Rashomon — an experimental looper/resampler

FREEZE WARNING: This patch is perfectly functional, but I am listing it as a “work-in-progress” as it freezes on occasion; in particular, this seems to only occur after the loopers have been reset with the reset buttons and a new recording has been initiated (it’s possible it may freeze under some other circumstance, but I have not witnessed any behavior that leads me to believe this is the case).

If you want to reset the loops, consider reloading the patch.

In the video, I mention some of the buttons speaking ZOIANese, but I have renamed them, and they seem fine now. A bug report has been issued about both of these behaviors, so if there is a subsequent firmware update that addresses the reset issue, I will update and revise.

Rashomon, named for the Kurosawa movie in which a story unfolds from a variety of viewpoints, includes three loopers designed to create dense loop beds and rhythmic soundscapes (or normal, synchronized loops). The loopers can be synchronized or independent, and they can sample from the input, or any of the other loops, or no input at all (more on this in a second).

The patch is stereo, but the loopers are mono (although they can be panned across the stereo field); I tried making the loop in stereo, with panning, but the CPU said, no thank you sir. And I tried again, and it said SIR I said no thank you. But…

There is a control called “input mix.” You can plug different instruments into each input and choose the mix that is recorded from them; or you can set it to one side (0 = left, 1 = right) or the other, or set it at .5000 to sum the stereo inputs to mono. Audio passes through the patch in stereo.

Each looper has the same controls, which include:

Restart and reset buttons at the top — restart will cause the loop to start from its beginning, reset will clear the loop

Input selectors — one for the audio input of the patch, and two more for sampling from the other two loopers

Level, pan and mute controls — one thing to keep in mind: these level and mute controls affect the internal routing as well, so if you are trying to sample from a muted looper, you will not hear anything; on the other hand it does allow you to sample and layer at different volumes

A “mod” switch, which activates pitchshifting and reverse functions — One thing to note is that overdubs will be recording as if at “normal speed” and “forward,” but depending on the state of the mod controls, when those parameters are turned off or changed, the overdub may be pitchshifted and reversed.

Keep in mind that since the pitch-shifting is relative to the original loop, overdubs recorded on top of a slowed down loop will speed up when the mod is deactivated.

Recording is controlled by the footswitches, one for each looper, but recording in different loops can be “slaved” to the left footswitch. What are the advantages of that?

— You can record the same input into two separate loops set to two separate speeds, and they will be synchronized (play in constantly related ratios, e.g. 2:1 when one looper is set an octave above or below the other, but you can find other, interesting, evolving synchronicities).

— You can record the patch input into one loop and nothing (no input selected) into another looper; this second loop will be synchronized to the first.

You can also change the length of that loop relative to the first recorded loop by using the speed modifiers. Since your recording will be overdubbed, for instance, a speed/pitch of -1 octave will produce an overdub 2x as long as the original recorded loop (but the overdub’s pitch will be normal, 100% until the mod for that looper is turned off, at which point it will be 200% and pitched up).

There are all sorts of ways to play with this combination, and it’s really fun to sample a simple note or progression and resample it into something entirely different.

Some things to be aware of, though (because I forget them, too):

You need to remember to select (and deselect) your inputs.

If you’ve slaved the footswitches to the left footswitch, you probably want to unslave them after you’ve recorded your initial loops.

If you want a loop to sample snippets onto (without just creating loops from those snippets) you should record an “empty” loop first.

3 comments on “Rashomon — an experimental looper/resampler
  • Oil on said:

    Works like charm here ,
    Lov it , Thanks a lot !!!

  • Christopher H. M. Jacques on said:

    Thanks!

    I need to monitor it and test it some more, but I haven’t had a crash since I changed out the text of the bugged modules I show in the video (but renamed for the final release). Let me know if you get any crashes people? Much appreciated.

  • tomikoo on said:

    Oh man, you’re on fire! :) Gotta try this one soon.

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    • State: Work In Progress
    • Platform:
    • Category: Effect Sampler
    • Revision: 1.0
    • License: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0
    • Modified: 4 years ago
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      Likes: 5
      Downloads: 997
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