I am certainly no mobius expert .. so perhaps you can help me through this.
me neither, but mobius started as a multiple EDP, as SooperLooper and others... so I started some kind of a standard, which had contributions by Eric Obermuehlner, Rolf Spuler, Keith McMillan, Kim Flint, Andy Butler and others for the EDP, then from creators of other looping units and now you...
As you see, this is the first discussion that comes up if an experienced looper like Kris wants to know what you have under the hood, so you triggered a good movement:
** It helps the users and the idea, if similar functions have the same understandable short Name in all tools **
... and this list is probably the best place to figure them out!
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 .. 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
In the EDP we called this Quantized (Record, Multiply...), which is maybe not so ideal, since we might end up quantizing the sound to the loop one day... Full Sync does not convince me though, because what you call Partial Sync is also fully synced, in technical and musical terms. Two loops of different lenght which coincide again somewhen in the future are synced. Ljubo Majstorovic implemented such a Sync function where you have to record the second loop pretty accurately because it rounds very little, so this may be the best use of the name Sync! So if you dont like Quantized, maybe we find a more musical expression like "on the beat"? - 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.
we spoke about Rounding, which hits the nail better, I think
- No sync - just start and stop when I tap ... so the loop can be any length, and will not sync to the master.
some call this Free(running) or Unsynced TAP TEMPO: Mobius does this ... Flyloops will, once pitch/tempo shift is complete.
is this to change the tempo later or to preset it? the EDP has a Tempo function for preset (PBPM reference) but only the Repeater made it adaptable... MULTIPLY/ OVERWRITE: same, I think
Is Overwrite the same as Replace? or Substitute?
ADD:
maybe Append whould be a better term ... add material to the end of a loop ... increasing its length .... Per:
Cool, so not like Multiply which extends the original length of the loop, but while overdubbing new material over the top.
aparently what was called Insert in the EDP - not many used it...
STACK: Flyloops lets you stack on loops individually ... with whatever decay you wish ... I imagine mobius is the same.
ok, shorter and just as clear as Overdub...
MUTE (this was called BREAK in the LOOP delay, Keith renamed it): (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
hm... on/off is valid for any switch, so it does not help. I suggest: 1 Mute 2 Pause 3 Restart (I dont think that anybody will want to restart while leaving the loop muted)
the EDP had only option 1 and 3 as MuteModes STA and RUN or so (less nice)
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.
thats playing once only, I suppose? The EDP had that as PlayOnce or so, OneShot is better (even if more aggressive ;-) CONSOLIDATE: consolidate loops ... select three and make them one. I don’t know if mobius does this .... ?
others call this Bounce or Merge, which is shorter... EXTERNAL SYNCING: flyloops doesn't do this ... though once it is rewire compatible it should by able to sync to internal sources. And .... you could set up an external source to trigger the rec button ... so sync that way .... but you could NOT track to an external drum machine as you changed tempo for example.
we had long looped explanations on this list about Initial Sync vs Continuous Sync after triggering the rec button, the loops still run away from each other!
GROUP LOOPING:
Technically, BrotherSync is very different but the idea is the same: allow several musicians to play together in the same groove. Very important, I think, my main motivation to start a loop machine. Looping should not isolate people but help them to find the others tempo and stay with it. You call it Group thinking of several musicians, I suppose. But you also use Group for the linking of several tracks. Or should we call that Link?
BrotherLooping would be nicer than Group... or Band, Gathering, Meeting whatever...
MASTER The Brother idea was to abolish Slavery and Masters. But once the first brother starts, he becomes master. the others are not slaves, because they can choose to sync or stay free. So it would be rather like BigBrother - SmallBrother or Master - Disciple... A good tool allows the users to switch master easily (which is not so for wisdom transfer ;-) so... ...then again, Master may be just what people understand and has been used so far...
Per said: 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.
I find Track clear, but not Loop. We started calling the first recording Cycle and the maximal multiple of it Loop, but I dont like it any more. Loop means so many things already that we should not use it for any specific part of the tool. Cycle is ok, but not brilliant. The EDPs NextLoop is not very good either. But its hard to find a name apart from Loop or Sample, so I think it has to be some XxxLoop like BULoop or SavedLoop or OldLoop...
Per again: ahh... you mean like "the two loops sticking together"?
thats a new function I have not seen yet! maybe Join or Glue or Merge or what?
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