RE: FlyLoops and electronic instruments

["Aaron Leese" <aaronleese@flyloops.com>]

Wooo ..... sounds like we generally understand each other .... let me just
talk about a few of the thing that we seem to differ on ..... and then let
me know about some of these things that don’t make sense to me.

Aaron

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

......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).

Yeah .... same deal with flyloops ....
1) I call mute
2) pause
3) on/off

Also ... you should be able to just play from the beginning at an arbitrary
starting point ..... such as the "one shot" on the RC-50.  I imagine mobius
can do this as well ?

> SYNCING:

Quick input: poly rhythm ......

Right, got it ... flyloops and mobius are both capable of this (since both
can handle loops of various lengths, but with the same underlying basic 
unit
of length).

>
> - full sync .......

Good for beginners.

> - partial sync - 

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.



Here is what I mean:
http://www.flyloops.com/semantics/loopingmodes.html

Except that back then I called it "latching" ..... this is ideal for a
phrase that comes in on ... say ... the third beat of a 4/4 measure ... but
repeats every 8 measures .... you only want it to cut in/out on the 3rd 
beat
... but you want it to be as long as the master (or 2,3,4 .. times as 
long).

For me this one is a big deal because a lot of jazz tunes have melodies
beginning on a downbeat other that the 1st ... and you want to be able to
move seamlessly from playing that melody to not .... but without trailing
notes .......

Make sense?


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

Does it? I must have missed that feature then. 

Hmmm .... maybe I am wrong ... I thought I read that it did.

>
> 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)

Yeah, I know ..... many are.

> 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.




Hmmm .... surprising, then, that we haven't seen more true group looping
experiments .... and let me be very clear ... I do NOT mean two or more
people were one lays down a loop and others try to follow ..... I mean an
environment were more than one person lay down loops that are synced with
one another .... certainly mobius is capable of that ..... do you have any
examples of it ???

For example ..... say ..... rick walker lays down a quick 1 measure drum
lick ...
Then per boysen lays down a 5 measure flute ostinato ....
Then Arild lays down a 10 measure bass line ...
Then they take turns jamming over it .......

And occasionally turn a track on/off ...

Maybe this just isn't anyone's style ..... and I'll accept that if it is 
the
case ... but I find it hard to believe that there are no examples of it out
there .... yet I haven't found one.

> 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"?


I'm not sure, but I think we are mis-communicating here ....
Here is what I mean:  Three loops on different tracks .....

Tracks:         1       2       3       4       5
Loops:  A       A(s)    -       A       - 

So there are three recorded loops on three separate tracks, playing in
parallel .. but one is stacking (overdubbing ... with a decay rate) on just
one of them (track 2, maybe ... hence the "s" above) ..... leaving the 
other
untouched.  So one and three play as usual .... 2 stacks with a decay rate.

If you are unclear on this ... please listen to that recording I posted a
few days ago .... I make heavy use of this technique.


> 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.

Why would it change the global tempo for this ???  I think I don't
understand ........

> 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.

Indeed .... I agree .. I'll be careful ..... to be fair though, there may 
be
technical limitations here .... certain elements are easy to sync up ...
others much harder.

> SAVING:
> 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.





Yes... it does that too ... I call that "save loops" instead of "save
session".  Usually its good to do both ... then you end up with a number of
small loop wav files ..... plus a longer live recording of what the looper
itself was playing at any given time .... plus a recording of what the
musician(s) was/were playing at any given time ....

Make sense?  This way you have a lot of versatility when editing ....



Thanks for posting the deep info, Aaron! 

Any time brotha ..... hope to have more discussions about it all ... this 
is
very enlightening for me ....and it's always good to get all are words
together (loop = track .... overdub = stack ... things like that).

Ciao
AL
 

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