose you could tweak it with the slip or trim 
functions 
to get it right in the studio, but I was looking at this for live use, and 
it's just not accurate enough.

Repeater doesn't seem to like it if you try to make big tempo changes on 
it 
with taps or the beat detect. It does follow if you change it slowly, 
which 
is nice. So for an unsteady rhythmic source repeater would be nice for 
tracking it and keeping the loop in sync. It gets lost on big jumps 
though. 
If you tweak around with it enough you can get it back, but it takes some 
effort. Switching from midi sync to Beat Detect or User Sync also sends it 
all over the place.

All these tempo detect and tracking features seem like pretty nice ideas 
with great potential, but they just don't work well enough for the sort of 
live, improvised approach to looping I like. In a studio application where 
you are doing remixes with different source samples, and you had time to 
tweak with it to line things up right and avoid the occasional erratic 
jump 
it would be pretty useful. But for live use it has to "just work" with a 
minimum of extra user tweaking and so far I'm not getting that.

kim




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