Re: ReCycle, Loop Slicing, GURU (Re: FlyLoops and electronic instruments)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 5 nov 2007, at 19.16, Jeff Larson wrote:

> [andy]
>> Sounds like a fantastic feature to put in a looper.
>
> I actually experimented with this a little when I was working on
> Shuffle (slicing the loop into even sections and randomizing their
> order).  After slicing, rather than changing the order it just changed
> the start times so they could expand and contract.  I didn't find this
> particularly interesting, expansion left gaps of silence between
> slices,

You could implement "alternative" direction of the loop playback,  
meaning that for a too short slice (if the tempo was lowered) the  
lacking gap will be filled by the earlier slice playing in reverse  
mode from the end loop point while awaiting the time cusp for  
triggering the next slice.


> contraction made them overlap which produced various phasey
> artifacts.

This could be fixed by reducing the "polyphony" of the audio channel  
to one (if using interleaved stereo streams) or two (if using  
separated Left and Right mono streams - as Protools used to).

Logic still works in this ancient, but highly efficient way; as soon  
as any piece of audio is played back on a certain audio channel it  
blocks out eventual previous audio that was playing there. Old audio  
is kept in memory and brought back into the playback ("play head" to  
use a tape machine allegory) position as soon as the interfering  
audio stops. This should of course happen according to the global  
cross fade settings to prevent glitchy artifacts.

> It wouldn't be horribly complicated to do proper beat slicing, but I
> think you'd still have to be careful about what you play so that the
> automatic beat detector can make the right choices.

I think "implementing proper beat slicing" may be a waist of  
developmental energy. Better IMHO to put  eventual efforts into grid  
slicing. This would be cool enough if the user have control over the  
two parameters Grid and Slice Treatment.


> Or I could just fix my backlog of bugs :-)
>
> Sigh, too much to do...
>
> Jeff

Isn't part of the beauty in not being into it business-wise that you  
are not forced to work on New Shiny Features rather than fixing  
bugs? ;-)

Greetings from Sweden

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