A multi-tap looper. A rumination on time.

Why a multi-tap looper? What a multi-tap looper? Falling Forward allows you to tap in a rhythm of five taps and form a swirling soundscape of looping segments.

The benefit of this approach is that some loops are shorter than others, but unless you are extremely rigid with your tapping, the relationships between the loops always evolve, the overlaps always change, the sound field always grows and contracts in unexpected way. A phrase you had almost forgotten you played gets repeated to you, moments later. Another note, reversed and pitchshifted, sounds nothing like what brought it into the looper. It’s a vertiginous sound, falling forward all the time.

Revision 1.1 notes:

The major addition to this patch is the option to modulate the mix. On the front panel, you will see two new additions; one is a value module next to the mix control named ‘Mix depth’ and the other is an LFO above the mix control.

The ‘Mix depth’ modulates the mix between its current level and a percentage of 0% mix (totally dry), so, if it is set to a mix of 50%, and a mix depth of .500, the mix will modulate between 50% and 25%; if the mix depth is set to 1.000, it will modulate between 50% and 0%, which, at moderate speeds (~2-3 Hz) will produce lovely vibrato/tremolo/vibe-things. At slower rates, it can be used to cut the “busy-ness” of the sound some, which was one of the reasons I was motivated to add the control: I love this patch, but it can “get in the way” some.

Other additions:

— Modules are now named and starred.

— The indicator light for the various pitch configurations (toggled with the right stompswitch) now changes color, rather than forcing you to rely on an eagle-eyed sense of brightness: no light = no shifting; magenta = pitch shifting between +1 and -1 octave; red = pitchshifting between base note and +2 octaves; blue = pitchshifting between base note and -2 octaves (my fave setting)

— Under the hood stuff to improve timing and fix problems associated with firmware 1.05 (one-shot sequencing changes; not a fan); NOTE: _when you set and reset the tap tempo_, you will need to tap once to reach the “cue”/first tap stage

A special thanks to my patrons on Patreon for their support: Rob Flax, Stepan Grammatik, brockstar, Mats Unnerholm, D Sing, Will Scott, drew batchelor, Miguel, Steve Bragg, Joab Eastley, Tomi Kokki, Mitch Lantz, Ben Norland, Daniel Morris, and Roman Jakobej!

If you would like to support my work on ZOIA, please visit patreon.com/chmjacques

Footswitches:

Left, momentary: tap your rhythm.

Middle, momentary: reset the tap tempo.

NOTE: _when you set and reset the tap tempo_, you will need to tap once to reach the “cue”/first tap stage

Right, latching: pitchshifting. There are four varieties of pitchshifting: none, plus/minus an octave, plus two octaves, minus two octaves. The pitches are randomly chosen from fourths, fifths and octaves.

Front page controls:
…………………………………[Pitchshifting]
…..[Mix]…..[Pan spread]…..[Reverse chance]……

…..[Five pretty blinking lights to represent taps]..

Pitchshifting: an indicator pixel. When unlit, no pitchshifting is occuring. As the light grows brighter, each level of brightness indicates whether shifting is: +1/-1 octave, +2 octaves, or -2 octaves.

Mix: mix… of note, balancing wet and dry perfectly can be tricky. At 50/50, the loops are slightly louder than the dry signal. At 100% wet or dry, you may have to adjust your signal a little, due to more volume (wet) or less (dry). It’s not severe, but it’s worth knowing about.

Pan spread: pans voices randomly across the stereo field. The control determines how much range they have, beginning at completely centered and working out. The first two voices reach full range faster than the second two voices. The fifth voice does not pan.

Reverse chance: chance that any given loop will be reversed. The higher the amount, the more likely it will be reversed. Voices four and five have a slightly higher chance of being reversed than the other voices.

Pretty blinking lights: these represent each ‘tap’ or loop’s cycle.

Sound clip:

I begin with no pan spread, no reverse chance, no pitchshifting.

Then I change the rhythm a little, add some panning, add some reverse chances, and use the +/- 1 octave pitchshifting.

I change to the +2 octaves. Because the loops are shorter, they loop more, and you get little bell sounds.

Then I switch to -2 octaves (this is my favorite setting) and increase the reverse chance.

Finally, I return to no pitchshifting, but now with pan spreading and reverses thrown in.