Re: Repeater vs Looperlative AND Repeater 2.01 upgrade

[Paul Richards <paulrichard_rocks@yahoo.com>]

Ice cream  or smoked herring? No problem choosing for most folks!


Zoe Keating <cello@zoekeating.com> wrote:
> hi folks,
>
> i've been floating here around the edges, too busy to reply but i 
> gotta chime in...
>
> LP-1 vs RPTR
>
> i really dislike these "what is better" discussions because to me it 
> like asking...what is better? a dog or a cat? ice cream or chocolate 
> cake? smoked herring or pickles?
> i've found that what is better depends on what you are doing, like so 
> many things in life....microphones for example!
> now, of course both devices are expensive and it is hard to explain 
> to the spouse that you're buying a $1000+ item just to try it. but, 
> that is kinda what i do. don't get me started on how many thousands 
> i've spent on amplification systems for the cello (and you can't 
> return custom
>  installed pickups).
>
> here is my opinion though about the debate, if there is one...
>
> sound quality-wise the LP-1 wins hands down over the RPTR.
>
> i am a dedicated RPTR user and i know i got rid of my LP-1, but i 
> actually think that feature-wise, LP-1 is a superior box. you can do 
> more kinds of looping with it. its like a swiss army knife of looping.
>
> as for why i got rid of it - right now i am focusing on a very 
> precise, specific kind of looping that is entirely midi sequenced and 
> the songs already composed. to do this i need a combination of 
> computer and hardware looper. both the RPTR and the LP-1 have 
> drawbacks for what i'm doing. i chose the RPTR in the end for 4 
> reasons. 1) i've invested 5 years in mastering it and feel confident 
> with it onstage. i'm even intimately familiar with how it fails so 
> when it does, little can throw me. 2) the interface of the RPTR is 
> nice and big and fisher-price-like. that makes
>  it much easier for me 
> to see out of the corner of my eye (because of my cello, i can't have 
> gear in front or below me. i have it off to one side) and 3) the midi 
> implementation was more developed in the RPTR. i couldn't use my LP-1 
> for a long time because it didn't have the midi capabilities i 
> needed. i think it does now, but i'm not about to switch anymore. and 
> 4) i want the $1000 to spend on another experimental cello pickup 
> system!
>
> now, about the RPTR upgrade....
>
> there are some great improvements in there. from what i heard, i am 
> the sole person in the universe having trouble with it, because i 
> might be the sole person in the universe controlling two RPTRs with 
> sequences of midi commands from Ableton Live (anyone else out 
> there??). i find that hard to believe, but whatever.
>
> that said, there are some big improvements that i am really happy 
> with...and if you are not controlling your RPTRs with sequenced
>  midi 
> commands, you will never notice the problems...
>
> - indication of muted track
> if a track is muted, the volume indicator flashes red at the top. 
> yay!! sometimes midi triggering misses and i could not tell, 
> inbetween songs which tracks would still be muted as the next song 
> started. with the red indicator light, i can tell right away if a 
> mute did not get unmuted.
> also there is a new midi command that sends an "unmute all" message. 
> so i just send that as a matter of course in the batch of commands at 
> the beginning of every song.
>
> - reset "button"
> my midi sequencing can occasionally make the RPTR wig out. but both 
> my RPTRs have always wigged out every now and then (i'm not going to 
> describe this again. just search the archives if you really want the 
> details). in the past, the only remedy when it would get stuck was to 
> power down. now there is a snazzy midi command that you can send, and 
> it does a quick
>  reset which clears the seizure.
>
> - sticky settings across power cycles!!!
> love this. if you setup pan settings in a song, they will stay that 
> way until you change them.
>
> - erase single track midi command
> previously you could only erase the whole loop via midi. now you can 
> erase each track individually via midi (yes, you could always do it 
> via the front panel. but that was effectively useless for me)
>
> - multiply by x
> you can send a midi command to multiply your loop x3 or x4 or x5 or 
> whatever. in the past, you could only multiply x2, so i used to screw 
> up songs all the time by accidentally sending the command the wrong 
> number of times and screwing up the math. now i just send one simple 
> command.
>
> ok...back to work with me.
>
> loop, zoe

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