Looper/Sampler with Triggered Automated Fades (Zoom R8 FTW)

[damnableman]

Another question for those more experienced than I.

I'm looking into simple samplers/loopers capable of simultaneously playing back multiple longish unsynced loops. Many samplers are capable of doing this, though some of them take forever to load long loops into their RAM.

What I'd really like to find, though, is a sampler that gives you automated realtime control over the fade in/out time for each individual loop.

Does this exist? Do any samplers automate that process, so you could set an 8 second fade-in on a particular sample, trigger it & then let the sample loop at full volume until you want to fade it out?

As for samplers that offer manual control over each loop's amplitude, which ones have 4+ unsynced loops and don't take a year to load 2-4 minutes of samples into their RAM?

I know the EHX 45000 has manual control, but all of its loops are synced.
Octatrack probably does this, but it's $1000 and way more complicated than what I'm looking for. Though I could probably be convinced.
Possibly the Organelle could be rigged up to do this, but I'm not sure how many minutes it can hold in its memory. Also I would have to program it. Which I should learn to do anyway.
2x Pigtronix Infinity would give me manual control over 4 unsynced loops, but that's a little absurd, and I'd have to remember to change the program number on both machines when the time comes for transitions.

Anything else?

[Invisible Man]

Boomerang III does all of that and more.

[drolo]

not the axoloti?

[Invisible Man]

Well yeah of course it can. But it's don't know how much further I can push that shtick before I'm run out of town.

[damnableman]

I'm open to all suggestions.

I should have been more clear: this is not for live looping, this is for live sample playback, so the Boomerang is out. The 45000 and the Infinity both allow one to load multitrack loops from memory, which is why I used them as examples of possible but problematic solutions.

[karmablock]

Ableton Live. Probably.

[damnableman]

Yeah, that's what I've been thinking. I'm terrible at working in a DAW and programming shit on a computer screen, though, so I've been trying to avoid that. I'm happy to work with obtuse hardware interfaces, to memorize secondary functions and weird key/knob/button combos on pedals and synths and whatnot, but for some reason working with a computer kills creative projects for me.

[damnableman]

Update:

The Zoom R8 does everything I'm looking for, other than automated fades. I can live without that, though. On the R8 you can set up to 8 samples of any length (one-shot or looping) and trigger them at will. Each sample has basic level & pan controls. Evolving looping landscapes are mine.

Now to get better at making seamless loops. So far, still getting a weird thump at the transition point. No clicks, just thumps.

[tremolo3]

Doesn't the EHX 45000 have the option to have loops synced or un-synced? Or was it the RC-300?

[damnableman]

Yeah, the 45000 doesn't. The length of the first loop sets the length of all subsequent loops.
I think the 2880 does unsynced, but that the 22500 doesnt.

Pretty sure the RC-50, 300, etc. do unsynced, but they are huge unwieldy machines.

[damnableman]

In my quest for this device I did end up trying out a 45000. Though not what I'm looking for re: the above criteria, it is an excellent device. Loop fade is such a key feature on loopers. 4 individual tracks each with loop fade is superb.

[drolo]

the 2880 doesn't either (still it's one of my most cherished pieces of gear)

[damnableman]

[Nine months later...I'll leave this here in case someone else has similar needs in the future.]

Yep. The Zoom R8 is the cure. It is somewhat flimsy in build, but I can run multiple loooong unsynced samples and switch between programs in a few seconds. Each program can contain 8 samples, and they can be individually triggered to play once through, play for as long as the pad is held down, loop indefinitely, or they can be sequenced. I'm working with mono samples, so I pan them hard left/hard right to run into two individual channels on my board. I could also assign a sample to the headphones out if I wanted to have a third independent channel out. (http://www.henkybacker.com/2011/10/the- ... 8-and-r24/)

If you're working with long samples and are looking for a small and somewhat cheap multitrack sampler, the R8 is great. Setting up programs takes a bit of time, but that is true of all samplers.

A tip for those who are interested enough to have read this far:
To be able to instantaneously trigger the loops two things need to be true:
(1) [TRK SEQ] (track sequencer) has to be turned on. It's a little button at the bottom right of the screen.
(2) The track sequencer quantization rate has to be set to [HI]. Otherwise the samples will trigger at the next tempo division, which would be useful if you were doing rhythmic stuff and have shit timing, but not if you want to play the samples whenever you damn please. (Page 66 of the manual will get you there.)

That's all for now.