Repeater Review

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Well, I sure did wait a long time for this baby, and it's finally in my
grubby little paws.  I purchased the Repeater because I found the mono
loops and the 32 sec memory limit of my trusty JamMan to "cramp" my
style.  The first thing I need to say is that the Repeater IS NOT a
stereo JamMan with a lot of memory, although they do share traits.  The
Repeater IS NOT a stereo Echoplex either.  Having gotten used to it, I
love this wacky box, and it's well worth the cash.  It's a little rough
around the edges though...

First impressions:

First thing I noticed was that the front panel interface was very easy
to work with.  If you've used a mutlitrack cassette, you'll feel right
at home.  Learning curve was very small.  One of my beefs was that some
functions need multiple button presses to initiate, which can be a bit
clumsy.  Electrix has included a comprehensive MIDI control scheme, but
more on that later.  The point here is that I was up and looping quickly
before reading a word of the manual.

This thing SOUNDS GREAT!  With dual stereo or four mono outs, you can
imagine the possibilities.  After looping with a Lexicon JamMan for the
last 10 years, it's like someone came into the room and turned on a 800
watt halogen light! I can see now! Time stretch and pitch change also
work well, with expected, but interesting artifacts when taken to the
extreme. The effects loop seems to be line level only, so if you've got
instrument level stomp boxes or in my case a Lexicon Vortex, it won't
really work. I couldn't set the input low enough on the Vortex to get a
good level, but putting it in front of the Repeater worked well enough
for me. Remember: This baby is line level all the way. I would NOT
recommend plugging the output directly into your Marshall stack set on
"11" (though they go up to 20...which is 9 louder, innit?) The place for
this baby is in your mixer's or amp's effect loop.  The problem with
this now is that there's no way to kill the input to the output, but
Electrix as promised to change this in the first software revision which
is coming "soon."

The manual:  Written in "I'm your pal" style, I found it to be a bit
skimpy and not all functions are that well explained or a little vague.
Over all, not a bad manual, as manuals go.  Written by Canadians in the
dude dialect of English.

My Repeater came at a time when much animal waste products were hitting
air circulation devices, so I didn't have time to put it through it's
paces.  Kim Flint posted a message complaining about it's synch to midi
functions being bad.  I had not noticed this, but I was doing very
swoopy ambient Frippesque stuff on it at first.  Hooking the Repeater up
to a drum machine and getting MIDI synch and audio from it confirmed Mr.
Flint's findings.  The drumbeats of the sample were a bit off.  Enough
to be noticeable.  NOT GOOD.  Synching my loops to a MIDI clock was the
reason I bought this baby, and I sure was angry when it didn't work.
Some research on the Electrix site (they've got a decent user forum up
at http://www.electrixpro.com) showed others had similar problems.
Turned out to be a problem with the Repeater's "Loop Point Assist"
function.  Can't turn it off when in MIDI synch mode.  Anyway, I figured
out a workaround (posted in their forum), and was back up and running,
although a bit clumsily.  I've heard that there are also MIDI clock out
issues, but I don't have anything slaved off the Repeater's clock, so I
don't know.  THE GOOD THING is that Electrix has confirmed both problems
and are about to start beta testing a 1.1 version of their software that
takes care of the synch issues.  That didn't take too long at all.

I was a little disappointed that I could not cue up a new loop, and go
into it recording.  Once you cue up a new loop, the moment you hit
"record" it starts recording, ending the current loop. (which still
exists in memory)  I'd like to be able to say, "hey Repeater, the next
time around, start recording a new loop." and then go about playing.
The JamMan and Echoplex both do this, I can't help but wonder why the
Repeater does not.  It's a 1.0 version of the software, and the lack of
features like this show it.  It would also be sweet if you could
initiate an instant overdub.  The only way to get a nice even drone into
the Repeater at this point is to record a blank loop, then open it back
up and go into record.  I'm used to doing that, as the JamMan behaves
that way.  Echoplex does have this powerful feature.  The nice thing for
me is that because the Repeater has non volatile memory using Compact
Flash Cards, you can pre record your blank loops before a performance.

Speaking of Compact Flash Cards, get a BIG one!  The 16 meg one that it
ships with is a tease.  I bought an unformattable Simple Tech 128 CFC
and Electrix had them send it back to them, and they sent me a new one
pretty quickly.  Very nice on the customer service.  Not all Simple Tech
cards are bad, but Electrix never said if there was a way to find out
which ones were good.  It's a crap shoot, I guess.  The Repeater also
has 8 meg of internal memory, which is even less than a tease!  I wonder
why they went so small?  I just put a gigabyte of memory in my Macintosh
G4 for US$150.  Retail for a 128 SDRAM DIMM is around $30 US.  I sure
would have paid $30-50 dollars more for this bad boy if it had 128 meg
of internal memory, but that's a little nitpicky.  The 128 Simple Tech
CFC seems to be working great for me.

I was also disappointed by the Repeater's MIDI control implementation.
As a guitarist, if I need to step on more than one pedal to access a
function, it's not really available. Electrix recommended using the
Rolls Midiwizard as a midi controller, which I purchased before I
actually got the unit, and I find it to be way lacking in what it takes
to control the Repeater with your feet. So for using with your feet, I'd
give it a 3. I'd rather give up the ability to directly access any loop
number (over a thousand possible!) to be able to step once and get it to
cue up the next loop and automatically go into it recording. This lack
is a BIG deal, in my opinion. Does anyone really need to access a
thousand loops?  No.  I also wish it allowed you to alter the default
settings. Even if you had to load them in from the CFC every time you
used it, it would be fine.

LOOPING FUN:

Despite it's shortcoming, this thing is GREAT.  Spent a few hours with
it recording guitar and synth parts over sequenced beats from a Roland
MC-307.  The time slip functions are really fun.  It gives you the
ability to "slip" a loop in time, meaning you can redefine the begin
points in relation to your other tracks.  Sweet.  Wacky rhythms ensue.
The time stretch and pitch change both work really well and sound
great.  (Make sure if you're planning on using a MIDI controller that
you get multiple CC pedals, or one that can be programmed to change
states.  There's a lot you'll want to control.)

I have it hooked into my rig so that I use stereo out and a stereo
effect loop going to and Electrix MO-FX multiple midi synchable effect
processor.  I loose the four channel out, but in return I get the
ability to put the MO-FX on the Repeater's inputs (gets recorded by the
Repeater) or after the loop.  If I get the effects the way I want them,
I can then Resample the loop, and the effects of the MO-FX (or any
effect processor) become part of the loop.  This type of processing is
REALLY powerful.  I can mangle a loop infinitely, and then bring it back
to it's non mangled state in a heartbeat.  One issue is that the effect
loop is LINE level, so if your processor is set up for guitar use, like
my Lexicon Vortex, you won't be able to get a good level into it.  My
Vortex would peak out like crazy, even with it's input control very
low.  I ended up putting it in front of the Repeater.  Not too much of a
big deal.

So the verdict?  The Repeater is a new animal, but it's evolved from
earlier life forms.  In some ways it's way advanced, but a few of it's
mutations seem a bit weak.  Luckily, Electrix is talking about the
addition of many features in future software revisions.  Once they nail
the synch issues and adds a few, this baby is going to be hard to beat.
I hope it spurs Gibson to upgrade the hardware of the Echoplex, so that
it can do stereo without having to buy two units (that will set you back
$1200 US)  Maybe Lexicon will release the JamMan II?  Who knows?  What
ever happens, we sure do live in the Golden Age of looping.

Mark Sottilaro