Ribbons “celebrates the idiosyncrasies of imperfect mediums”. One important technique in tape music is cutting and splicing pieces of tape.
I’d love a way to explore similar techniques with Ribbons. A few ideas of how this could work into the existing UX:
Control position and loop length of loopers via midi cc. I could also imagine repurposing some of the looper controls but figure that would be more disruptive to legacy users.
Dedicated tape splice touch mode where T1 is position within the “tape” and T2 is loop length
This would also be a pretty unique feature in pedal world. I don’t know of many looper/buffer pedals that allow you to move around the play head. In a lot of ways, this would share similarities with eurorack modules like Morphagene and Lubadh.
I’m a fan of this kind of thing. The only looper pedal I know of that allows you to set start point and loop length is the Eventide Timefactor, but I’ve never had an opportunity to try one. I know the Empress Zoia can be configured to do it. The Vox Dynamic Looper has a feature called “Loop In Loop” which allows you to choose a subdivision of the loop (essentially loop time, but there’s something goofy about the implementation) and then you depress the treadle at the point where you want the subdivision to begin. I had hopes for the Chase Bliss Blooper, but the Trimmer modifiers only cut from the beginning or end, so you can’t select a section from the middle of a loop, and the Stutter modifier creates subsections that are too small for my uses. The Vox is really close to ideal for me in terms of how it works–that it’s something that can be easily engaged during performance without twiddling knobs–but it’s mono and its overall sound quality isn’t great.
I don’t know how likely it is for a feature like this to be added to Ribbons, but it’s something I’d like to see more of in general.
Check out the looper pedal called “Laps” or the Torso S-4 sampler. Both are built around the idea of setting beginning and end points. Also, Loupe by Glou-Glou, but that pedal is for wizards only (FWO).
Controlling start/end points via CC would be super cool. Especially with subdivisions. The more I played with CBA Mood the more I realized that the main feature I really like to use is cutting a loop, mostly in tape mode (considering «stretch» has been significantly crippled in mk2 anyway).
Moreover, Mood allows changing only the end point. Possiblity to change both would probably make it the Mood killer for my usecase.
upd: checked Laps. unfortunately, the lack of midi sync makes it unviable option.
Wandering far from Kinotone territory here, but how has MOOD MkII’s Stretch been crippled for you? I’ve been pretty happy with it since they made the “Classic” mode’s Stretch sound more like the original, but I must use it differently than you do.
The mode that’s been degraded for me is the Envelope mode. The original actually pauses your loop when the envelope is triggered, while the MkII keeps the loop playing silently while the stuttering is happening. This makes it work better with rhythmic material, because the beat never stops, but it turns vocal material into nonsense. The difference between “I am sitting in a room-oom-oom-oom different than the one you are in now” and “I am sitting in a room-oom-oom-oom-an you are in now.”
Maybe that was a too strong word, but even with the classic mode turned on it still sounds quite differently, so I got «Strands» to cover that sonic territories and I’ll easily prefer it in any blind test. Also, classic mode affects couple of other aspects of how the pedal works that may or may not suit your needs, so…
As for the envelopes, once again, I decided to go with Drolo’s algorithms and bought his «Stretch Weaver». Somehow I prefer the sound of his pedals more (even though Mood has a great reverb). Highly recommend.
All in all, there’re less and less reasons to keep Mood, tbh. Especially if there would be another looping tool with cool options like Ribbons. Not sure if the discussed option is on the table, but if it is this would make it a real banger, even with all the degradation tricks put aside. No hopes to make it work with the current UI, but at least with MIDI. Maybe this feature could work as a part of a promo compaign for those who don’t look for a tape/vynil simulator, but look for a classy experimental looper.
Matthews Effects The Technician allowed you too modify the start and the end of a loop, and it has MIDI. However, I don’t know that those two parameters are controllable by MIDI, and it doesn’t allow for overdubs.
thanks for pointing out! when that pedal released I remember I thought: «oh no, another delay trying to bite a bit from microcosm’s cake» and completely skipped it. never knew it had a looper. and it seems like it does have CCs to control loop lengths, but not sure if they’ll remain quantized and synced.
having such possibility applied to all 4 Ribbons loopers would be cool though. maybe be even too cool to expect that to happen.
for what it’s worth, I’m starting to think that the only right way to do this is either to play with a proper sampler (like 404mk2, which unfortunately would require some work with a recorded sample) or having two microloopers like being fed with different subdivisions with midi clock dividers or multiplyers. The whole idea here is to have polyrhythmic loops.
upd: or sequence midi messages to start and stop recordings. one shorter than another, but within the same clock. it’s not exactly the thing that topicstarter wanted, but also a neat thing to explore.