[OT] Future Artist MIDI Looper

Processaurus

After a long and fruitless search for years for a simple MIDI looper on iOS, I found an obscure piece of hardware that did what I was hoping for- a midi looper that acted like a looping guitar pedal, but for MIDI data. Play your part, loop it, and as the part is played into your synth, with your hands free you can play the knobs, or change the sounds. Or vice versa, record a knob/CC movement and then play a part into the modulation loop, it’s like a long, custom lfo you can write by turning a knob. It’s great paired with a multi timbral synth, or multiple synths, because you can work up a group of parts with the different sounds, like an audio looper, but then go back in to dj/evolve your sounds.

It has two buttons and two encoders, does 4 separate tracks of loops, and you can quantize the notes. Has undo, and you can hook up a foot switch to do record and undo. You can overdub. It has usb midi and 5 pin plugs. You can slave to midi clock or have it be the master. It is really small and simple. Minimal.

It really clicked for me, as an alternative to iOS offerings, because of the immediacy and stability, and you could get a loop with no hands, or extra fiddling around, and you can erase the last thing you did just as easily. You can turn off midi through, which is great for hardware synths, so you don’t get doubled notes. With the midi thru off, you can set it up as a sort of midi bus effect, like you would set a reverb with a mixing board- if you have a midi interface (like the iconnect) with a few things plugged in, you can have it be listening to all of the inputs, and loop whatever, and what it loops stays on the original midi channel.

The Achilles heel of midi looping is stuck notes, and this one is pretty good with that. Not totally perfect in all configurations, but better than all of the other midi loopers I had used. There are a couple qualms I live with- there is no screen, everything is communicated through the color of the two buttons and how they flash. I think they did a good job with the software in that respect, but it means you need the slim little manual there til you memorize the color code, or if you hadn’t used it for a while. There is no indication of the quantize setting, I just crank it back to “none” and then click it up until it sounds tight, but doesn’t wreck the fast notes or notes on the off beat. I would have loved it to have a little piezo metronome, but it doesn’t make any sound- you need to provide the click with a drum machine, or if it is the master clock, do the first loop as a free form thing, and then it establishes the tempo. It doesn’t save the loops when it powers down, but that doesn’t really bug me, as it is a jam tool, rather than something you would score a song with (even though the loops can be extremely long). There is a limit to how many midi messages it can store in each loop, notes take up very few, cc’s more, and pitch bend messages eat up a lot, it is 250 notes and 250 controller messages per track. The las thing, is that it goes back to its default setting after powering it off- clock source = internal, midi thru = on.

On iOS the midi looping just wasn’t happening, too buggy, or cumbersome, or didn’t do midi clock right, and so on. I had the most success with Genome, as far as clock working right, and notes not getting stuck, but you needed to figure out how long your loops were every time before you made a new loop, and the zoom wasn’t right. Modstep always too buggy, would do weird stuff slaved to clock, infinite looper no midi clock and quantize didn’t work right, Xequence is nice but no midi clock slave, Pro midi- abandoned, quantize broken. This hardware gizmo is doing the thing I was hoping for. It isn’t a step sequencer, for fast, mechanical sequences that you can transpose, I like StepPolyArp. This one is kind of fun, because you have to be able to play the part in a half decent way, and hit the record button at approximately the right time.

future-artist.com

rs2000

Thanks for your in-depth story!
It mostly confirms my own story with pattern-oriented MIDI recording.
I'm currently fine with Genome and Gadget (and even Groove Rider sometimes) because setting the pattern length in advance doesn't matter to me.

For how long have you been using the little thing now?

And how do you get your recorded snippets into an arranger/DAW?

Have you tried Ableton for MIDI looping?

rs2000

A free M4L device.
Thanks to "sharp"!

Processaurus

@rs2000 said:
Thanks for your in-depth story!
It mostly confirms my own story with pattern-oriented MIDI recording.
I'm currently fine with Genome and Gadget (and even Groove Rider sometimes) because setting the pattern length in advance doesn't matter to me.

For how long have you been using the little thing now?

And how do you get your recorded snippets into an arranger/DAW?

Have you tried Ableton for MIDI looping?

Yeah! The simplicity is nice. Had it for about 8 months, and found different uses for it, with different hardware synths. As for what happens with the loops, I’ll record them into Logic, on the big computer, like do the audio and the midi, like you would if you were playing, and try to record the loop with variations on the knobs, and stop the midi while recording, so the last note will ring out, so there is a real beginning and a real end available. Or on the iPad record into AudioShare or AUM, or maybe GarageBand (cuz that’s where i’m at). Or record it on a boss looper pedal (incestuous looping). I haven’t tried it with the iOS soft synths much, yet, to be honest, but I think it would be just as good. The approach is similar because in iOS, it seems like I end up recording the audio from the soft synths anyway, on an audio track, like a hardware synth, rather than keeping everything midi, unless it’s Gadget.

I’ve only just started to use Ableton, and just record midi loops the normal DAW way, where you turn on the metronome, hit record, count in, play the thing til you get it right, then trim it, quantize it maybe, and then play the midi clip back into the synth and do knob moves, and record the audio from that. It’s an approach that continues to intrigue, the loop’s sound evolving adds some depth.

That max for live midi looper is neat! Have you used it? That guy is a wicked keyboard player.

rs2000

@Processaurus said:
That max for live midi looper is neat! Have you used it? That guy is a wicked keyboard player.

He is!
No I haven't used it because what I can do with Stock Ableton and a few foot pedal mappings is good enough for me (I recently hacked an old Ibanez IFC60 into a Bluetooth keypad so I can use it both in Ableton and to remote-control any iOS app.)

soundshaper

Thanks for your detailed review! I’ve been looking at this device for some time now, and the limitations you mention (primarily the limited cryptic interface and no memory storage) are what kept me from purchasing.

I’m currently using a Novation Circuit to sequence my two primary hardware synths, which has an incredibly well designed interface but also has limitations. The two main ones for me are no CC recording (except the macros) and you can only tie notes across a bar manually. Basically I can’t real-time record a chord being held for a few bars. I’m not using the internal synth engine (cause I love programming sounds on-the-fly and Circuit requires an editor), just the two polyphonic sequencers and the drum sample tracks, which I’ve loaded up with my own sound effects, since my partner plays electronic drums live. It’s a fun device.

Another MIDI looper I found is this one. It doesn’t record CC though.
https://lewismidi.com/ezpz/

This app, being developed now, looks somewhat promising as well.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/31373/audioveek-piano-roll-midi-sequencer-au#latest