Re: FlyLoops and electronic instruments

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 2 nov 2007, at 22.16, Aaron Leese wrote:

> INTERFACE / INTERACTION :
> I know mobius can handle multiple loops in parallel, as can  
> flyloops ... and
> I think the approaches we use are somewhat similar ...
>
> Screenshots:
> Flyloops - www.flyloops.com/screenshot.jpg
> Mobius - http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/zonemobius
>
> It looks like you can control various aspects of multiple loops at  
> the same
> time from either program .... by this I mean hit a couple pedals  
> and tell
> the program to turn certain loops on/off on the next repeat ...

Yes, or rather "Mute" as I prefer. This implies that the muted loop  
keeps up with the time-line of the music and will still be in musical  
sync when brought back into the sounding mix. Mobius offers different  
modes of muting, which I think is brilliant; when you unmute the loop  
again you can (1) have the loop run still in sync according to the  
general music time-line, (2) start exactly where it was muted (as in  
"pause") or (3) start from the beginning (given the un-mute action  
happens on the set quantize point).

> stack on a
> certain loop (but not the others) ....

ahh... you mean like "the two loops sticking together"? That might be  
useful, but I think I would rather overdub one loop as a layer to the  
other to keep them more easily manageable on-the-fly.


>
> INITIAL LOOP:
> Both flyloops and mobius (I think) get their timing from an intial  
> recorded
> loop ... the "master".  All others are synced to that, or not ...  
> which
> brings us to .....
>
> SYNCING:
> I am not sure what polyrythmic is on the looping comparison chart ..

Quick input: poly rhythm in looping can happen when two loops of  
different length run in parallel sync. Like for example, if one loop  
is three beats and the other four beats long they will both hook up  
again, at the first downbeat, each twelve beat (typical African feel).

> but I
> bet we have the same idea here.  All loops in flyloops can be  
> recorded as:
>
> - full sync - meaning start/stop recording only at the masters loop  
> boundary
> .. so all loops start/stop with the master, and are a multiple of  
> the master
> loops length

Good for beginners.

> - partial sync - start recording whenever I tap in, but when I tap  
> out ..
> wait until the loop is some multiple of the masters length ... so  
> all loops
> are a multiple of the length ... but will start/stop only at a  
> particular
> offset to the master.


You must be missing something here, or didn't explain it as you  
intended to! If the Tap In point is not quantized but the Tap Out  
point is, then there is no chance that the resulting loop will match  
a multiple of the master loops length. You need to also use  
quantization for the TAp In action.


>
> - No sync - just start and stop when I tap ... so the loop can be any
> length, and will not sync to the master.

This is good! Out of sync loops can sound great for creating an  
organic texture.


> I imagine it is the same in mobius .... ?

Correct.


>
> MASTER: switch which loop is master .. I am sure that mobius does  
> this.

Yes, it does. I have not found the need to use it yet though.


> MIDI CONTROL:
> I think they are comparable with this ... both programs have a wide  
> variety
> of functions that can be mapped to midi commands.
>
> TEMPO/PITCH SHIFT:
> I haven't programmed this yet... so currently there is no tempo or  
> pitch
> shifting (there use to be, when I used DirectX .. you'll notice in  
> one of
> the videos) ... but ASIO has no inherent support for this ... but  
> this is
> top of the list of things to get done.


Please note that you may easily implement Rate Shifting, which in  
essence is simply old-school sampler stuff; with a higher pitch the  
loop plays faster and becomes shorter. Personally I find this more  
interesting than Tempo/Pitch Shift because it also opens up for  
polyrhythymics when you apply chord changes by rate shifting the  
loop. However, with this performance technique you need a function to  
realign all loops now and then, since they may drift off sync into a  
musically undesirable relation.


>
> TAP TEMPO:
> Mobius does this ... Flyloops will, once pitch/tempo shift is  
> complete.

Does it? I must have missed that feature then. Anyway, both pitch- 
shifting and time-stretching in Mobius are still not good enough for  
Tap Tempo to make any sense in practice. It must be possible to  
implement into a looper, since Ableton Live can do (although Live is  
not A Looper).


>
> VST:
> Mobius blows me out of the water here ... flyloops cannot run as a VST
> (yet).

Personally I'm more interested in running it as an AU (if OS X is  
supported, that is)

> GROUP LOOPING:
> Can mobius specify which audio stream to record by device .. such  
> as, when
> receiving a certain command ... I record only the left audio source  
> (which
> happens to be, say, the drums) ... I sync it according to the sync  
> setting

Yes. By scripting almost every command or function in Mobius can be  
combined in any way. If running Mobius VST you just have to assign  
the different inputs of the laptops audio interface to different  
Mobius track inputs. Routings can be set to change on given MIDI  
event inputs. Personally I do this in Plogue Bidule, which is my  
preferred VST host application.


> ADD/ MULTIPLY/ OVERWRITE: same, I think
>
> STACK:  Flyloops lets you stack on loops individually ... with  
> whatever
> decay you wish ... I imagine mobius is the same.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "stack on loops  
individually"?

> CONSOLIDATE: consolidate loops ... select three and make them one.   
> I don’t
> know if mobius does this .... ?

Yes it does. See "Bounce" in the manual. The Bounce function works  
perfectly, except for the fact that it does change the global tempo  
base for the looping session, which makes it too complicated for me  
to use in concerto praxis.

>
> GROUPING:
> Specify that loops 1,2 and 4 are in group I .... loop 5 is in group  
> II, and
> 3 isnt in a group .... then change the volume for group I ... or  
> the pan on
> group II ..... or stutter the loops in group I ....
> I imagine mobius can do this ... ?

Yes. And more: By general preferences you can set for each function  
if it will be affected by grouping or not. That's really good, I  
think, because it makes the looper extremely configurable.

Just a short note: In Mobius you do not group "loops" but "tracks".  
Each track can stack a bunch of loops but only play back one at a  
time. So in order to play back in parallel loops has to be recorded  
on different tracks. I think this is very user-friendly too, because  
then you can dedicate tracks for certain melody instrument and record  
each instrument's "verse", "chorus" or "bridge" as "loop 1", "loop 2"  
or "loop 3". If you then make a percussion loop on a different track  
and don't group it, the percussion loop will keep playing while all  
grouped tracks will change between different song parts.


> EXTERNAL SYNCING:
> flyloops doesn't do this ...

It's not working very will in Mobius either, if you are hinting at  
MIDI Clock Sync Slaving? But MIDI Clock is in general regarded as a  
bad syncing protocol and doesn't work well on many good audio  
applications. Apple even left it out for Logic Pro 8! (just the slave  
side, they still let L8 send out MIDI Clock).


> though once it is rewire compatible it should
> by able to sync to internal sources.

Please watch out when implementing ReWire! In Ableton Live you loose  
the ability to send out MIDI when enabling ReWire Sync. This is a  
tragedy since Live has excellent arpeggio plug-ins and many users  
want to stream the arpeggioator's MIDI into another DAW for driving  
really good software instruments and arrange compositions. Shame on  
Ableton for this!!!

> SAVING:
> Flyloops can save in two way .... first, export the loops as wav  
> files.
> Also .. there is a record session button which records the  
> performance ...

Great that you can do both! Both ways are requested by many users.

> it records to two files ... one which is live input (The solos  
> being played)
> the other is flyloops output .. the loops (after volume, etc.  
> adjustments).

Whoops... what about if you want to record parallel loops as parallel  
audio files? I mean, you may want to mix the session properly in a DAW.

Thanks for posting the deep info, Aaron! It was interesting to read,  
since I happened to miss the FlyLoops demo in Santa Cruz.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)