THE LOOPING/LOOPER/OVERDUB THREAD

[hiorgos]

...

[ChetMagongalo]

Dunno then I've seen more than a couple artists do stuff like that.

Anyway I could talk about loop stuff for awhile, I currently have a drasped DL4 running into a ditto. with the ditto I can sample retriggers and half/2x time from the DL4. From there I can start a new idea with the DL4 and loop that too. I used to have a RC20xl and a DD7 for looping. I've also tried many others. The DD7 is a great simple looper, I would still have one if the ditto never came out. You can do the double tap thing that Jero was talking about on it pretty easy and that rules. that's what I miss most about it. Maybe I'll pickup one someday then I can also have predirt delay.

Anyone else wish the DL4 was a little smaller? It's kinda tall too but idk. I could fit like 10 dittos inside that box
I hope one day someone copies the DL4 but in a smaller box with more time to record.

[BitchPudding]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyDy15vW6U[/youtube]

Probably not the same as what your looking for, but still really fucking cool.

[BitchPudding]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3inNyGNMXw[/youtube]

Another one that I thought was cool, with 30% moar BASS.

[backwardsvoyager]

Dunno then I've seen more than a couple artists do stuff like that.

Anyway I could talk about loop stuff for awhile, I currently have a drasped DL4 running into a ditto. with the ditto I can sample retriggers and half/2x time from the DL4. From there I can start a new idea with the DL4 and loop that too. I used to have a RC20xl and a DD7 for looping. I've also tried many others. The DD7 is a great simple looper, I would still have one if the ditto never came out. You can do the double tap thing that Jero was talking about on it pretty easy and that rules. that's what I miss most about it. Maybe I'll pickup one someday then I can also have predirt delay.

Anyone else wish the DL4 was a little smaller? It's kinda tall too but idk. I could fit like 10 dittos inside that box
I hope one day someone copies the DL4 but in a smaller box with more time to record.

Yeah, a smaller DL4 would be awesome. Wouldn't be too hard if they removed the compartment for 4 'C' batteries

I have a Ditto and DL4 too at the moment. I use to Ditto for overdubbing at home (which I think it excels at, I don't find it to clip or anything), and the DL4 live for half speed/double speed/reverse/retriggering wankery.

Another one to mention is the El Capistan, you can't get rid of the whole tape decay thing on the loops but it never seems to become overbearing as you overdub, cos the previous loops are filtered out in the background. Not for everyone, but it's a really easy to use and interesting looper IMO. Works perfectly for more ambient styles.

[GardenoftheDead]

Stealing from the pedalboard thread

It just seems to loose some fidelity/turn to mush after about 5-6 overdubs for me for whatever reason. I will say it was better for me on bass, but I wasn't looping as many layers as I was with guitar

I kind of like the Ditto for this reason cause I hate Rhythmic looping. Would rather just have noise.

[Achtane]

Does the DD7 quantize junk at all or does it repeat exactly what you put into it?
Also I'm here to disrupt all these white avatars.

Pics of your Ghetto Loop Station is what this thread needs.

KEY FEATURES:
Input gain adjusts from squeaky cleans to dentistcore bloozy overdrive to hebby metul distortion
~7.5 seconds of looping action (~17 if you want really shitty sounding loops)
Overdub and monitor switches
Warbling modulation if you mess up cutting the tape
Potentially damaging loop/playback speed adjustment; ability to harness blue whale toans by recording while motor's spinning at lightspeed and playing back at normal speed
Loops degrade after 5-6 layers for lo-fi toans, first layer is the most prominent

My dream is to get like two more decks similar to this one (lots of headroom), modify them in the same way, slap them in a rack and make a footwitch so I can control the record/stop/play modes and speed without having to walk around all the time...
Some decks are roomier than others on the inside though, some of them are too much of a pain in the ass to mess around with.

How do you go about using that as a looper? What modifications have you made? Ether way, jank as fuck.

You gotta first take apart the cassette(s) itself, cut off ~9 inches or so (I wrote the lengths and corresponding loop times down somewhere), carefully splice it in the middle, and route it through, like this:

Although you'd ditch the huge reel of tape in that pic, of course.
It's the easiest and least finicky style and it's the one that yields around 7.5 seconds of loop time.
I said "easiest", but learning it was a pain in the ass and took me a couple of hours to get it right. The tape sticks to EVERYTHING and if you don't cut it to the exact needed length it won't work; there's a low tolerance between where it'll work and where the motor won't turn at all, or else will barely move the tape/spin it off the reels/break it/etc. Also, if you splice the tape poorly, there will be a low-pitched "bump" sound every time the tape comes around to that point, which can actually sound cool. My technique is putting Plasti-Dip around the edges of one of the reels to increase grip, which really seems to help.
There are a lot of ways you can route it, including using more of those little corner pulleys along the inside of the cassette so you can wind longer sections of tape around 'em and thus get longer times. It's a bitch to work out how much tape you need, though, a lot of trial-and-error.

As for the deck itself, after changing out the RCA jacks for 1/4" ones I took apart the "tape loading area thing" and found the wires connecting to the erase head, then soldered them to a toggle switch. The wires connecting to the head are super short, so if you mess up you might not get another chance without having to dive into soldering hell. So now you can either record a new single layer every time (erasing the previous jawn), or switch it over to defeat the erase head and keep layering stuff on top of stuff.
I added the "monitor switch", which really just taps the input jack so I could hear what I was playing while recording. It's useless now that I have a mixer with an effects loop, but previously I couldn't hear anything I was playing through it while in rec/play mode so the deck wasn't really an active participant in my guitar fuckery. More of a "play stuff into it and see how it turns out" thing.
Later on I got bored and decided to find out how to adjust the motor speed, which is controlled by a trimpot on the underside of the board. Easy enough to solder to a pot on the outer shell.
I have another deck that I meant to turn into a looper like this but it SUCKS inside, circuit boards wedged together like a game of Tetris and with no room to spare. However, the 1/4" inputs of it distort/fuzz out easily and it gets SUPER LOUD so I just use it like a bigass pedal.

It's nothing new, but it's cheap and I like the aesthetic and feel of using cassette decks with instruments.

[skullservant]

NOISE RULES ALL. Seriously though the Ditto on vocals was awesome. Looped layers and layers of stuff and it sounded great. It'll be going out to you on Saturday Garden!!

Had fun tonight with the DL8- I didn't put it on the looper mode, but I had it on the 8 second delay with the delay time maxed, repeats about 8/10 which became this really awesome looper that gradually faded after about 5 repeats. Ran that into the DL4 which ruled.

[BitchPudding]

You gotta first take apart the cassette(s) itself, cut off ~9 inches or so (I wrote the lengths and corresponding loop times down somewhere), carefully splice it in the middle, and route it through, like this:

Although you'd ditch the huge reel of tape in that pic, of course.
It's the easiest and least finicky style and it's the one that yields around 7.5 seconds of loop time.
I said "easiest", but learning it was a pain in the ass and took me a couple of hours to get it right. The tape sticks to EVERYTHING and if you don't cut it to the exact needed length it won't work; there's a low tolerance between where it'll work and where the motor won't turn at all, or else will barely move the tape/spin it off the reels/break it/etc. Also, if you splice the tape poorly, there will be a low-pitched "bump" sound every time the tape comes around to that point, which can actually sound cool. My technique is putting Plasti-Dip around the edges of one of the reels to increase grip, which really seems to help.
There are a lot of ways you can route it, including using more of those little corner pulleys along the inside of the cassette so you can wind longer sections of tape around 'em and thus get longer times. It's a bitch to work out how much tape you need, though, a lot of trial-and-error.

As for the deck itself, after changing out the RCA jacks for 1/4" ones I took apart the "tape loading area thing" and found the wires connecting to the erase head, t loop, but previously I couldn't hear anything I was playing through it while in rec/play mode so the deck wasn't really an active participant in my guitar fuckery. More of a "play stuff into it and see how it turns out" thing.
Later on I got bored and decided to find out how to adjust the motor speed, which is controlled by a trimpot on the underside of the board. Easy enough to solder to a pot on the outer shell.
I have another deck that I meant to turn into a looper like this but it SUCKS inside, circuit boards wedged together like a game of Tetris and with no room to spare. However, the 1/4" inputs of it distort/fuzz out easily and it gets SUPER LOUD so I just use it like a bigass pedal.

It's nothing new, but it's cheap and I like the aesthetic and feel of using cassette decks with instruments.

Rad, I've got some old tape decks and blank cassettes I can canibalize for this, sounds like a fun project! I wonder if you could do the same process with a VCR and VHS tape....

[Achtane]

Yes! I bet you can! I bought a video mixer for this very reason!
It's gotta be possible, there's no reason it shouldn't work.
I've been trying to find a working VHS camcorder but it's a lot harder than it should be; they all use proprietary battery packs and shit, you can't just find a full set anywhere for non-LOL YR KIDDING RIGHT prices...
Although I suppose that with an older video card and a 5-pin connector it'd be possible to record into a VHS player from the PC, it's not the same without the OG camera for those shitty video...tones.

[D.o.S.]

I saw Lichens do a killer set with just a Boss RC-20 and an SM-57.

[bugzaney]

been looping with my timebender as of late. works well enough but i really want at least two independent loops.

[BitchPudding]

Yes! I bet you can! I bought a video mixer for this very reason!
It's gotta be possible, there's no reason it shouldn't work.
I've been trying to find a working VHS camcorder but it's a lot harder than it should be; they all use proprietary battery packs and shit, you can't just find a full set anywhere for non-LOL YR KIDDING RIGHT prices...
Although I suppose that with an older video card and a 5-pin connector it'd be possible to record into a VHS player from the PC, it's not the same without the OG camera for those shitty video...tones.

I actually have one, its one of those big ass brick ones. No bat, but it works when plugged in.

[univalve]

Does the DD7 quantize junk at all or does it repeat exactly what you put into it?
Also I'm here to disrupt all these white avatars.

Pics of your Ghetto Loop Station is what this thread needs.

KEY FEATURES:
Input gain adjusts from squeaky cleans to dentistcore bloozy overdrive to hebby metul distortion
~7.5 seconds of looping action (~17 if you want really shitty sounding loops)
Overdub and monitor switches
Warbling modulation if you mess up cutting the tape
Potentially damaging loop/playback speed adjustment; ability to harness blue whale toans by recording while motor's spinning at lightspeed and playing back at normal speed
Loops degrade after 5-6 layers for lo-fi toans, first layer is the most prominent

My dream is to get like two more decks similar to this one (lots of headroom), modify them in the same way, slap them in a rack and make a footwitch so I can control the record/stop/play modes and speed without having to walk around all the time...
Some decks are roomier than others on the inside though, some of them are too much of a pain in the ass to mess around with.

You gotta first take apart the cassette(s) itself, cut off ~9 inches or so (I wrote the lengths and corresponding loop times down somewhere), carefully splice it in the middle, and route it through, like this:

Although you'd ditch the huge reel of tape in that pic, of course.
It's the easiest and least finicky style and it's the one that yields around 7.5 seconds of loop time.
I said "easiest", but learning it was a pain in the ass and took me a couple of hours to get it right. The tape sticks to EVERYTHING and if you don't cut it to the exact needed length it won't work; there's a low tolerance between where it'll work and where the motor won't turn at all, or else will barely move the tape/spin it off the reels/break it/etc. Also, if you splice the tape poorly, there will be a low-pitched "bump" sound every time the tape comes around to that point, which can actually sound cool. My technique is putting Plasti-Dip around the edges of one of the reels to increase grip, which really seems to help.
There are a lot of ways you can route it, including using more of those little corner pulleys along the inside of the cassette so you can wind longer sections of tape around 'em and thus get longer times. It's a bitch to work out how much tape you need, though, a lot of trial-and-error.

As for the deck itself, after changing out the RCA jacks for 1/4" ones I took apart the "tape loading area thing" and found the wires connecting to the erase head, then soldered them to a toggle switch. The wires connecting to the head are super short, so if you mess up you might not get another chance without having to dive into soldering hell. So now you can either record a new single layer every time (erasing the previous jawn), or switch it over to defeat the erase head and keep layering stuff on top of stuff.
I added the "monitor switch", which really just taps the input jack so I could hear what I was playing while recording. It's useless now that I have a mixer with an effects loop, but previously I couldn't hear anything I was playing through it while in rec/play mode so the deck wasn't really an active participant in my guitar fuckery. More of a "play stuff into it and see how it turns out" thing.
Later on I got bored and decided to find out how to adjust the motor speed, which is controlled by a trimpot on the underside of the board. Easy enough to solder to a pot on the outer shell.
I have another deck that I meant to turn into a looper like this but it SUCKS inside, circuit boards wedged together like a game of Tetris and with no room to spare. However, the 1/4" inputs of it distort/fuzz out easily and it gets SUPER LOUD so I just use it like a bigass pedal.

It's nothing new, but it's cheap and I like the aesthetic and feel of using cassette decks with instruments.

You are my hero!

Shameless repost, but here is how i loop:
http://www.youtube.com/user/analogpatternrobots

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

SEXY ACHTANE!!!

you can also use those old answering machine tapes as tape loops (more loop time (seen up to 12 minute ones), less hassle). but I would think making your own endless tapes would be more fun (frustrating?).
if I hadn't found some lying around my parents house, I would have made my own too.