#50

I couldn’t quite tell from the comments what specifically it was about the midirex that wouldn’t work for you?

#51

From the discussion -
Track are not independent, they play their own set of notes on their set channels. The total length of a loop is defined by the length of a longest track. Shorter tracks are repeated inside the loop…
Track lengths are quantized down to a beat.

Back to me -
So really real time is not possible, and independent loops are not possible.

#52

These are really common limitations. Still think Logic may be your best bet, but perhaps something like Squarp Pyramid might work.

#53

but it’s a heck of a way to meet new friends…

#54

Re-Pyramid - I don’t think so. Still needs to be initially tempo based.
I think I may have found something in M4L - http://sonicbloom.net/en/loopo-max-for-live-midi-looper-for-more-intuitive-recording-of-session-view-clips-improvisation/
I’m experimenting with the demo now.

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#55

As I’ve turned to software based options, for now at least, I’ve started a new thread - Real Time (sorta) Midi Looping

#56

Oh - it’s really inefficient. So the way I wrote it (common lisp) every midi message decoded to a fairly verbose human-readable lisp plist. Also I run a dedicated clock upsampler in it’s own thread to get the 96ppqn going in midi slave which I don’t think is particularly cheap.

3 threads are chucking round these disposable plist structures using concurrency channels and using erlang-ish pattern matching to detangle the mess - seems to be ahem exercising the gc somewhat. Haven’t profiled so I can’t say for sure but pretty confident I can refactor to just store midi messages as numbers and get a huge win.

These are some inherently fiddly problems I discovered in designing a midi looper:

  • ‘upsampling’ the 24ppqn clock in slave mode (solved)
  • hanging notes when you stop recording a loop before releasing a held note (solved)
  • flams when quantising incoming midi (can’t remember if I have quantisation yet)
  • pressing drum pad momentarily before loop record (not solved properly yet, just shove everything just before the button press on beat 1)

come to think of it I’m nowhere near ready to add the fun/cool features that made me want to write my own midi looper using lisp in the first place:

  • ‘improvisation’ algorithms where the machine can randomise played-in patterns a bit to make things less predictable
  • arpeggiator which can be loaded with any played-in pattern
#57

the other reason I wanted to roll my own was to get a system that allowed me to start off in free time (like my boomerang looper with the guitar), proceed in loop-synced time (lengths quantised to time master loop), then have the option ‘hint’ the pulse to the looper software with some taps on a controller or a nearly-right incoming midi clock. If the piece of music gets locked onto a tempo pulse, loop length quantisation becomes 1 beat.

Actually I might be able to pull this feature off - but the boomerang wouldn’t fit quite right into that workflow, so I’d end up screwing with sooper looper or something and the whole thing gets even more heath robinson…

#58

That is exactly what I’m looking for.
I made a bunch of music with Oberheim Echoplex (v similar to Boomerang) and I’m looking for similar workflow feel with midi dim hope I might be able to tie this to modular at some point. Please keep us posted…

#59

Future Artist showed a MIDI Looper at Musikmesse last year. I would guess it’ll ship some time this year, sounds like it could be much what you’re looking for.

http://www.future-artist.com/home-en/product/

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#60

Just dug into the alsa api a little bit & found the alsa-event->rawmidi conversion. So I’m going to do a major refactor of my midi looper software, simplifying the code & making everything run a lot leaner by passing midi messages as lists of 12 bytes rather than complex nested plists. That should get things cooking on embedded linux…

Also aleph integration through a native lisp->usbSerial backend is on the cards. Planning to come at this this initally from the aleph side, fleshing out out the bees<->host serial protocol. OSC will require a bit more thought and research so this will be midi & aleph-serial only for now.

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#61

Back to thinking about the boomerang workflow, and whether it’s possible to create a control-signal looper that uses the brother-sync protocol common to boomerang & echoplex, rather than relying on pre-ordained midi clock or similar…

I want the ability to output clock at some arbitrary sub-division of the master loop (tap-hinted), enabling to slave step-sequencer off organically-timed boomerang jams. Made some progress last night - bro-sync messages from boomerang were relatively easy to sniff off the linux raw midi device file (/dev/midi3 on my machine).

Also that approach highlights how dumb it is to bind common lisp to alsa sequencer. alsa seems to drop bro-sync messages on the floor - they’re malformed sysex so the best approach should be a custom midi-message-decoder state machine, rather than hooking onto existing midi library. Probably going to result in much faster code that should run no prob on beaglebone - here’s hoping for 2 birds/one stone!

Out of curiosity any other boomerang/echoplex users on here?

#62

Cirklon is wonderful and I’ve put the case to Collin, who makes them, that a Max object would allow us to use our Grids and custom Max toys to extend it’s already very comprehensive OS. My fingers are crossed for that.

#63

meanwhile back at the lab…

The experiment hooking common lisp program right onto raw alsa midi was a wild success. Amazingly my slave clock keeps in sync with a 3 or 4 second loop simply by measurin the time (in microseconds) between 2 bro-sync messages from the boomerang pedal as they come off /dev/midi4. I ran this for half an hour or so with no perceptible timing drift. The metronome-less aspect is a huge win I have been dreaming of this for literally years!

So now I can sync a rudimentary white whale / dsyn scene on aleph to free-time boomerang loops, which is pretty satisfying. linux laptop is the nerve center of this setup, so looking very plausible I can deploy to beaglebone black / raspberry pi / odroid then set about building that into a box with integrated footbuttons. Slowly but surely my dream rig is coming alive…

6 Likes
#64

Very, very interesting. Sidetracked by all sorts of other stuff right now but I’d love to follow up on this and test with my Echoplex at some point in the near future. This is exactly how I’d like to work… not all the time but definietly some of the time… no tempo, no grid, just notes and (maybe) a delay line. Knobs. Keys. Loops.

2 Likes
#65

The Radikal Technologies Spectralis 2 is an extremely powerful sequencer. It has an analog synth part, with a real analog filter, and analog filterbank, 3 sample based synth sections and 12 drum parts.

#66

Subjective, but Cirklon?

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#67

I will preemptively disqualify myself as someone knowledgeable on the subject but I have an idea that may be worth vetting for some of the more technically savvy…

Is there a way to integrate something like the DJ Techtools MIDI Fighter Twister with a Monome 128? Basically, using the Monome as the step sequencer and having the Twister serve as CV/MIDI CC per step for a variety of assignable functions. The key would be having the visual feedback from the LEDs in the Twister match with the Monome. Seems like a very powerful and pretty modular sequencer that wouldn’t cost a ton especially if you already have a 128. Combined with something like Volta or Reaktor Blocks 1.2 to utilize soundcard CV out would be even better.

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#68

Pyramid. Had one. Loved it. No nonsense, straight on music machine.

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#69

The more I see of Kilpatrick Audio’s Carbon, the more appealing it seems to be.

But I’d be pretty happy with Mark Eats Sequencer, if there were only a simpler way to also use other monome apps in the same session. But I guess that’s what the Trilogy + Teletype are really for.

I bounce back and forth between wanting a standalone hardware sequencer like Carbon that can speak both MIDI and CV, and wanting to stick with the monome ecosystem (but that means biting the bullet and committing to CV for the most part, and I’m still pretty hooked on MIDI).

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