It’s real important that when freeform mode is finally implemented, that we can have an option, perhaps in song options, to be able to overdub, right away, as opposed to play then overdub. For us making seamless textures and soundscapes, this is crucial, because the pause from play to overdub would make the transition have a noticeable gap in it.
definitely agree, less of an issue for synced as you can queue it up to over dub before it stops but for freeform mode this would be essential
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Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard, all day. Will there be a crossfade option for the overdub, as that’s essential to having the seamless transition, on a soundscape.
Thanks!
@LordRadish what do you mean by “cross fade for overdub”? My understanding is that a crossfade is used on the ‘loop seam’, where the loop starts/ends to prevent an audio ‘jerk’ as the loop goes from end back to the beginning of the loop. But what would it do in the context of an overdub?
Hi, David… I hope I can explain this… I actually think we’re talking about the same thing, here. To maybe help, let me explain what I did with my last looper, the Pigtronix Infinity.
Let’s say I was making a long, sustained drone. The way I would have it be somewhat seamless is, after recording it for a while, I would go straight to overdub, while the drone was still sustaining. It starts overdubbing, and then after another few seconds, I’d let it decay, but it decays in the midst of the original loop playing, so you don’t really hear a transition from where I went to overdub. I think that’s because the Infinity (as they described it) had a small crossfade that would occur right at the overdub point (which, I think is the same thing as your ‘loop seam’ concept). Pigtronix called this "click killer’, something you could turn on or off (because the PI was always more or less freeform, didn’t have sync to measure capabilities).
Does that make sense? I mentioned in another post (either here or TGP, can’t remember) about having this crossfade length be a bit more adjustable… the PI, due to whatever limitations, had a quite short one, so sometimes, even with that technique (esp if it was a texture with some movement in it), you’d still hear a bit of a gap.
I do think we’re talking about the same thing, but I think another dimension with the Aeros (if this is possible) is to have it so that can occur with locked tracks, as well. If I’m locking the track on my main drone on Part 1 (which will sound seamless, if I did it right), and then am going to have it continue when I switch to part 2, without some sort of crossfade there, it won’t be smooth. That’s why some sort of slider adjuster for the length of the xfade/seam would be useful, so it could carry over to the next part of a locked track.
I hope I’m not overanalyzing this - I know a lot of people use the looper pretty conventionally, but there are also a lot of soundscapers out there that, like me, see this as being the most amazing looper for soundscapers (I’m already evangelizing about it!).
Thanks for reaching out, this is why Iike dealing with the smaller companies.
yeah I get it, going straight to overdub allows the original loop to be seemless as the trails are added to the begging of the loop, this is at the expense of when a loop is started or switched to, as when a loop has the trails overdubbed to the beginning it will start mid sound. So when switching between parts that have been recorded in this way it would be good if there was a cross fade, if the original loop fades out as the second one fades in, obviously that would require the second loop to faded in from near its end so that it hits full volume when the loop is due to properly start.
For similar reasons It would also be good if there was some kind of ramp up/down option for undo/redo and deleting tracks
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So the cross fade would be on the beginning/end of of the track (loop seam) – not between the base layer and the overdub layer – correct?
And there should be a cross fade between song parts too?
If the cross fade is adjustable, what should be the range of the cross fade?
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“So the cross fade would be on the beginning/end of of the track (loop seam) – not between the base layer and the overdub layer – correct?”
Well, yes, but I think I’m seeing ‘the end of the track’ in freeform mode as “wherever the overdub starts”, if I’m going right into overdub mode. I would assume that would be between the base layer and the overdub, though.
If I have it in RPO mode, instead of ROP mode, the overdub would be whenever I hit play. BUT, think about it, for a second… if I’m not going directly into overdub mode, there’s not really a need for the crossfade, there, as my track does have some clearly defined end. Does that make sense? I’m sorry if this is all confusing. Maybe it makes sense to only have the crossfade available in ROP mode? Curious as to what other droners would think on that.
And, yes, option to do the same between parts. And, if possible, a quick way to turn it on and off per track.
If it’s going to be adjustable (I can’t remember what the length the P.I. was, but it was in milliseconds, I believe). Not knowing what the length of a typical zero-crossing click is, I’d say start with that, and maybe give the option to go as much as 5 seconds, provided you don’t have some sort of architectural limitation, there.
Again, thanks for engaging so deeply on this. I do realize that I’m asking for a lot, here.
I think the main one would be when switching between ‘parts’ in Aeros terms, so that part 1 fades out while part 2 fades in. I guess the parameter could be a length of time, relative to the end of each loop, e.g part 1 fades out in half a second, part 2 fades in for the same half second hitting full volume at the point where the loop would normally start as it is at the moment. I think that would be great for sync mode as well as free form, anything that can smudge the boundaries so switching loops isn’t abrupt
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found this about how ableton does it
think this just quickly fades the loop in. I think one stage better would be to actually cross fade, so as the final moments of part 1 fades out, part 2 fades in. obviously if part 2 were faded in from the beginning it would mess the timings up (might not be a problem for ambient players though), so it should be faded in at the equivalent point in the loop to part 1 (wouldn’t matter if loops are different lengths as it would be relative to the end of the loop) i.e in the final half second of part one the final half second of part two starts, part one ends as part two hits its true start point
Right, merely putting in a fade would avoid a click, but it still doesn’t make for a seamless transition to the start.
I’m not speaking as an expert on this in the looping world, but more as someone who has spliced a lot of audio together. It seems to me that merely fading in the play back of the base loop a few milliseconds helps prevent unusual attack noises, like when the recording starts just an instant after the note is struck and the natural attack envelope is trimmed out. That’s a big component of the ‘click’ as far as I understand it. The attack envelope is artificially put back in on subsequent playbacks by the quick fade in.
But transitioning from record to overdub while sustaining a drone may not have the same sort of issue. Well, not even for just a drone … if I play a rhythmic pattern and continue through to the next overdub, I don’t really detect any kind of click because there is no loss of information that would happen before the recording starts … its all there at the tail end of the prior layer and continues into the next layer seamlessly on subsequent playback.
Maybe I’m off base. I’m just guessing that a fade in by however many milliseconds on the base layer when playback resumes is mainly what other devices are doing.
(And … side track or maybe point of order … the PI can sync to a measure … but you have to use an external MIDI Clock. I do this currently at gigs using a Molten Voltage TEMPODE. The PI is really the 2 track looper to beat in the market place. Aeros has far more potential though.).
there wouldn’t be a problem when recording and playing back the overdub while the loop is going, but the problem would come back when transitioning between different loops (parts in Aeros) and on first play, as when switching to a loop that has an overdub where the tail of the sound at the end of the loop trails over to the beginning of the loop, that loop will start mid sound with a click. That is what I have experiences with my Aeros, loops sound seamless when cycling, but on first play and transition from another part there is the click
Somewhere, maybe in a conversation with Anthony, I mentioned this. Two possible solutions… have a fade in on play toggle option for the loop. Or just fade in with the roller.
Has this been resolved? I am interested in buying this, but this is important for me. Thanks.
Not yet, but they plan on doing it, it’s been my impression that they upped the priority after this last update because it still seems to be something a lot of people want.
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Thanks for the reply!
This was done! We have implemented the ability to change from RPO to ROP in the device settings page.
We have still not committed on changing ROP/RPO on the fly, but that seems beyond this original request, so I will tag this #completed. 
Should I put in an official request to change on the fly, then? Or at least have it so it doesn’t involve getting out and scrolling through menus? It’s still very limiting, in terms of making scapes, because, again, sometimes you just want one seamless overdub and then other one off stuff.
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