------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain Loopers-Delight-d Digest Volume 96 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: Re: dj loopers [ kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) ] Re: JamMan stereo? [ Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.C ] Re: JamMan stereo? [ Chris Chovit ] Vortex quirk? [ ccohen@voicenet.com (Charles Cohen) ] Re: JamMan stereo? [ kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) ] Re: Synth Module for sale [ andre ] Happy Holidays/Boomerang writeup [ The Man Himself Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 3:20 AM 12/24/96, Dave Trenkel wrote: >Kim Flint writes: >>At 11:33 PM 12/17/96, JOHNPOLLOCK@delphi.com wrote: >>>Dave Trenkel wrote, in part, >>> >>>>on another subject, does anyone have any experience with the cheapo >>>>samplers that Roland, Yamaha, and (I think) Akai are coming out with? >> >>I saw some really hip demos of these dj oriented loopers at the Frankfurt >>trade show. I haven't had a chance to play with them myself, but I think >>they offer some interesting possibilities. A key difference from the >>echoplex/jamman/boomerang loopers is that these were designed specifically >>for dj/dance mix type musicians, and therefore they offer different sorts >>of features and a different sort of control interface. I think some >>interesting cross-breeding potential lies in there... >> >Could you be a little more specific? What was hip about the demos, what >makes them more specific to the dance/dj crowd? I fairly interested them, >but I haven't been able to get much info. Well, after several 9 hour days of demoing at the noisy, smoke-filled, overcrowded Frankfurt Musikmesse, my poor brain was not absorbing many specifics. However, I looked a bit and found some reasonably informative web sites: at the akai website: http://www.akai.com/akaipro/index.html we have info on the Remix16, a "Stereo DJ Phrase Sampler": http://www.akai.com/akaipro/Remix.html The Riff-O-Matic "Variable Tempo Phrase Sampler": http://www.akai.com/akaipro/Riff.html and the MPC3000 Midi Production Center: http://www.akai.com/akaipro/MPC3000.html The Remix16 is the more interesting one. It offers 16 pads for triggering phrases, a hold mode to loop samples, 4 track sequencer, monitoring to audition samples in headphones while playing, tap tempo, disk drive and scsi interface. It also has crossfade buttons to control input/output mix and a bend/scratch fader. For a given phrase you can input the number of beats and tempo and it will adjust the phrase to play it in time. It appears to have an interface designed for fast, live work, rather than a more involved menu-driven type. Also seems oriented towards syncing phrases to a beat and each other easily. It doesn't seem to offer overdubbing in the way we understand in from the echoplex/jamman/boomerang loopers. However, I think you can achieve something similar with the sequencing. So you might have a sequence using phrases 1-4, sample something new into phrase 5, and add it somewhere in the sequence. I'm not sure what the polyphony is, since the web page didn't go into that. Or you could just jam over the sequence with other phrases while scratching them and such. >From Roland, check the little blurb on the DJ-70mkII: http://www.rolandus.com/products/MI/MIprod_SS_S.html#DJ-70mkII or the phrase sampler MS-1 http://www.rolandus.com/products/MI/MIprod_SS_PS.html#MS-1 >I think that there's a really interesting crossover between the equipment >needs of the dance scene and looping. I've been using a Roland mc-303 drum >machine/sequencer/tone module lately, which was designed specifically for >the dance scene, and it's one of the best live-performance oriented pieces >of midi gear ever. A fairly intuitive interface, lots of real-time controls >(filters, envelopes, arpeggiator), and a pretty cool feature that allows >you to trigger sequences from the keyboard on top of any playing sequences, >kind of like a sampler, but the loops come out synched to the master >sequence. It's definitely designed to allow a lot of real-time modification >of sequenced material. And it also makes a great master-clock for the >JamMan. The MC-303 definitly has me intrigued. I think it was reviewed in keyboard recently, and it looked very cool. It looked like a great way to integrate a lot of techno/dance sounds and approaches into my music without spending a fortune on samplers and funky old analog synths. >>And since the dj subject has tentatively resurfaced, does anyone know any >>dj types that would be interested in joining the list? There is a whole >>world of looping in that genre, with an assortment of well developed >>techniques not found in the soundscape/guitar-loop variety that tends to >>get focused on here. I think some articulate dj types could give us a real >>interesting (and probably needed) perspective. >> >The liner-notes to DJ Spooky's records have some pretty interesting >thoughts on the african influence on the sampling/looping/manipulating >esthetic. Would it be a breach of copyright for me to quote some here? I think its ok to quote it, although probably iffy to reproduce the whole thing. I'd love to see it. He doesn't happen to list an email address or anything, does he? Maybe we could just ask him. Even better, maybe we could get him to join the list.... kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 96 09:20:17 EST From: Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM> To: "INTERNET:Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com" Subject: Re: JamMan stereo? Message-ID: <961227142017_74074.1316_GHQ68-1@CompuServe.COM> Kim writes: >Lexicon also doesn't go to great length to point out that the loop is only >recorded in mono. When you see stereo ins and outs on a box, you tend to >think it's a stereo device. Consequently, I've met a lot of Jamman users >who thought they were buying a stereo looper and were quite upset to >discover that they hadn't. That, I think, is deceptive. (or good marketing >;-) ) We have a major disagreement here. Having "stereo" inputs/outputs in the (relatively) inexpensive effects world has (almost) *never* indicated a "stereo" device. Look at all the multi-fx boxes, midiverbs, lxps, digidrecks, blah blah blahs. Most produce pseudo-stereo results. But NONE maintain a stereo image from the original stereo source. Many don't even pass stereo through the box. That's the way it is. And even today, there are only a couple of true stereo devices under $1000. >I think stereo pass-thru like this can be useful in some situations, >although I've never found that looping a stereo signal in mono is very >satisfying. I don't think its a bad thing to have on a piece of gear. >But.... Another area of disagreement over how useful stereo pass through can be. As an example of this, my rig is set up in such a way that an Echoplex with it's single jack wouldn't work. My effects run as follows: FX Out from Maverick Amp>JamMan1>LXP-15>>Vortex>>JamMan2>>FX Return Maverick/Lab Series amp. (>=mono;>>=stereo). This allows me to make a loop in JamMan 2 which has effected sounds, and play over the top with a different set of (stereo) effects. Can't do that with a Plex. The only way to get a similar result would be to get a Mixer. More money spent. Now who's being deceptive? Look: Everyone has a different take on what's important with these boxes. I don't think Oberheim were being deceptive in their marketing any more than Lexicon. The fact is that as a manufacturer you try to build a device that will be as useful in as many situations as possible. You ask questions. And you make decisions based around all the input you receive from the field (sales reps, stores, etc.) Sometimes you make the right call, sometimes you make the wrong call. But let me assure you that no one was trying to sell these boxes as something they weren't. (Hell, no one was trying to sell them, period!) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 11:47:51 -0700 From: Chris Chovit To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: JamMan stereo? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" John Durant wrote: >Another area of disagreement over how useful stereo pass through can be. As an >example of this, my rig is set up in such a way that an Echoplex with it's >single jack wouldn't work. My effects run as follows: FX Out from Maverick >Amp>JamMan1>LXP-15>>Vortex>>JamMan2>>FX Return Maverick/Lab Series amp. >(>=mono;>>=stereo). This allows me to make a loop in JamMan 2 which has >effected >sounds, and play over the top with a different set of (stereo) effects. >Can't do >that with a Plex. The only way to get a similar result would be to get a >Mixer. >More money spent. Now who's being deceptive? chris chimes in with his 2 cents: My bro and I used to use a similar setup, with the JamMan with the Art SGX2000, which has a stereo effects loop (which occurs after all the other effects, in the signal path). Placing the Jam man here allowed us to play stereo sounds on top of mono loops -- I think this is DEFINTELY better than having only mono -- you can use only mono, if you want to -- and if someone bought the unit thinking it was a "true stereo" device, he/she better do his/her homework a little better next time. I imagine that if the Jam Man were "true stereo", it would cost significantly more -- and then there'd be folks griping about the price. Alas, you can't please everybody. I'm probably not the only one who would love to provide input/feedback/design specs for a customized looping device. And in all fairness, I have to say that the Echoplex DP is not far off from being an "ultimate looper", in my mind. Its MIDI implementation provides lots of potenitals, that I have only speculated about, and have not yet explored. It is obvious that a lot of thinking and musical experience went into its design. And maybe, one day, the bugs will be fixed....... - chris _____________________________________________________ Chris Chovit cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov AVIRIS Experiment Coordinator ph: (818) 354-8077 JPL M/S 306-336 FAX: (818) 393-4406 4800 Oak Grove Dr. pager #: (800) 759-8255 PIN 834-3869 Pasadena, CA 91109 _____________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 19:26:54 -0500 From: PMimlitsch@aol.com To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Synth Module for sale Message-ID: <961227192654_2020029221@emout07.mail.aol.com> I have a Kawai K1rII synth module for sale/trade. It's a few years old, bought new, and only used for aprox 1 week. At which time I parted with my guitar synth set-up to concentrate exclusively on Chapman Stick and non synth sound manipulation/looping. Reason for getting rid of it(aside from the fact that it's been sitting in the box for a few yrs. and I forgot about it) is to help finance the purchase (trade?) of an additional Jamman for my set up. Interested parties can email me directly. Thanks---Paul ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 19:02:07 +0000 From: Anton Chovit To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: JamMan stereo? Message-ID: <32C41D2D.C85@earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > John Durant wrote: > > >Another area of disagreement over how useful stereo pass through can be. As an > >example of this, my rig is set up in such a way that an Echoplex with it's > >single jack wouldn't work. My effects run as follows: FX Out from Maverick > >Amp>JamMan1>LXP-15>>Vortex>>JamMan2>>FX Return Maverick/Lab Series amp. > >(>=mono;>>=stereo). This allows me to make a loop in JamMan 2 which has > >effected > >sounds, and play over the top with a different set of (stereo) effects. > >Can't do > >that with a Plex. The only way to get a similar result would be to get a > >Mixer. > >More money spent. Now who's being deceptive? > > chris chimes in with his 2 cents: > > My bro and I used to use a similar setup, with the JamMan with the Art > SGX2000, which has a stereo effects loop (which occurs after all the other > effects, in the signal path). Placing the Jam man here allowed us to play > stereo sounds on top of mono loops -- I think this is DEFINTELY better than > having only mono -- you can use only mono, if you want to -- and if someone > bought the unit thinking it was a "true stereo" device, he/she better do > his/her homework a little better next time. I imagine that if the Jam Man > were "true stereo", it would cost significantly more -- and then there'd be > folks griping about the price. Alas, you can't please everybody. > > I'm probably not the only one who would love to provide > input/feedback/design specs for a customized looping device. And in all > fairness, I have to say that the Echoplex DP is not far off from being an > "ultimate looper", in my mind. Its MIDI implementation provides lots of > potenitals, that I have only speculated about, and have not yet explored. > It is obvious that a lot of thinking and musical experience went into its > design. And maybe, one day, the bugs will be fixed....... > > - chris > > _____________________________________________________ > Chris Chovit cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov > AVIRIS Experiment Coordinator ph: (818) 354-8077 > JPL M/S 306-336 FAX: (818) 393-4406 > 4800 Oak Grove Dr. pager #: (800) 759-8255 PIN 834-3869 > Pasadena, CA 91109 > _____________________________________________________ I agree with Chris. At least the JamNan passes a stereo signal through. In a sense, this creates another channel (psychoacoustic at least) if your original signal is heavily in stereo. With the SGX 2000 the JamMan makes a great soloing slapback (a la Gilmore) with distorted stereo signals. Chris and I have been experimenting with a JamMans &/or Echoplexs panned to separate channels, rather than worrying about a stereo sound field for the loopers. The spacial bounce from the individual channels is very groovy. Adding a vortex or DDL to loops can create stereo images separate from the mono sources and adds to the depth and complexity of the soundscape. ALTERNTIVE PERSPECTIVE Geez, I deal with a huge-ass tangle of cables as it is; if all effects were in true stereo our hassles would be doubled! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 00:47:10 -0500 From: ccohen@voicenet.com (Charles Cohen) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Vortex quirk? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Got a Vortex from Guitar Center as a result of reading this list, and like it alot. A question: I've noticed that several of the Vortex factory presets give essentially infinite repeat when feedback is at 64, although there is a noise build-up. This "feature" is not mentioned in the manual for these particular presets. When a thusly altered preset is then stored into a user register, the resultant register does not sound quite the same. The numbers all display correctly, but the "infinite repeat" is lost. Anyone shed some light? I'm not complaining mind you. For $150 I think it's a bargin just as it is. Just curious. Charles **** **** What's Charles up to? **** **** http://www.voicenet.com/~ccohen ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 03:57:37 -0800 From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: JamMan stereo? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 9:20 AM 12/27/96, Jon Durant wrote: >Kim writes: >>Lexicon also doesn't go to great length to point out that the loop is only >>recorded in mono. When you see stereo ins and outs on a box, you tend to >>think it's a stereo device. Consequently, I've met a lot of Jamman users >>who thought they were buying a stereo looper and were quite upset to >>discover that they hadn't. That, I think, is deceptive. (or good marketing >>;-) ) > >We have a major disagreement here. Having "stereo" inputs/outputs in the >(relatively) inexpensive effects world has (almost) *never* indicated a >"stereo" >device. Look at all the multi-fx boxes, midiverbs, lxps, digidrecks, blah blah >blahs. Most produce pseudo-stereo results. But NONE maintain a stereo >image from >the original stereo source. Many don't even pass stereo through the box. That's >the way it is. And even today, there are only a couple of true stereo devices >under $1000. ooops. Looks like I hit more of a nerve than I intended to! No offense meant there, Jon. In a way, you're actually helping me illustrate my point. The whole reason I was motivated to spend years of my life studying engineering, becoming an electronics engineer, and getting into the music industry was out of frustration with the gear I had or considered buying. It was either poorly designed or it didn't do what I wanted. I decided to do it better myself. And I decided that if I was going to do it, I would do it from a musician's standpoint and create things that work well in musical situations. My whole approach was and is to not be complacent with things as they are. I'm not willing to say "That's the way it is." The music industry has a long history of dishonesty with their customers. A lot of poor quality junk gets passed off as more than it is. A lot of perfectly good products get passed off as more than they actually are, too. This pisses me off a lot. To me this is showing a huge amount of disrespect to the musician who buys that product. I hate that kind of attitude, and I've seen it a lot in the music industry. I certainly had a lot of disagreements with people at G-WIZ and Oberheim over this sort of thing. Either with engineers making compromises because they were too lazy or didn't care enough to do it right, or with marketing people stretching the truth real thin just to make a sale. Made me sick sometimes. And I don't think we were nearly as bad in that regard as some. I don't think of Lexicon as being in that questionable tradition. You may know better, I don't know. There is a long history of quality products from Lexicon, and I think that's something to be proud of. I don't think you or anyone else at that company ever set out to intentionally deceive their customers in the way some lesser corners of the industry do. Some of the other companies you alluded to are pretty guilty, though. I think the stereo question illustrates this quite well. I don't have any problem with a device that has stereo ins/outs but is actually mono. I think it's a reasonable compromise to get a product into a particular price range while maintaining versatility. I have a huge problem with not telling the customer/musician what they are getting. I think that if it looks like stereo, but really isn't, the customer should know before they buy it. Mostly it's not at all obvious. That's the way it is, and I think it sucks. My Rocktron Intellifex can be a case example. I bought it shortly after they came out, and it cost me a lot of money. It appeared to do what I wanted, and sounded really good to me. The selling point, though, was that Rocktron actually explicitly stated the sampling techniques and digital audio specs of the box. All the other companies at the time wouldn't do that, and seemed to expect me to be real impressed just because they used the word "digital." I was impressed with Rocktron's honesty and integrity about that. I did my homework, shopped around, and got the Rocktron. Everything about the Intellifex indicates it is stereo. But guess what? I later discovered that the inputs get summed to mono for the effects. In fact, if you use the Hush on your direct path, that gets monoized too. After digging deep in the manual just now, the only place this is indicated seems to be a signal flow diagram in the back. (They also didn't say anything about the giant wallwart, another thing that pisses me off) It seems to me that Rocktron was bragging up and down about the things that were actually good, while burying the shortcomings in the most obscure way they could. So now I have something that is still useful to me, but not as much as I had thought when I bought it. More reason to do it myself. The Jamman seems to do its thing just fine, and for the most part Lexicon seems to be quite forthcoming about its pros and cons. Yet there are people out there who buy them thinking it is stereo and are later disappointed to discover that the loop is actually mono. Apparently there is nothing indicating to these customers that they are not getting what they think they are getting. Lexicon is a company that seems to have a lot of integrity, so why does that happen? Lack of attention? Competitive pressure to be like the rest of the industry? I don't have a jamman, nor have I spent any length of time studying the way it's marketed and sold. So its probably a bit brash of me to say Lexicon is being deceptive here. Sorry if I riled you up a bit with that, Jon. No harm meant. But still, if the stereo ins and outs are just pass-through, are they labeled that way? Is it something you could obviously figure out from glancing through literature available in a typical music store? If not, that could be the source of confusion. I don't mean to be picking on the Jamman, or Lexicon, or you, Jon. As you pointed out, it happens all over the industry. I've watched these sorts of things happening right under my nose. And I see people get deceived by it all the time. I happen to come from a long line of high-minded opinionated bastards, and it's just a part of my nature to challenge the status quo. Its sort of like jousting windwills I guess. Or wallwarts maybe. But if we just put up with all the b.s. that happens in this industry, it won't be changing anytime soon. >>I think stereo pass-thru like this can be useful in some situations, >>although I've never found that looping a stereo signal in mono is very >>satisfying. I don't think its a bad thing to have on a piece of gear. >>But.... > >Another area of disagreement over how useful stereo pass through can be. Whoa, Jon. I don't think we're disagreeing here. Like I said, its a useful feature. Especially if you need to put a mono device in a stereo setup. Personally, I've found that stereo signals sound far better when looped in stereo than mono. I recently converted my rig to stereo, but I have to loop in mono because I still only have one echoplex. It sounds terrible to me, I'm not satisfied, and no pass through jacks are going to help. One of these days, the echoplexes I have on order will finally arrive, and true stereo loops will make me slightly more satisfied with the world than I am now. >(>=mono;>>=stereo). This allows me to make a loop in JamMan 2 which has >effected >sounds, and play over the top with a different set of (stereo) effects. >Can't do >that with a Plex. The only way to get a similar result would be to get a Mixer. >More money spent. Now who's being deceptive? Well I suppose that was deserved, if a bit unfair. The echoplex has mono in and mono out. Mono all the way through. That's all pretty obvious, just from looking at it. There may be other things about the echoplex that qualify as deceptive, but I don't think this does. It was originally designed quite some time ago, when stereo setups were not nearly so common. Accommodating stereo guitar racks wasn't high on the list. And if you look at the back of an echoplex, you'll see that it already has jacks going all the way across. (Plus that rugged internal power supply needs some room. Quite a bit more than those flimsy little jacks used for wallwarts. :-) ) Adding pass-through would have meant sacrificing some other functions to make room for the extra jacks, or making the mechanical design more complicated and expensive to manufacture. Low priority, didn't happen. Instead, we made it possible to link two (or more) of them together to get true stereo loops. Its not cheap, but at least its possible. > >Look: Everyone has a different take on what's important with these boxes. I >don't think Oberheim were being deceptive in their marketing any more than >Lexicon. Oberheim didn't actually do any marketing, so maybe they just didn't have an opportunity..... kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 12:24:27 -0500 (EST) From: andre To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Synth Module for sale Message-Id: <199612281724.MAA13983@shell.monmouth.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:26 PM 12/27/96 -0500, you wrote: > I have a Kawai K1rII synth module for sale/trade. It's a few years old,bought new, and only used for aprox 1 week. At which time I parted with my guitar synth set-up to concentrate exclusively on Chapman Stick and non synth sound manipulation/looping. Reason for getting rid of it(aside from the fact >that it's been sitting in the box for a few yrs. and I forgot about it) is to help finance the purchase (trade?) of an additional Jamman for my set up.Interested parties can email me directly. Thanks---Paul if i may be so rude, let me interject that this is a GREAT module - i've had one for years and i trigger it from my casio mg510 usually, sometimes it's driven by a sequencer or drumpad. anyway - lots of great sounds right outta the box, a very interesting hybrid synth programming method - you build sounds from a large "table" of sample waveforms - from basic sine, square and sawtooth waves to dozens of basic instrument waves. It's basically an "additive synthesis" architecture - which by now is pretty prevalent. There's also a credit card-style slot for prog cards - still available from some dealers but i hear there's tons of sounds online. Anyway - it's a weird, twisted sounding machine with lots of user control- andre ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 14:38:03 -0800 (PST) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Happy Holidays/Boomerang writeup Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Happy H-days and such, people. (After a week or so off-line, I've started to develop withdrawl symptoms.) One bit here froma while ago: On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, Kim Flint wrote (regarding the Boomerang): > Also, Guitar Player did a review of it a few months back > that was pretty favorable. I don't remember which issue, anyone know? The Los Lobos cover issue -- I think it was October '96. I looked it over and didn't see anything that seemed to contradict the information that's been tossed around the list of late. --Andre ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 96 08:04:11 EST From: Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM> To: "INTERNET:Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com" Subject: Re: (final?) JamMan stereo? Message-ID: <961229130411_74074.1316_GHQ40-1@CompuServe.COM> OK, here's a thought for the Holiday season in which we find ourselves: Enough of the slagging. It's way too easy to get bogged down in it, and it doesn't gain anyone anything, except a nice big ego. (And, yes I'm as guilty as anyone, so I've already slapped myself on the face!) Now that we've all had our say about relative plusses and minuses attributed to the stereo/mono issues, and nearly any other Jam/Plex issues, I'd like to propose the following new years toast (a day or so early): "Let's all recognize that none of these devices are perfect. Let's all recoginize that we all have significant investments in these devices, both emotional and financial. Let's all recognize that this list can be a valuable source for putting our own indeas/wishes on (paper), in the hopes that someone with the resources and and manufacturing abilities might care to pick up on them. But mostly, let's all REJOICE in what we do have. Four years ago we didn't have any of this, the JamMan/Echoplex/Whatever, and now we do. Our lives are significantly enhanced from these (imperfect) devices, so let us give thanks for a minute rather than complain about what they can't do. And let us all revel in many hours of contented looping in 1997." Glass (pint, Boddingtons) raised and offered, Jon Durant --------------------------------