Which loop pedal has a midi out ? / sync loops with 404

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:07 am

Hey fellaz, I'm looking for a new toy but I'm not sure which one...

The toy I'm dreaming of must be a loop device. I want to build live-loops with my turntables, add bass with my microkorg and want to layer in sync drums from my 404 (or1k)... I have good experiences with loop pedals... I had the RC20XL which is pretty cool but then I went over to the RC50, which has nice functions but the pedals are shit and the workflow with adding tracks and stopping and all wasn't good for table-work. There also was some fucked up bugs. In the need of money I'm back on the RC2 which can do everything I want (like the 20XL) but not sync with any sampler...

So what do I need????
You know, multiple tracks are nice but not a must... and I'm also open minded to non-foot-looper (?)...May be it's a 555 I'm looking for?!
But I don't understand the loop workaround on that machine...
Maybe someone could explain in easy words? I already know that there will be a gap if want to bounce the loop to a pad... but can a pattern be played (maybe drums) during this process or does the whole machine "stops"? What about the main loop? how long can it be and how many tracks (layers) can be be putted in?
I'm a lil scared of buying another sampler cause i really don't know if I need a 555 cause I have a 404 and a 1k which I'm learning to love as the best combination in creating on the 404 and sequencing in the 1k.
Having 3 samplers and no output (beside the glorious sp-battles) might look a lil strange... I really won't sell my 404 and I also think a 555 won't substitute a mpc in sequencing and polyphony (2 points that are very important for me) so there must be another piece for me but which????

Looper with Midi Out / no RC50... ???

Please inspire the inspektor

cartesia · Post by **cartesia** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:51 am

kp3 is a cool looper - 4 loops each up to 4 bars long,
the fx,
the ability to cut out bits of a loop to make a shorter chopped up loop

the only thing is the kp3 has pretty nasty sound quality

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:59 am

cartesia wrote:kp3 is a cool looper - 4 loops each up to 4 bars long

Nice thought
...but has it autostart-rec? Can I overdub on every of the 4 loops?
What about Midi-Sync? I'm not already conviced that a KP is a fully developed looper.. or am I wrong...
I had the KP2 long time ago... and most of the FX I really didn't need.
I want a "pure" looper... sth. like a digitech jamman BUT incl. midi out... :cry:

(for some reason I don't want to go back to the rc50, I can't tell you why but I didn't felt that machine...)

*edit

YO WHAT YOU THINK OF THAT:
http://www.imuso.co.uk/directory/review ... looper.htm

It has a foot controller option, midi, 4 tracks... Any expierences with that kinda looper? are there any other assimilable looper?

Funkyoldcrate · Post by **Funkyoldcrate** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:00 pm

You could check ebay for a boomerang II pedal. Its a phrase sampler/looper. I've seen some really cool projects done with it and been wanting one ever since. I dont think it has midi though

. They are in the process of making a brand new one, the illustrious Boomerang III, but still no midi and kinda high price compared to the other two. Check em out though because if you can find a workable deal on ebay it may just be what you need. Really badass piece of gear . And as a plus its from my hometown of DALLAS!!!

http://www.boomerangmusic.com/Rang%20Plus/Rang%20Plus.html

Also the green Line 6 pedal is pretty fun but I havent played with one in years and dont remember if it has midi out(dont think so). It does have lots of effects and overdubbibg though. I saw one on craigs list for like 100 bux the other day but I was broke :cry:

.

Anyway, if this is not what your zactly looking for then sorry and Ill shut up

but if it helps then glad I could be of some kinda use *hooray* :mrgreen:

.

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Tue May 13, 2008 12:43 pm

thanx for the input!
these machines are pretty interesting but without midi I could stay with my RC2... Any experiences with loopers like that "Electro Harmonix 2880 Super Multi-Track Looper" ? This machine got my attention now but I don't know how the worklflow is... It seems to be not so popular but its features are really nice.

Any other loopers out there? (No software please)

lotspoop · Post by **lotspoop** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:47 pm

Well I've been using the sp-555 as a glorified looping pedal so check out some of my posts. Here's one: http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1494

The loop section (bottom left) can have a 15sec loop max. Of course anything just sampled via regular sampling can be as long as you have memory.

As far as layers, you can overdub indefinitely but those aren't seperate tracks per se.

I would definitely say that it is limited in live-looping capabilities though. I have multiple loops saved on different pads that I can trigger independently. But it's not like having a multi-track sequencer though because I still have to start the loops with the pads exactly at the beginning to get them to line up plus they had to be recorded precisely in sync too.

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Wed May 14, 2008 10:00 am

... sounds like I've to deal with some constrictions on the 555 at the live loop point... 15sec. proberly won't be enough for a slow 4 bar loop, I think.
The cool thing might be the foot controller option but it's nothing special nowadays I think.
Last night I tried different workarounds with the 404 and the RC2.
One way to go is instead of putting all samples to the looper is to record some of the cuts (instruments...) as a sample to the 404. LIVE!
That's cool but I already want to change my drums during the live tracks (different drumpatterns to switch through) but the 404 and the RC2 easily get outta sync without midi.
Maybe I just need a good idea instead of another machine? Please help me outta this ! It's crucifying me...

I know sometime less can be more:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-nLkCoJ6bag

but having own drumloops plus the mighty mfx would soooo lovely...
maybe I should train my beat cuts a bit more... :oops:

jbl · Post by **jbl** » Wed May 14, 2008 1:52 pm

i did some reading on that 2880 and it only saves one pattern *4, per card which is kinda lame and a review said it wasn't really a looper but a glorified delay (whatever that means.) So my thoughts are, after spending some time at loopers-delight, that there are NO perfect midi syncing loopers that i could find cuz most either have no midi or the midi isn't timed well OR it'll cost you an arm and a leg.

PHeMoX · Post by **PHeMoX** » Wed May 14, 2008 2:11 pm

What about those Soundbite devices?

SoundBITE micro;

http://www.redsound.com/products/soundbitemicro

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:38 am

PHeMoX wrote:What about those Soundbite devices?

SoundBITE micro;

http://www.redsound.com/products/soundbitemicro

(That one looks interesting but please take a look at the connections... Are these true Midi-Connections. They look way different than normal Midi ?!

For a bigger pic look here: http://www.musikland-online.de/onlinesh ... icro-.html )

*edit
I was to fast without thinking... the got special cables coming with the machine... sorry my fault

The price is nice... (150€) I'll try to get some informations about that soundbite micro. Maybe it wont replace a loopsstation but I think it could be a good combination (404/Rc/Soundbite).. I'll def check it...
You guys are always so informative, that's cool! Maybe there some more loopers I don't know by now??? So if you know some others, please tell me...
... I'm close, I feel it....

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Thu May 15, 2008 6:49 am

Yo I found this video...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2JRpExKYumM

My english is to bad to get the whole point at this, so if anybody feels like helping please take look and tell me if it's possible to to sync my loopstation with that soundbite micro? It's hard to get informations about looping on that machine...?! Has it auto record? Does the loops starts automaticly after it's recorded???
If this little wonder-machine would work how it sounds would be awesome!

*edit
At the end the dude says that a KP 3 also could to this???
So I have to plug in the output of the loopstation to the KP3 and then to the midi in of the 404 and it will sync??? fo real?! this is future shit... :lol:

Can't believe that this machines will get the right bpm perfectly

PHeMoX · Post by **PHeMoX** » Thu May 15, 2008 1:56 pm

Wax Inspektor wrote:I was to fast without thinking... the got special cables coming with the machine... sorry my fault

The price is nice... (150€) I'll try to get some informations about that soundbite micro.

Yeah, it comes with special cables, mini-usb to MIDI.

At the end the dude says that a KP 3 also could to this???
So I have to plug in the output of the loopstation to the KP3 and then to the midi in of the 404 and it will sync??? fo real?! this is future shit... Laughing

Yeah, it can do that also! There's a feature on the KP3 called 'auto-BPM'. That figures out the BPM quite nicely.

I own a Kaoss Pad 3 myself and it usually syncs up nicely with my SP-606 and incoming music in general, but it's not as accurate as the SoundBITE micro though as sometimes I have to 'help' my KP3 a bit by tapping the correct tempo. It's not really such a big problem though as it normally only happens with 'complicated' music that hasn't got a real good distinctive beat.

Can't believe that this machines will get the right bpm perfectly

Yeah, it can, but it does (like all devices) need a little bit of time to get the right BPM figured out. Music that has little to no beat will be difficult to sync to, so actually that's when 'tapping' the bmp would come in handy.

The Red Sound company is specialized in BPM sync related things, so you can't quite go wrong with them and the price is really nice compared to the much more expensive KP3.

You've probably seen this already, but according to the author of that youtube video;

The Red Sound unit is much more accurate than the KP3 or the EFX500. I tried all three (but cut it from the video because of length).

wax inspektor · Post by **wax inspektor** » Thu May 15, 2008 2:02 pm

Thanx a lot Phemox! It seems like this is the solution for me... !

Nevertheless I'm not sure how good the looping is on the soundbite... ?

PHeMoX · Post by **PHeMoX** » Thu May 15, 2008 2:20 pm

Yeah, sorry if it seemed I ignored those questions, but to be honest with you, I don't really know how well it will work as real looper.

There should be a few people on this forum that own a SoundBITE XL that should be somewhat similar, so perhaps they could give you their opinion on that (if I understand correctly the SoundBITE XL lacks MIDI connection though).

Anyways, I've found this review that's rather positive about it's looping capabilities as well ;

http://www.audiomidi.com/aboutus/review ... eMicro.cfm

It's too bad there aren't many youtube videos on the SoundBITE Micro.

lotspoop · Post by **lotspoop** » Thu May 15, 2008 3:06 pm

Wow that thing looks cool. I'll be looking into that