suitandtieguy asked if I knew about the new/pending hardware looper, the Looperlative, and if it was for real. Well, the prototype sure looks real to me!
I’ll run the risk of descending into Hubris-land, and proffer some thoughts about this:
I recall designer Bob Amstadt talking about his idea of building a dedicated hardware looper way back in late ’03/early ’04. If memory serves, he made a comment about intending to “surpass the Echoplex” with such a device. (It’s possible that my memory does not actually serve, but that’s what I recall him saying.)
I don’t believe the Looperlative is going to contain every single function, function parameter, and cross-function application that the Echoplex has, much less be able to improve or expand on those functions. Unless it does both of those things, then talk about “surpassing” the EDP is seriously misguided, as far as I’m concerned.
What it looks to me like Bob is aiming for is the kind of thing a lot of folks (including suitandtieguy) have been wanting for a long time – a multi-track, multi-channel looper based on the long delay paradigm, without a whole lot of fancy functional hoo-hah. My hunch in this regard is based on the front panel layout – it dedicates separate buttons for each individual loop track, yet seemingly relegates most other functions to the dreaded single-rack-unit menu button-scroll syndrome. (When one of only eight function buttons is dedicated to “start and stop,” I have to wonder how deep the functionality goes.)
I’m also curious as to how much, if any, of a core “design philosophy” there is in the Looperlative. When you look at pieces of software (or hardware based on software, like the Echoplex) that people respond to strongly, it’s very often because there’s a deeply-rooted set of concepts and applications than run throughout the different aspects of the instrument/program in question. One of the most common remarks I get from musicians who get into the Echoplex is how intuitive it is, and how much it “feels” like an instrument, and that comes down to the way it was designed and laid out.
Bob seems to be coming from the opposite angle – build a basic hardware platform, solicit people to see what they want, and then try to implement those requests as they materialize. I’m curious to see how that works – on the one hand, people who want certain basic functions based on what they already know can ask for them, and get them, and design their own interfaces based on customizing an external controller via MIDI. On the other hand, it seems to me that a person can only really design an instrument, or an interface, around things they already know about, which in the long run could potentially be a real hinderance to developing new ideas beyond what a person already knows. (The best analogy I can think of is that it’s a bit like have beginning guitarists design a guitar based on what they can play, and what they can conceive of, rather than having them expand their own abilities and ideas by learning the guitar the way it’s already designed.)
But at this point I tend to assume that most of the online looping community sees me as some cryptic, elitist madman, howling self-aggrandizing pseudo-philosophy into a barren wilderness. So all I can really say at this point is: it looks like some people will literally be able to get what they ask for. Time will tell if the adage about being careful of such things ends up being justified in this case. But I wish Bob and his customers luck in their experiment!
3 Comments
a “cryptic, elitist madman, howling self-aggrandizing pseudo-philosophy into a barren wilderness”?
man if that’s what they think of you i wonder what the word on the street is about the STG.
ha!
yeah i have begun a pointed line of questioning upon bob on his website. hopefully i’m not the threadkiller _there_ as i often am on the LD.
one issue which i don’t know if bob has addresssed internally is what he’s going to do if Henry Jerkowitz decides to point the Gibson lawsuit gun at him. my personal feeling is that they would never bother because bob is going to be lucky to pay for his time on this thing, but one of my LD friends insists up and down that gibson will sue him for making a looper. why they didn’t sue Electrix if that’s true is beyond me.
quite frankly as much as i like Matthias i wish that the Paradis LoopDelay had stayed a european boutique thing with low production runs and a niche market. the fact that gibson has its paws on the only decent looper made today makes me want to vomit.
thanks for the observations.
Re: a “cryptic, elitist madman, howling self-aggrandizing pseudo-philosophy into a barren wilderness
Word on the street is that you talk shit about the Echoplex being a mono, 40-kHz mono delay line, is what they say ’round my hood! 🙂
Gibson suing Bob seems wildly unlikely to me for several reasons:
1) The Loop software is not owned by Gibson – it’s licensed to Gibson by Aurisis, the company co-founded by Kim Flint and Matthias Grob.
2) The Looperlative looks like it has a very different design angle, and no one is going to go into a store and mistake one for the other. (All due respect to Bob, but I doubt that anyone will find a Looperlative in a store, period.)
3) If anyone was likely to run into legal hassles due to copying the Echoplex, I would think that the guys who are writing freeware EDP emulation programs would be much bigger targets for such a thing.
And if the EDP had remained a boutique unit, without going to Gibson, then Kim and other people never would have been part of the creative team, which means that a tremendous amount of the functionality in the EDP (and certainly a huge part of the stuff I rely on) wouldn’t have shown up.
It’s interesting – people complain about the difficulties in obtaining new EDP’s. I’m curious as to how fast Bob will be able to produce his own units, as it looks to me like a cottage industry. If demand for these units really takes off, is he going to be able to produce them any faster than people are accustomed to waiting for new Echoplexes?
Ah well…
Re: a “cryptic, elitist madman, howling self-aggrandizing pseudo-philosophy into a barren wilderness
> Word on the street is that you talk shit about the Echoplex being a mono, 40-kHz mono delay line, is what they say ’round my hood! 🙂
damn straight, bitch!
> I would think that the guys who are writing freeware EDP emulation programs would be much bigger targets for such a thing.
uh yeah. totally agreed.
> It’s interesting – people complain about the difficulties in obtaining new EDP’s.
well not me. i just complain about the whole 41 kHz mono aspect. they are actually shipping in quantity and have since gibson stopped fucking those brits over on the money situation.
> If demand for these units really takes off, is he going to be able to produce them any faster than people are accustomed to waiting for new Echoplexes?
unclear but possible. it depends on how he’s doing his assembly and testing.
if he’s doing his assembly himself and packing all those SMT components into a board with a pair of tweezers he may not be able to keep up. if he’s using an assembly house he may keep up. if he’s using a robotic assembly house he will definitely keep up but the price will be even higher than i would expect.
he’s also using all modern components. some of the EDP components were NLAed even by the time the thing was made, so that was a huge issue in meeting demand. if he’s using modern commodity stuff component sourcing shouldn’t be an issue.