OK so it's not really a pedal it just works as one.
(http://www.geocities.com/chris_summerfield/stereolooper.jpg)
Ingredients...
- Old PC found on the side of the road. (or your swish laptop or any PC your happy to lug around will do)
- Windows 98 (just runs a bit faster on old machines that people throw away)
- Ambiloop Looping Software that you will run on the PC http://www.ambiloop.com/ (http://www.ambiloop.com/)
- A bastardised Keyboard (the black plastic box) with the keys R L Space and E
Process
Ambiloop http://www.ambiloop.com/ (http://www.ambiloop.com/)
- Set the loop time to always be 180 seconds.
- Set Ambiloop to play when you hit loop.
- Set Ambiloop to start every time windows starts this way you don't have to take a screen with you.[/li][/list]
Put some chords in the line in and line out ports of your PC.
Work out how your going to get the sounds in (perhaps a splitter of some sort I'd recommend going from the amp to the looper that way you can record a clean rhythm track and then bang on the distortion without changing the sound of the looped track) and what your going to do with the sounds coming out (if you're recording it straight from the amp then you can just feed the sounds straight to the mixing desk).
Personally I run in stereo I play acoustic guitars with an electric pick up and an acoustic pick up. And, I have a mixer so I've just used that for all the routing of signals.
What you get in the end
1.A really big box (bad)
2.A 16 bit stereo looper that will go up to 3 mins in length. (cool)
I know this is a bit brief and technically not really a pedal but if you don't have the skills to build a looper and don't have the cash to buy a looper and you don't mind lugging an old PC around (don't tell me lugging a super heavy valve amp is OK but an old PC isn't ;) ) then I think it's a pretty good alternative. If you want me to expand anything just let me know.
;D
Yeah, if it works, it works.
For Mac folks like me, Mobius (http://zonemobius.com/) is an excellent, free looper available in standalone and plugin versions.
Genius!
Gets my prize for most inspired piece of pedal building ever!
Brilliant :)
this displays excellent lateral thinking
very cool idea
i'm not to knowledgeable about PCs but could you build a stripped down version of the computer in a rack case
i see free PCs going around the place all the time this seems like a good use for one
preventing yet another land fill
Interesting ---what did you do to "bastardize" the keyboard? Most of them I have seen are just a big pcb with those little bubble momentary contact switches. Did you hack the switch wires onto the traces?
Hey all. Thanks for the nice comments!
I think I'll print out and frame
QuoteGets my prize for most inspired piece of pedal building ever!
You probably could put a stripped down version in a rack case - it depends how old the machine is. Just out of interest mine is pentium 3 with 512 Ram. You can obviously get rid of things like floppy drives and CD drives. So it's pretty much the power supply mother board and hard drive.
Yes I just hacked the switch wires on the traces. Inside the keyboard all the keys trace back to a small PC board. Once you trace them back it's easy to test if you've got it right. Just open notepad and hit the switches to check it's the letters you want. Ambiloop also lets you use midi as well, but this way was easier for me.
Feels nice to be able to give something small back to a community who has taught me so much. ;D
i really want to see your pedal board =P
OMG! thank you.
one of my pet projects was trying to write a program to control cakewalk to do something like this.
This just saved me a lot of head scratching.
That's fantastic.
Really!
Why re-invent the wheel when you can go sledging, right?
Quote from: newfish on April 16, 2009, 04:36:27 AM
That's fantastic.
Really!
Why re-invent the wheel when you can go sledging, right?
Exactly.
Gonna try this out tonight.
Quote from: snufkin on March 15, 2009, 07:34:36 AM
this displays excellent lateral thinking
very cool idea
i'm not to knowledgeable about PCs but could you build a stripped down version of the computer in a rack case
i see free PCs going around the place all the time this seems like a good use for one
preventing yet another land fill
Yeah, I really like the idea of using an old computer for... something, anything, lol... Our PCs become outdated fairly quickly, but I've always thought it was such a waste not to use them for something. They still have powerful processors, just not powerful enough to run the latest software. It's a big friggen scam, really. The only reason that I've ever had to replace a computer was because it could no longer run the latest software. But probably still more powerful than the computers that went up in the first space shuttle.
These days, the requisite machine can be had for the price of a Behringer pedal! :icon_lol:
Q: how are you shutting down windows 98 when you want to turn it off?
Quote from: Pushtone on April 17, 2009, 09:02:40 PM
Q: how are you shutting down windows 98 when you want to turn it off?
You hit the big *OFF* button :icon_lol:
He has it set up in the registry so that it starts the program automatically when you turn it back on. See:
Quote from: Chris S on March 15, 2009, 01:26:18 AM
- Set Ambiloop to start every time windows starts this way you don't have to take a screen with you.[/li][/list]
Wow, I think that wins the prize for "biggest enclosure ever featured at DIYstompboxes.com" :icon_wink:
This seems great, except im totally lost on computers. I have no idea what im doing.
How do i set up the registry so it starts up automatically when i turn the computer on?
Where is the line in and out on the computer?? Computers dont have 1/4 inch jacks. Mine doesnt have rca jacks either.
Do i need to use an amp that has a line out or fx loop or something?
@ El Heisenberg :
Line in / Line out on the computer is just the standard AC97 onboard soundcard. Almost all P3 computers have a 16-bit sound card with Line in and out on it. For guitar you just need to use the 1/8" to 1/4" adapters (or whatever adapters you need for your interface). For line in I would recommend using a buffer since the typical sound card input is 10k ohms. You can find simple buffer schematics & layouts easily with a forum search.
I just have to add my 2 cents as a linux geek.
http://www.essej.net/sooperlooper/ (works on Mac too)
http://rakarrack.sourceforge.net
http://zyzstar.kosoru.com/?creox
http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/
I propose approximately the same type of thing, but using Linux as the operating system instead. The bonus is very little latency even on small machines. It would take some work with configuring the key bindings, but probably not much more than Chris S has done with Win98...And likewise, a MIDI controller would make the thing much more flexible (think PIC project). Linux opens the door to quite an arsenal of DSP effects, making this the ultimate digital FX processor. The tube simulator LADSPA plugin I must say is absolutely right on. It simulates a single triode tube, so with JACK RACK you can build your own guitar amp by using tone stacks, EQ's, amplifiers, tube sims and cabinet sims in the right order....
Of course, you have Line6 products for Windows....
If you don't have much cash, but don't like the size of a PC, then consider an old laptop.
If you have some extra cash and don't like the size of the beast then check out LittlePC's:
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/
I have found that scripting and bash programming give you incredible leverage in UNIX-like systems (Mac, Linux and proprietary UNIX's). With Windows, you usually pay Microsoft a penny for every command you execute (to exaggerate). To be fair, many of the open-source applications are available on Windows. A good example is Perl. A person can do powerful things with Perl, and it doesn't take quite as much of a learning curve as getting into C or C++.
I think the point of putting in my 2 cents is that there is such a large world of options out there that I never knew existed in my days of using Windows.
Many LInux distributions are both light weight and powerful. You can do Vista-like eye candy with half the ram and cpu...and with JACK, you can do real-time DSP guitar FX processing on a 128MB ram, 300MHz CPU. I like to use my old Mac iBook as a synthesizer with my MIDI keyboard. The iBook now runs Debian 5.0 (Lenny). The hard disk has some bad sectors in a partition that apparently OSX absolutely needs. As a result, the machine crashed and OSX wouldn't re-install. It's such a pain to replace a hard drive on one of those, so I gave it Linux (which doesn't care how partitions are defined, and has a filesystem that can deal with bad sectors) and have no desire for OSX, now.
Quote from: El Heisenberg on June 09, 2009, 10:22:56 PM
This seems great, except im totally lost on computers. I have no idea what im doing.
How do i set up the registry so it starts up automatically when i turn the computer on?
This is with Windows XP.
Go to start, RUN, and type in "regedit". Youcan also open up the START -> ACCESSORIES -> COMMAND PROMPT and enter in regedit there too. Hit enter, and your registry edit program should pop up. In the left directory, go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS / CURRENTVERSION / RUN
Now, in the right hand window, right click and hit NEW / STRING VALUE.
Enter in the name of the program in "Name" (not critical), and then in the value data, type in the location of the program .exe you want to run. For example, iTunes would be:
Value Name: iTunes
Value Data: C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe
Hit okay, and you should be done!
Cool thanks. I cant wait to try this! My friend has a broken lap top. It worls fine except for he dropped a hammer on the screen to you hav to have a sepetate monitor. Like a tv! Although i still wana make the mobius trip, jus cuz its cool. Wish they sold kits.
The laptop ha 1/8 inch jack for headphones and a microphone. These are the line i and outs? And i gotta usea buffer before the mic input. Anthing on the output? Or just deirectly to a mixer? I plan on making a mixer for this.
This is so cool, why isnt this thread longer? I woulda titled it "beginners: make a 16-bit 3 min. loop ped. in 1+1/2 hours!" starting NOW!
This is rediculously awesome. Thanks! I mean, im sure ill get it work.
Quote from: El Heisenberg on June 10, 2009, 08:37:32 PM
The laptop ha 1/8 inch jack for headphones and a microphone. These are the line i and outs? And i gotta usea buffer before the mic input. Anthing on the output? Or just deirectly to a mixer? I plan on making a mixer for this.
Yeah, that's what you need. Make sure your buffer has a 5k-10k resistor to ground on the output, and that it has a DC blocking cap on the output. Usually a mic jack provides a bias to a PC condenser mic (which is what the input is designed for). The resistor will set the bias on the mic input so it's within linear operating range. The DC blocking cap will prevent the buffer from mis-biasing the input and burning something up (or at best just make it not work or sound really bad).
A final warning: Be careful to modify only the items in the Windows registry that is noted above...ie, be sure you are sure you're in HKEY_CURRENT_USER / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS / CURRENTVERSION / RUN , and not somewhere else.
Mistakes in REGEDIT are really bad. This is a part of Windows where the user has the ability to do about anything they want with the way their computer runs. Usually uninformed meddling in the registry either makes it not run at all, or makes it run really badly.
...Now that I made you scared...go try it. It will be fun.
Apologies for being slow to reply
Re:
Quotei really want to see your pedal board =P
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xV9w_yKa-f8/SW8PPpdNC2I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/R5NVGa3dZPk/s1600-h/IMG_5063.jpg)
It's a boost a tube creamer a Hearthrob Tremolo for the electric pick up and Di or mike preamp and Di for the acoustic pickup/mic and a tuner :)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xV9w_yKa-f8/SW5zUNaHx2I/AAAAAAAAAQw/8YjW8UD8MCY/s1600-h/IMG_5064.jpg)
Re:
QuoteQ: how are you shutting down windows 98 when you want to turn it off?
Yes I just push the on/off button
Re:
QuoteHow do i set up the registry so it starts up automatically when i turn the computer on?
\
Everything JKowalski says is right (i think) the other option, if regedit scares you is...
Click on "Start", click on "programs", click on "start up". all the short cuts in this folder are short cuts to the programs that automatically start when XP does so just add a shortcut to ambiloop here. (and take everything else out)
Re:
QuoteThis is ridiculously awesome.
Thanks!!!
Re:
Quote"biggest enclosure ever featured at DIYstompboxes.com"
yes I think there should be a prize for this ;) Seriously though there is a lot of empty space in your average PC unit so I'm sure you could shrink it down to something more convenient.
Transmogrifox thanks for the Linux links. I'm sure linux would be more stable and efficient than Windows 98 or XP. Will have to try that.
You might be sad to hear that I've had to give my looper back as the computer of the friend who gave it to me died. And I thought he probably needed a PC more than I needed a looper so I'm back to hunting for a free PC.
Hwo did you make the stompbox, chris?? I was thinkin to cutnup the film that the buttons are on so i could fit it in a small box, but i dont know how to keyboard works and dont wana ruin it. Plusbthe E and R buttons are right next to each other.
Im having a problem with the loop time. Sometimes it chnagesnto a randomly
Smalle time. An when i close an restart the program, the loop time changes back to 20 seconds.
Yea I can't figure out how to keep it so that when the program starts, the loop time is 180. I have to do it manually.
Also I took apart a keyboard and took all the other rubber things off the three film layers except for E, R, L and space. But plugged it in and it doesn't work. I didn't test it out before I did it, but could someone help me out with out how to do this? I'm willing to destroy another keyboard. If that doesn't work, I'll have to buy one.
QuoteI can't figure out how to keep it so that when the program starts, the loop time is 180. I have to do it manually.
When you open Ambiloop click options and choose set loop time to 180 (as you've done before)
Now click on file and choose "Save configuration as default"
Now every time you open it'll be set to 180.
QuoteSometimes it chnagesnto a randomly Smalle time
The randomly small time is when you've recorded a small loop and then stopped and then hit record to record a long loop straight after and then uses the timing of the previous loop. The secret is after you press stop is to hit erase and this will erase the loop and set the time back to the 180 default.
Alas Ambiloop wasn't made with this application in mind.
The other thing I make sure that I have ticked in the preferences is "Play after set loop" That way when you record something you can either press stop to stop the recording or set loop to get it looping straight away.
QuoteAlso I took apart a keyboard and took all the other rubber things off the three film layers except for E, R, L and space. But plugged it in and it doesn't work. I didn't test it out before I did it, but could someone help me out with out how to do this? I'm willing to destroy another keyboard. If that doesn't work, I'll have to buy one.
The Keyboard is a little trickier.
Once you've opened it up you'll notice that there is a little PCB board just where the wire comes out the back and two plastic sheets with traces on them. All the traces go to the PCB and the little bare strips on the PCB each key is a different combination of two of these. You'll need a multimeter or perhaps a good eye and a coloured felt tip pen to trace the plastic sheets back to the PCB from the Four letters E R L and Space. from there you just solder wires to 4 momentary switches and then test in note pad that you now have a keyboard with only 4 letters. You should be able to do this with your current not working keyboard assuming you haven't wrecked anything on the PCB board.
If this doesn't make sense post back and I'll put some pictures up on the weekend.
As requested here are some pics to help you understand the whole "just pull your keyboard apart and rehouse it with only 4 keys working" part of the process.
Picture one: this is the inside of a keyboard. It will contain 2 or 3 clear plastic sheets with traces on them and a little PCB board this is what you will keep to go inside your box (see Picture 2)
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_xV9w_yKa-f8/Sj27hwwx1fI/AAAAAAAAAU8/x25Ou41gHZg/s512/IMG_5578.jpg)
Picture two this is the final result
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_xV9w_yKa-f8/Sj27hr9OgdI/AAAAAAAAAU4/sDcJdDXkoHA/s400/IMG_5575.jpg)
The keyboard works by squeezing the plastic sheets together and making contacts on the sheets connect, specifically the dots on the sheets.
To convert the keyboard into a box do the following
Step 1: label "space" "L" "R" and "E" on your sheets. each letter will have two corresponding dots on different sheets if you have a keyboard with three sheets one of those sheets will always have a hole in it.
Step 2: Count the number of the little stripe contacts on the PCB
Step3: Using a multimeter put one end on each of the dots and the other scrape over the stripes on the top of the plastic sheet where the trace meets the PCB until you work out which PCB stripe is connected to which dot. you will do this 8 time in total for four keys. Now write down the numbers that the of the two contacts that need to be connected to create a particular letter.
So the "Space" might be strip 4 and 17 this will probably vary form keyboard to keyboard
Step 4: test you have got this right by plugging your keyboard into your computer and making connecting the two strips for each letter on the PCB board with some wire
Step 5: take the PCB out of the keyboard solder some momentary switches to the particular combinations (see pic 2) and there you go.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more detail.
Still waiting on thebkeyboard... I gotta go to the radiosh*tshack to get some momentary switches and a box.
Thanks for thenhelp thisnis gunanrock!
I cant figure out how to use the multimeter to work out witch button and witch pins. What setting do I put it on? Its a cheap old multimeter so it might not have the same test functions. Like continuity or wutever.
my keyboard doesnt have copper to solder onto either. Its just this black stuff. I dunno if itll take solder. I used my multimetter on the lowest ohm setting and found two pins that lead to letter E. I tried to just touch wires to them while plugged into the computer, but nothing happened. I turn on caps lock and the light comes on. The board is not connected to the actually keytboard and the plastic sheets.
Yup, there is simply no way I can get the solder and wire to stick to the pads. I dunno what to do.
My keyboard is the same set up as the picture Chris posted on top. The bottom pic is a different keyboard with copper pads. I need one of those I guess.
i really picked a crappy keyboard to try this on. I cant even trace the traces cos theyre so small, so there's no way i can freakin work this out. I gotta get another keyboard. already ordered two.
well i finally got it done. I figured I could just solder directly to the IC pins, which I did. So I had to do twice as much tracing, but it worked.
Only thing is, that strangely I couldnt get the E key to work at all. I was positive which to pins to connect. But ti wasn't wrking. So I just used U. Now I have to use UNDO to erase my tracks. With some fiddling witht he options it will work OK. Getting new keyboards already so I might redo it better. Maybe make one for someone else.
But Im onto the next problem, I need a splitter and buffer and then something to mix them back. I need to play the loops and play over them through the same amp.
Yeah this is really cool,
I always had Jack headaches when running Linux as a DAW
FWIW the name is lame but Jesussonic is a group of effects made for this same type of idea ,except you still need the screen and keyboard to use them.He built a box to house it all on the floor next to his other "pedals"
I just got a Pentium with a 6gig HD running at 66 MHZ :icon_eek:
Was gonna build an amp out of the case .
Do you think this software would work OK on that? Its Windows 98 BTW...
This is super cool.
Im going to work on this one! The best part is that I have everything I need to put this together. Super!
Thanks for the idea!
ugh Im having trouble with this. It works great it's just
I cant hear my playing over the loop! Coz the sounds are so similar. Also I used the Splitter-blend to slpit the signals and then mix them. I think mixing out some of both signals to be able to blend them together at the same time is causing signal loss. I also only used 3 of the four op amps available with the two duals I used, since one signal was just going to be blended right away. I did not use the phase switching circuit. Was this my big mistake?
I have a dual channel amp, i think I'll use that one. What kind onf computer did you use? Was the soundcards quality good enough? Im a bit of afraid of the quality that is coming out of the computer... But we'll see.
I dunno crap about computers
and the amp Im using is one I made. Doesn't have an effects loop. Or two channels.
Hey all apologies for the slow replying - been on holiday.
El, glad to hear you finally got the tracing problem sorted (almost)
Brymus, I'm not really sure how budget you can go on the RAM etc... but if you're running Windows 98 it means that's not taking to much strain and as long as you make sure nothing else is running at the same time aall should be groovy.
El,
QuoteI cant hear my playing over the loop! Coz the sounds are so similar. Also I used the Splitter-blend to slpit the signals and then mix them. I think mixing out some of both signals to be able to blend them together at the same time is causing signal loss. I also only used 3 of the four op amps available with the two duals I used, since one signal was just going to be blended right away. I did not use the phase switching circuit. Was this my big mistake?
Sorry can't give any advice on this one. I used small mixing desk that I had lying around for all my signal remixing - SOunds like it has been a long process but just remember you are building a pretty expensive pedal :icon_biggrin:
Served,
QuoteWhat kind onf computer did you use? Was the soundcards quality good enough? Im a bit of afraid of the quality that is coming out of the computer... But we'll see.
Just an old computer fro a friends work place. Sound card was just the standard one. Probably not great if you're recording at Abbey Road studios but certainly pretty good.
All the best everyone.
HI again.
Im making progress.
So what I got.
I have Compaq Desktop, size 37cmX31cmX9cm, so its not that big. Its Pentium MMX 266Mhz, 126MB RAM.
At the moment, I am going to just test it as it is. Im not going to build footswich yet.
I added PCI soundcard and going to shield it into seperate box. The good thing is that it uses only one Fan, so there will not be much noise. HDD is pretty lousy, will gett a better one. Will make some pictures, if I actually have built something.
pfl
pfl?
i dunno if it's the length of the cord, but Im getting a little delay when I press loop, and start. Or maybe its when I press record. Its a little hard to use, I dunno if it's the laptop (it's from 2001) or what.
Quote from: Brymus on January 02, 2010, 04:09:03 AM
Yeah this is really cool,
I always had Jack headaches when running Linux as a DAW
FWIW the name is lame but Jesussonic is a group of effects made for this same type of idea ,except you still need the screen and keyboard to use them.He built a box to house it all on the floor next to his other "pedals"
I just got a Pentium with a 6gig HD running at 66 MHZ :icon_eek:
Was gonna build an amp out of the case .
Do you think this software would work OK on that? Its Windows 98 BTW...
If you mean 666MHz, then there's hope, but if you mean 66MHz, it's highly improbable you can swing it with anything other than a lightweight Linux or Win 98. I suppose it depends whether there is a looper that runs on Win98.
Check out Puppy Linux or DSL (Damn Small Linux). The default setup will keep the CPU and RAM usage to a min. When you're talking about an old junker computer from the era of Win98, RAM might be the downfall for a looper....
Let's approximate:
44.1kHz at 32-bit float internal...assume you can do mono:
44.1k * 4bytes * 10s = 1.76MB
I would say you're in great shape on RAM for any old compy.
I have not had much head-ache with jack. I think it can be a problem if you just happen to have the wrong combination of hardware, or have you interrupts improperly configured, or you're trying to get too low of latency for your hardware, or trying to do too much processing for your hardware.
I have had no troubles with jackd on P4 or higher....and I don't have any troubles on my old iBook G4 as long as I don't try to put too much stuff in the DSP chain....but that goes for every computer.
Anybody using Linux, give Rakarrack and Guitarix a try. Both really great guitar programs. I have been writing quite a bit of the DSP code in new Rakarrack features recently. The standard desktop or laptop computer is a really great way to get into DSP without having to get a special development board and hardware...
Not to resurrect an old thread (it's not THAT old anyway!), but I thought I should let folks know that all current versions of Ambiloop let you set a custom key mapping for triggering events. This means that you can set it up to use any keys you want to trigger any function you want. So, instead of dismantling a keyboard, and trying to solder stuff to the traces of the E,R,L and Space keys, you can just setup a custom key mapping for evenly spaced keys, and just pop off the plastic key toppers for all the other keys so you can just step on the keys you want. You could easily get two or maybe three rows of 7-8 keys each on a standard keyboard. That's minimum 14 (max 24) individual things you can trigger! That's plenty of control to let you move between the 6 loop spots in Ambiloop, trigger the onboard effects in Ambiloop (delay, reverb, eq), load in saved loops via the quickload presets, pause, play, record, erase, multiply, divide, etc.
I have an old IBM thinkpad that I deconstructed and have been using as a digital photoframe. I got rd of win98, and have been running a very small linux distro on it, with a slideshow program set to autorun on start up. It would be super simple to switch this thing over to be a looper! And WAY more fun and useful to me too! It's totally stripped down, so it's super light weight. It's totally small enough to fit on a peadl board. It's about the size of any other looper pedal (like the JamMan or the Headrush)
I think I'll keep it Linux rather than switch it back to Wndoze. There will be way faster latency and way better performance on such an old machine. I'll have a look at some of the "linux for audio" distros out there, as well as the various looper softwares for linux. If I get it up and running in a timely manner, I'll post about what I did.
Thanks again to the OP for this idea. I've been using Ambiloop on my PC for a while now, and I love it. I've been meaning to make a keyboard trigger for it too, but I never even thought about using it to make a dedicated looper out of my old laptop! Kudos for "thinking out of the box"... er.... um... well I guess "Inside the box" on this one!
Well, a quick survey of the available Linux options has done me well! It looks like the best combo will be to install the "Ubuntu Studio" distro (http://ubuntustudio.org/ (http://ubuntustudio.org/)), and use FreeWheeling (http://freewheeling.sourceforge.net/welcome.shtml (http://freewheeling.sourceforge.net/welcome.shtml)) as the looping software. Ubuntu Studio is optimized to work as a low-latency DAW, and has JACK and a bunch of great audio apps included. FreeWheeling is in the Ubuntu packages repository, so it can be installed via aptget (no source code compiling! Yay!), and can be controlled by user-editable keyboard map (perfect!). Actually, FreeWheeling looks like a cooler bit of software than Ambiloop. It has some pretty cool features. SnooperLooper looked cool too, but I don't think you can control it via user-editable keyboard bindings (it's seems to be only either GUI or MIDI).
Anyway, I've got to download Ubuntu Studio at work (I don't have fast enough internet here at home), so hopefully I can get it up and running next week sometime. I'll report back with any info.
Wow. That Ubuntu studio story made me want it too. I ll try it out!
Didn't get a chance to download Ubuntu Studio today, but just noticed two things. 1) You CAN set a custom key mapping for controlling sooperlooper. 2) sooperlooper comes as the default looping tool when you download Ubuntu Studio.
So it seems that it will be even easier:
1) Download the Ubuntu Studio disk image file, and burn it to disc.
2 )Use disc to install on old laptop.
3) Configure key mapping in sooperlooper.
4) Pull out all the other keys in your keyboard (probably use an external usb keyboard rather than the laptops built in one for obvious "stompability" reasons).
5)Create a simple little bash script to launch sooperlooper at startup.
6)Start looping.
So I went to download Ubuntu Studio at work today, and I came across one significant glitch in my plan. It's too big for a CD, so it has to be burned to DVD, and my old thinkpad does not have a DVD drive (hey, it's ten years old!). SO I had to look for another distro. Not to worry, I found a very good replacement in PureDyn (http://puredyne.goto10.org/ (http://puredyne.goto10.org/)). PureDyn is also Ubuntu/Debian based, but is MUCH smaller. It has all the same audio stuff as Ubuntu Studio, including SooperLooper. You can fit it on a CD. Plus, like all other Ubuntu's, it's a "live" distro. Meaning you can boot it off the CD, or if you machine supports USB booting, you can boot it off a thumbdrive. The thumbdrive option is cool, because it allows you to make changes to the packages and save files and scripts and stuff, but not have to totally replace the OS on your computer. That means you don't have to dedicate an old machine to this. That means you can use your CURRENT laptop if you want to. Just boot up your customize PureDyn distro off a usb key, plug in your modified usb keyboard "stompable control pad", and start looping!
I didn't have time to download PureDyn today (just found it now after getting home from work), and I'm working from home tomorrow, so I'll have to download it on Thursday. I'll keep updating as I progress!
Here's a screenshot from the PureDyn site showing SooperLooper being used in conjunction with Calf (a real time DSP effects processor). You can see the JACK interface on the right that lets you set the effects order, including the loops you make in sooperlooper. VERY cool! I'm sure you can make several effects in Calf (or other software DSP) be callable by footswitch, and I'm sure you can write a little script to start all the bits of software up in the right order upon bootup. This is definitely what I am going to do. VERY cool.
(http://puredyne.goto10.org/images/screenshots/puredyne-calf_jack_sooper.png)
This ambiloop update would've saved me a ton of greif while making the keyboard box!!! My E key wasn't working on the keyboard. I guess I fried the IC pin maybe. So I had to use "U" for Undo. It's a pain in the ass. I'm gunna download the update now.
Quote from: darwin_deathcat on March 29, 2010, 12:00:45 AM
Not to resurrect an old thread (it's not THAT old anyway!), but I thought I should let folks know that all current versions of Ambiloop let you set a custom key mapping for triggering events. This means that you can set it up to use any keys you want to trigger any function you want. So, instead of dismantling a keyboard, and trying to solder stuff to the traces of the E,R,L and Space keys, you can just setup a custom key mapping for evenly spaced keys, and just pop off the plastic key toppers for all the other keys so you can just step on the keys you want. You could easily get two or maybe three rows of 7-8 keys each on a standard keyboard. That's minimum 14 (max 24) individual things you can trigger! That's plenty of control to let you move between the 6 loop spots in Ambiloop, trigger the onboard effects in Ambiloop (delay, reverb, eq), load in saved loops via the quickload presets, pause, play, record, erase, multiply, divide, etc.
I can't find the "new version" I went to the site I got it from last time. Ambiloop.com and the current verion is what Ive had. I couldn't, and still can't find the option to change the key functions.
Hell if this really does work, I'm just gunna tear up another keyboard so I can have more than one loop and do stuff like pause and multipy em.
But I've been everywhere in this damn Ambiloop 1.72 and there's nothing that lets me do that!
well I figured it out.
Crap now I gotta make a new keyboard controller for this. Dammit
this solved all the control problems I had with this thing. Now I can set the U key for multiple tasks. Now after I record a loop and press loop, I can press U and it will erase the loop, stop the recording, and set the empty loop back to 180 seconds. Before, when I would press erase while the loop was playing, it would erase the loop but keep playing. Also it would keep the empty track to the time of the last recorded loop.
Hey! It looks like you got this figured out on your own. Yeah, the key mapping feature is kind of buried in the menus. That's too bad because IMO, that's a super important part of the software! It makes the thing actually useable in a live situation where you want to be playing your instrument AND triggering loops at the same time. Once I figured out how to do it, Ambiloop, to me, went from "hey that's cool software" to "damn! I can USE this thing!".
I'll keep you posted how PureDyn and SooperLooper work out.
PureDyne is definitely a good bet.
For users with lowly computers, Sidux is excellent. The default install is very minimal for the XFCE4 desktop version. I have been using Sidux on my tablet PC. I got one of those Behringer FCB1010 controllers, so forget about the key mappings :) If you have a MIDI controller and Linux, you have a wide world of possibilities.
With Sidux, you don't get anything for music production/multimedia by default, but it is easy to install this stuff as you need it. My desktop environment boots with about 55MB RAM resident. Some standalone programs (firefox) are larger than that :). Sidux default desktop environment is about 80MB RAM, but you can knock off a little over 40MB just by removing gdm from the init scripts. The difference is when you boot, you get dumped into a commandline login prompt instead of the nice graphical "greeter" login screen. Then you login and do 'startxfce4' and it's the same...
Here is a demo of me jamming the Rakarrack Looper in Debian stable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMBvrycheAM
You will probably see links to a couple other videos I have made with Rakarrack (I'm one of the project devs).
All the FX are the FX built into Rakarrack. I don't think most people know the wealth of audio tools available free for the taking in the Linux community. That screenshot above of Pure:Dyne had Calf Audio Plugin tools...this is an amazing set of plugins. If the masses ever have their Microsoft-brand blinders taken from their eyes...
Well I got PureDyne installed, so it's a bit too late for me to check out Sidux (although smaller would have been better on this ancient laptop I'm using). I've had time to fool around with it, and it works VERY well. There is NO latency, and the effects (JackRack) sound fantastic. As good or better than the fx on my Digitech RP155. I need to get more familiar with sooperlooper, but I got it working, and it seems pretty damn good. I need to make my modified keyboard footcontrol so I can take full advantage of it! There's so much other cool stuff there to play around with too. I love some of the software synths. You can even play your computer keyboard as a keyboard (like from a piano)! Very cool!
What is latency? I've messed with the setting on ambiloop.
latency is the time lag between when the sound enters the computer and when it leaves. If latency is too high, there will be an audible gap between when you play a note and when you hear it come out the amplifier. A small amount of latency is inherent to digital audio processing because you must translate from the analog audio signal (a small AC waveform) to digital (bits of 1's and 0's) when entering the system, then do stuff to the signal (add or subtract various 1's and 0's), and then convert the digital signal back to an analog signal before sending it on to the amplifier. If the computer does not consider these digital to analog/analog to digital conversions (D2A/A2D) to be a high priority, then they will take longer. Setting the latency in a piece of software like Ambiloop is one part of the solution, but not the total solution. Try setting the latency low in Ambiloop, and you will hear "clicks and pops" in audio coming through. This is because WINDOWS ITSELF does not consider audio I/O to be a high priority. You can ameliorate this a bit in windows by using an alternative audio I/O driver like ASIO4ALL (which can get your latency quite low), but this means you have to run another bit of software which will take up ram and processor time. The best solution is to use an operating system that is programed from the very start to have low latency (various version of Linux like Pure:Dyne), or to use a dedicated external USB box that does your D2A/A2D and sends only a digital audio to be used by your computer.
I hope that clears it up!
Cheers,
DDC
Well, it taught me something, but really just opened another can of worms! thanks
When I use the monitor function on ambiloop, there's a freakin delay from what I play to what comes out. I've messed with the latency before I knew what i was doing. I just took it down to where it wasn't sputtering anymore. But the monitor is still late.
Yeah, that's the native Windows issue with audio I/O. That's the kind of latency that is very hard to get rid of. The best way to do so, short of using a differnt OS or buying a USB audio I/O box, is to install ASIO4ALL, and then set the audio drivers in Ambiloop to use that instead of Windows Direct Sound or whatever your particular native Windows audio driver is. That's what I've done on my 5 year old Toshiba PC with XP on it, and it works pretty well. Probably well enough to be used live, but not as good as my the 10 year old Thinkpad running Puredyne Linux that I just did.
Where do i get aso4all?? Is it software??