re: beardyman

[Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Luis said:
> allright guys sio how in hell is this guy doing this?
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKhxifzgSuk

The KP3 Kaoss Pad (of which he has 4) basically offers two
functionalities at once: loop samples and effects. One important fact
I'm pointing out right at the beginning is that for the loops (and for
a lot of the effects), the tempo (set by tapping, selecting a bpm or
syncing to MIDI) is a prerequisite.

1. Loop Samples:
There's a total of four loop samples available in memory, accessed by
the buttons below (as in player's view) the touch pad. If you hit the
sample button, you first set the sample length (as 1,2,4,8 or 16
beats), then you hit the sample button to sample into that slot. Then,
it samples the input signal. Or, you can hit "Resample" (by hitting
shift+sample), in which case it samples the output (which contains the
input signal+running samples, both of them through the effects
section).
For each sample, you can: adjust sample volume, turn off parts of the
sample (in divisions of 1/8, which will then be skipped), and switch
between gating/running/mute/restart modes.

2. Effects:
Basically, you have a heap of effects, each of which has two
parameters (controllable via the touchpad) and which affect both the
input signal (which is always audible) and the samples. Normally, if
you remove your hand from the touchpad, the effect will be turned off
(but you can "hold" the last position or even record and play back
your finger movements on the pad). Also, there's an FX trail feature
which will fade effects in a delay when you release the pad to make
the change less abrupt.

As for it being "quite advanced" (to quote you): the KP3 works really
well if you a) got at least one hand free, b) work in a preset tempo,
c) don't need loops which are longer than four measures, d) don't want
to do anything odd (e.g. odd meters, tempo changes, decide when the
loop is going to end after starting the recording etc.). In other
words: it's great for a DJ or beatboxer doing electronic dance music
(the former being the original target market of the Kaoss series).

         Rainer