Re: Simple WAV-based looper with MIDI control?

Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Thu, 28 May 2009 13:37:04 +0700

On 05/28/2009 01:18 PM, Ken Restivo wrote:

  On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 02:41:51PM +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:

    Eric Steinberg wrote:

      TerminatorX?

    tX should not be over looked. It is amazingly stable and powerful  
although the interface is (was) a bit blocky to use. I was doing full  
live sets with it 7 years ago with no problems. The svn/cvs/git version  
is well worth the time it takes to compile and Alexander Koenig is very  
receptive to suggestions.

Awesome, thanks!

It looks like TerminatorX will be what I'l be using!

I had somewhat stupidly dismissed it years ago as being a "DJ thing". As you point out, I was wrong wrong wrong. It's a great little looper, and does everything I want (except for JACK Transport, apparently). It's simple, fast, easy to do MIDI bindings, and runs on my netbook.

I would have thought that Alexander had implemented jack transport by
now. He was one of the first to implement full jack support so, maybe
it is available in the dev version. It's very easy to compile btw but
you might have to contact him directly to get access to the repo.

  Since my Dual-Core 64-bit laptop is still being sorted out from upgrading to Lenny, I'll be using my netbook for the show.

And by the way, I don't mind the Indiamixx guys hijacking the thread to hype their product. The key to success is shameless, relentless self-promotion. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to see an EEE running Linux being used as an instrument, I'm doing a short duo set (Linux and congas) at Epicenter Cafe, 764 Harrison between 3rd/4th (next to Whole Foods), San Francisco, tomorrow May 28th between 7PM and 9PM. Free, come on by and hang out if you're in the area.

Sounds like a good time and hopefully you will get a nice meal for your
efforts too.

I hadn't thought about tX on a netbook but it makes sense as I was
running it on my celeron 1Ghz/768MB for a couple of years without any
major issues. If you have your latency sorted I would like to hear your
assessment post gig regarding its performance at low latency. I never
had any problems but I was using usb audio and couldn't get it down
lower 5ms at the time. tX has a lot of power under the hood and I have
often though that using it with hydrogen is the closest we have to a
competitive solution for abelton live fanboys.

If the two interfaces could be integrated into one it would really be
something special. However jack provides us with everything we need to
make them work together which has gives us just as much power and
probably more.

    H2 or almost any other sequencer can also be used as a looper in  
combination with jack-rack or any other fx processor.

I'm familiar with Hydrogen, but that's a drum machine. And, the version I have has no MIDI support other than note on/off. Or is H2 a Linux sequencer that I haven't yet used?

I'm really looking forward to the next release of hydrogen (h2)  which
is
shaping up to be an incredibly powerful midi sequencer and sample based
looper with much of the same or similar functionality to ableton live
under the hood. Different interface though. I plan on thrashing it a
bit in the next couple of months. If you have the motivation to put
some time in I'm sure you will appreciate the results.

    tX and H2 have advanced midi interface support.

Indeed. Thanks again for your help!

-ken
--------------

      On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Ken Restivo <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx  
<mailto:ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

    Apologies if I've posted this before, or if it's been answered
    already, but I'm looking for a simple looper that:

    1) Works with stereo WAV files

    2) Is loop-oriented not sample-oriented (i.e. not like Jackbeat)

    3) Lets you pre-load the loops and stores them with the file (i.e.
    this disqualifies SooperLooper, from last I played with it).

    4) Is very CPU-stingy enough to run on a netbook.

    5) Is very stable and won't die in the middle of a show (i.e. not
    Freewheeling, last I used it)

    6) Has MIDI controls for the loops and levels/mixer/muting for them.

    7) Can handle up to about 5 simultaneous loops (i.e. not like some
    of the DJ-oriented stuff that handles only two at a time).

    8) Of course, is JACK-ified and RT capable.

    9) Optionally has some way of picking/moving loop points, though
    that's not so critical since I can use Rezound for that off-line.

    Hmm, after writing all that, it occurred to me that ecasound might
    be able to do this, which I'd be perfectly willing to try. But
    I've had a rough time with ecasound and ALSA MIDI so I'm a bit
    concerned about item (5) above.

    -ken

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