Electrix Repeater: WHAT DON'T YOU LIKE ABOUT YOUR LOOPE

[jayrope looper's delight <jrploopers@kliklak.net>]

(i only ever really used two loopers a lot, the Electrix Repeater &  
the Lexicon Jamman)

*2* Electrix Repeater / me dislikes

- analog input clips "digitally nasty", ergo additional compressor in  
signal chain is needed. no good. not player-friendly.
- fader quality/controls quality: plastic parts break off, dust in  
faders caused them crackling very soon after i bought it, generally  
bad parts quality. main control buttons "play" etc fail to work  
reliably unless you beat them - or clean them all the time. not fit  
for touring.
- bad converter input sound: to achieve a ratehr good sound it is  
necessary to loop with repeater first, then play loopers into  
computer, rerecord loops with soundcard, replace audio loop data with  
computer recorded data.
drawback besides complicatedness of procedure: acid type loop  
analysis files not fully compatible to rerecording. leads to missing  
feature:
- looper not capable of recalculating loop analysis files upon change  
of audio data.
- bad converter output sound on high volumes/large PAs with distorted  
signal on loops. (without additional noise mod that was discussed  
before, no idea if that woudl SOUND better, too many other drawbacks)
- power supply has "built-in" fail points, not fit for touring, cord  
grip too weak.
- bad customer service: reliable CF cards with Hitachi controller  
(SimpleTech or Pretec) almost impossible to get now. Company support  
for various issues reduced down to mainly unreliable announcements on  
web site. Software update 1.1 not free, although mainly fixing know  
issues of beta 1.0 released labelled alpha.

performance-related issues:
- looping process requires too many steps to use device as a fast,  
responsive live looper (as outlined in lexicon jamman post before),  
unless one carries a larger midi-based remote control, maybe (didn;t  
try, i am a musician, not a programmer on stage).
- midi, especially in slave mode, randomly out of sync.
- midi when looping live is buggy, signature calculation is oftenly  
crap.

i spare myself additional feature request.

Conclusio:
The repeater is an "okay" tool as a band replacement/sample player  
with additional pitch and timestretch capabilities due to its large  
storage capacity only limited by size of CF card (max 512 MB) and  
featuring 4 separately adjustable tarcks per loop, 999 loops at max.  
It also works okay in situations of dj contexts or art installations,  
especially because of 4 single track outputs.
Nice: Undo on overdub.
Nice: Tempo pitch going down to 1bpm, ideal for drony artsy things.  
Horror film soundstracks for instance.

Sound and manufacturing quality as well as handling issues disqualify  
the unit for my purposes, though.
i stopped using it especially in conjunction with other live  
musicians or even solo. handling is generally too slow and audio  
quality doesn't compare to live signal at all, especially in high  
volume situations. Doesn't cut thru - and reminds of: Ableton 1 or 2  
with Warp engine on, digitally degraded, no "see-through", though  
officially 16 bit, but resulting to be noisy, harsh, unpleasant.  
Also, in conjunction with necessary additional units (compressor et  
al) the overall tour weight gets to be too high to get around paying  
additional flight fees 8-).
When competing with a vinyl dj (yes they do exist) only Lexicon  
Jamman survives.

2 euro cents.

with love from New Weird Berlin ,-)
---
jayrope
.
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