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Re: Why I love the Repeater
You make me *so* glad I just bought a backup Repeater, Mark :) And if
I'm able to get them to sync well enough to have an 8-track looper, I'll
be sure to let y'all know!! Won't get a chance to try for a while
though, since I just loaned "looper jr" to a friend :)
Elby
> Subject: Why I love the Repeater (was;Re: Repeater spotted for sale)
> Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 11:07:56 -0700
> From: Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Jon Wagner and I had this talk yesterday. After an amazing EDP day,
> we
> still looked at each other and said, "God, the Repeater is amazing.
> What will happen if ours were to break!? THE HORROR!"
>
> So where do I start? First synching.
>
> While the Repeater's output clock is dubious, a lot of devices don't
> seem to have an issue with it, including the EDP. Both Jon Wagner and
> I
> have done this successfully. But that's not the Repeater's strong
> suit.
> It's how it synchs to other devices. With the EDP you can imagine
> your
> loops are made of fine spun glass fiber. You can splice more or take
> chunks away, but try to stretch it and BLAM. Totally rigid in this
> respect. Now the Repeater's loops are like Silly Putty. (Who here
> has
> not experienced the joy that is pressing Silly Putty on to the Sunday
> comix to make Snoopy look like an Robert Crumb nightmare?!) Slow
> down
> your sequence (within reason, but pretty far) or speed it up, and the
> Repeater behaves like an obedient puppy. It might take a few moments
> for it to catch up with you, but it will stay by your side. Your
> pitch? Stays the same. Artifacts? Some, but totally usable and
> damn
> good compared to a lot of other devices that try to do this in real
> time. I never realized how I took this for granted until I put the
> EDP
> in my rig. If I've got an EDP loop going, I'd better not touch that
> BPM
> slider on my Roland MC-307 unless I'm preparing to get weird with the
> tempo. I must admit, not having Loop4 does prevent me from going
> back
> to my original tempo and doing a realign command. This does open up
> possibilities for sure.
>
> So, what else? You can time stretch and compress and pitch shift in
> a
> very fluid way. The inverse of the above is the pitch thing. The
> EDPs
> half speed and double speed pales in comparison. Sorry kids. The
> Repeater will run rings around any other looping device in this
> arena.
> Name the interval and you're there. Play your loops with a MIDI
> keyboard. I think you get an octave up and two down. Your tempo?
> Right on. Oh LOOK AT ME! I'm now playing my loop backwards at 80%
> of
> it's original tempo up a fifth. WEEEEEEE!
>
> And who can forget STEREO. Sure, the Repeater and EDP now cost about
> the same but I don't care who you are, if you plan to record music it
> will be played back on a stereo system. The Repeater is STEREO.
> Sure
> you can post process your loops with a stereo effect, but trust me,
> it
> isn't the same. Also, I'm not just looping guitar, I've got 1028
> juicy
> stereo sounds that come from my synth, as well as the output of the
> AirFX and AirSynth. To bump those down to mono would be a damn
> shame.
> Believe me, it's one of the main reasons I haven't really hit the EDP
> that hard since I got it. To me this is VERY important and I don't
> have
> the cash for another one.
>
> While were on it, forget stereo, the Repeater is a multitrack device
> that can deal with 4 tracks, how ever you'd like to deal with them.
> Two
> stereo pairs, one stereo pair and two mono, whatever. You can take
> each
> track and "slip" it in relationship with the others, while all the
> time
> still maintaining the tempo! Really useful.
>
> Stereo Effects loop. YUM. To do what I do with the Repeater, I'd
> not
> only need another EDP, but some signal routing device like a mixer
> with
> stereo aux sends or a Switchblade router. Switchblades START at
> $750!
> That means I've spent $2050! YIPE! If you don't care about an
> effects
> loop, you can route each track to it's own output for quad looping
> madness.
>
> The 16 meg it comes with is nothing. OK for my grandmom's looper.
> Get
> an $80 smartmedia card and you've now got 128 meg! 8 minute loop
> length
> limit! Longest out there of any hardware looper. The end.
>
> And you still get a lot of the functionality of the EDP with things
> like
> Loop multiply, different overdub modes, undo, ect. You don't get the
> yummy insert modes though. This ability to splice bits onto your
> loop
> is where the Repeater lacks. I never knew I needed these until
> yesterday though! I'm still not sure I can even use them much, as
> they'd screw up the MIDI synch that's so much a part of my deal.
>
> Last, but not least, for those DJs out there that need to take bits
> of
> what they're mixing and loop it, the Repeater's Beat Detect is really
> good. For fun, I'll put it in beat detect mode and just play into
> it,
> changing my tempo making the Repeater CRAZY trying to find me. Oh,
> it's
> get's weird quick. All the time, I can be in Record too.
>
> OK, I'm sure there's more, but I'm tired of typing.
>
> Mark Sottilaro
>