#42

My friends cathy and summer made that video! Cathy brought the pedal over to my studio before it was released so I could check it out.
It was capable of some beautiful sounds but the layout was pretty confusing. Parameters that were related were not grouped together. It will be interesting to see if they revise the layout in future editions

3 Likes
#43

Could you please expand on pickups limitations? I am thinking about buying Octatrack, but I do need good looping capabilities.

#44

(1) I never managed to have unrelated loop lengths (= not in x2, x4 and x8 relationships) together with the ability to overdub loops. So as I depend on overdubbing, I have to live with related loop lengths.

(2) The Fade In/Out is implemented in a very weird way: The recording starts, then the Fade Out is applied, then the Fade In. This is due to technical limitations and will not change (and believe me, I have inquired multiple times). For me this means that I can only use extremely short Fade I/O times.

(3) You can only overdub pickup machines if the OT is MIDI clock sync master.

(4) The OT is trying to adjust its tempo to the length of the first loop you record, assuming that the length is an integer multiple of a bar at the current tempo. So you canā€™t record loops whose lengths are not related to bar lengths without having the tempo changed, which is a bit of a bummer if you want to create unrelated ambient pads over a playing rhythm backing.

Nevertheless I continue to use my OT for looping, as in combination with all its other capabilities there is nothing like it.

1 Like
#45

(4) is something I never quite understood. So if you preset the loop length to a number of beats, it will never adjust the tempo? Otherwise the tempo is according to the length of the recording?

#46

According to my experiences, the tempo was always adjusted to the length of the recording, when I started with a ā€œfree lengthā€ first recording. If this first recording was somewhat close to be an integer number of bars at the OTā€™s current tempo, the tempo adjustment at the end of the recording was only slightly, but if there were larger differences, the tempo adjustment at the end of the recording was quite large.

I never had any tempo changes when I preset the length of the first loop I record. The downsize is that the maximum preset recording length is 64 steps (parameter RMAX in REC SETUP A), which is slightly less than 10 sec @ 100 bpm. The slave loops can then have lengths of x1, x2, x4 and x8.

Please note that I never tried using any other preset loop length than 64 steps.

#47

If you arenā€™t averse to using a computer I would suggest going the Ableton Live route. I know you said hardware looper, but I always come back to Live whenever I need a complex looping solution. Iā€™ve owned the Ditto, Boomerang, Boss RC-20, the Octatrack, and even some eurorack loopers and for anything more involved than making quick loops for practicing or goofing off I go with Live.

2 Likes
#48

I want to use it for live use with just my guitar, so Iā€™d prefer for it to be more self contained. Otherwise the Ableton looper is awesome :slight_smile:

#49

Iā€™ve been jamming with the Time Factor as a looper. Itā€™s pretty great. I especially love that you can adjust the start and end points, something that seems to be missing from a lot of other loops. Makes fixing imperfect loops a breeze. Thanks @marcus_fischer for the suggestion.

I do wish it had multiple tracks though.

2 Likes
#50

I know!!! Thatā€™s why I was playing live with two of them. So good!
I really love the speed control w/ musically quantized divisions. It makes it so easy to use live where you can have it turned down and jump to a different chromatic division and when you fade it up you know it will be in tune.

#51

Do you run them in serial or parallel for looping?

#52

I would do both. I have this matrix patchbay that I was developing called Landline where I could repatch my effects live.
(The box above the pine cone)

Most often I would use them in series to bounce a loop down from one pedal to the next, capturing any modifications I made to the original material.
It was a great way to make live improvised ambient music. My process is a little different now but the principle is pretty similar

11 Likes
#53

Iā€™m also searching for a hardware looper for guitar as well, Octatrack seems interesting but it looks like you can only record loops with pre-determined lengths instead of recording one loop with a footcontroller that defines the whole tempo, or am I missing something ?

#54

As we discussed above, the first loop you record sets the master length if you donā€™t predefine it.

#55

sorry i missed it ā€¦ thanks @kisielk

#56

I use a 2880 and a Count to 5. I second the 2880 (or 45000 now). It super easy to use creatively. Id love to see the new montreal assembly 856 with a cleaner and more user friendly layoutā€¦

2 Likes
#57

If I had more time I would just build one :slight_smile: too many projects alreadyā€¦

1 Like
#58

So an updateā€¦ Amazon had a sale on the Ditto X4 so I picked one up. Itā€™s basically exactly what I was looking for. Super easy to use, no superfluous features, and allows you to have up to 4 synced or unsynced loops. Despite having the UI for 2 loops, thereā€™s actually 4 because each loop can be bounced down to a ā€œbacking trackā€ which has its own level control but is not affected by overdubs or erases (though they can be erased separately). Thereā€™s a jumper on the back of the unit that lets you either have the second track be locked to a multiple of the first loop length, or totally independent.

Each track can be up to 5 minutes long, so itā€™s great for long ambient stuff tooā€¦

The built-in FX are pretty useful, though I do wish they could be applied to just one loop instead of both.

8 Likes
#59

heads up ā€“ count to 5 is available again.

5 Likes
#60

I just started working with the tc Ditto 4 and so far so good.
I second the comments above.
Loops can be stored to computer or loaded from it. WAV and AIFF formats.
The only disappointing thing I see, so far, is that the ā€˜FXā€™ (like 1/2 speed, double speed, backwards, etc) seems to apply to both loops. It seems that considerably more interesting musical outcomes could have been possible if one loop could be effected at a time. Maybe a firmware update?
Slight aside, the Count to Five is great as an effect in line before the Ditto. Iā€™ll be playing a piece in Hamburg in March using this configuration, unless I change my mindā€¦

3 Likes
#61

Iā€™m afraid I just found a weakness in the Ditto *4 firmware. Hopefully they will address it. The ability to save existing loops as ā€˜backing tracksā€™ is wonderful as it effectively doubles the capacity of the unit, however the volume of the backing track cannot exceed the volume of the respective loop, which means if you record the fundamentals of a piece first and add some optional bits later, that you might want to fade in / fade out. You canā€™t do it. Not in real time anyway. I think there is a workaround. The loops and backing tracks can be exported to computer and also imported from the computer. Iā€™ll test ASAP but I see no reason not to swap the loop and respective backing track files. More to follow.