Jaak! This thing is incredible. I’ve been playing around for a few hours yesterday and today and have some initial ideas. Overall, I’m loving it! To avoid duplicating other feedback above, I’ll try to keep comments to items I haven’t seen mentioned yet. All comments meant in the spirit of love and curiosity, this is an amazing piece of creative gear!
The blue, light blue and green LEDs when switching between Touch Modes are quite similar to my eye, especially the light blue LED. For visual contrast, is it possible to switch it to something quite different, like a yellow, red, purple or white? I could see the light blue-green contrast getting lost in a live setting, bright room, etc.
A possible build for the Magnetic Dance function — would there be a way to mute the input/tape effect audio so that the only thing coming out of Ribbons is the Magnetic Dance audio? So you’d be playing the MD alone, in effect, without hearing either the dry source audio OR the Tape Effect Mix-ed audio going into it.
Would it be possible to map a simple external footswitch (ex. sustain pedal) to activate/replace the Touch switch on the pedal itself? I’m currently using Ribbons up on an electric piano so I can tweak settings comfortably and would love to also have a sustain pedal going rather than holding down Touch by hand. I know Touch is controllable by MIDI CC, I’m just a newbie in that department and don’t have a MIDI expression pedal!
Would a “random setting” key combo ever be possible? All/most values randomized upon pressing (maybe not Mix)? In trying to explore the full range of interactions between everything, it’s been slower going to page, turnturnturnturn, page, turnturnturnturn, etc. A one-shot might be a nice way to introduce a new flavor.
Last, would a quantized/gate mode ever be possible? As in, input +5V CV gates/pulses that govern some settings’ behaviors? I could see clocked wow/flutter/dropout rates, gated tape noise or reverb — actually scratch that, these may be already possible! I will take it over to the modular next and play around with +5V CVs. But perhaps something like, Tape Stop mode + incoming pulses could lead to Params 1 and 2 controlling quantized rate divisions for tape stop/start (from whole note to 1/16 or something) so you could reliably time your MBV slowdown effects? I dunno!
I will +1 @randycrouton on the compression note — so far I’ve found it a little overpowering above 12:00 maybe?
And +1 @mount_curve on the knob response behavior when switching to a new page. Both “catch up” and “relative” mode would be awesome here. Jumps in settings are especially noticeable when tweaking the LPF & HPF, Tape Noise and Compression — when it catches up, even like a 0 to 20 value change, it feels like a big jolt. I think most other settings get masked in the natural warbliness and imprecision of things, but those stood out for sure.
I will post some demo selects over in a separate thread!
Hey there! Mine just came in through the door! I quickly did a guitar test and sounds absolutely lovely, but will try with my main instruments over the week, look forward to hearing all the sounds y’all will make with it!
I know from having folks beta test a pedal of mine before that all of this feedback can be overwhelming - so definitely don’t feel like you have to give us all what we’re asking for
That said, I’ve been playing with it some more and I have one more request and one preference.
The preference is that I always expect the Low Pass Filter knob to work the reverse of how it does (I’m used to low pass knobs being turned counterclockwise to turn down the frequency). I can definitely get used to it as it is…I just wonder if others are like me.
The request is that it would be great if the audio in the loop(s) could be effected by the Touch modes. That may not be possible, but it would be really cool to be able to use tape stop or broken machine with a set of loops that are already going.
From the manual, it sounds like there simply isn’t enough processing power to handle the looping + touch modes at the same time. I guess we’ll have to buy two each.
I think I would agree with you on the low pass filter knob.
My hunch is that mixing pre and post together using two knobs would result in some weird phasing issues. Ribbons has a reverb/resonator sibling in the works that has more controls and focuses more processing power on the reverb.
It would be possible to merge speed and direction onto the same knob (noon would be ‘stopped’, fully clockwise 2x forward, fully counterclockwise 2x backward). But then we’d have two unassigned knobs for the looper. Currently, the looper is just about maxing out CPU when all four loops run simultaneously, so feature requests relating to it are sort of tricky – I am open to requests for the one unassigned knob but it will need to be something with pretty minimal overhead (e.g. changing the quantization scales or something of that nature).
So there are two types of presses:
Momentary – just a quick tap of the footswitch, less than 0.25 seconds. A momentary press latches the Touch effect in tape mode (or latches your recording in looper mode). A second tap unlatches it.
Sustained – Holding down the footswitch for more than 0.25 seconds. Sustained presses activate while pressed and stop when released.
What I think you’re pointing out is that the 0.25 second threshold is too short, so it basically prevents you from latching. I can collect some more data on this and fine tune it.
Yes, so in Touch Mode 1 (MD) Ribbons is constantly recording to a 1 second loop. When you press the touch footswitch it starts to play back the loop using 4 read heads. It’s up this way so you can do things like freeze / drone notes and chords with a single action (sort of like EHX’s Freeze pedal).
You know all my secrets! This is possible but the short answer is that it probably won’t be a feature of Ribbons. There is a reverb/resonator sibling pedal in the works that does way more with the reverb (including infinite verb).
Like the static/clicks and pops to be more extreme? Or another parameter?
I wrote the Tape Stop code quite awhile ago and it was implemented in a way that doesn’t allow attack and release times to be changed mid-stop or start. I have some new tricks up my sleeves and plan to re-write it so that it can do exactly what you’re mentioning here! This is a bigger lift but it will get done eventually.
Originally I set things up so the parameters could be modified in a “relative” way but there was something about it that I really didn’t like (fml - I can’t remember what it was and am not finding any notes on it). I’ll add this to my backlog of things to revisit.
With buffered bypass, Ribbons will continue to play reverb trails and magnetic dance when the effect is bypassed but new incoming audio will be dry / not affected.
I guess that makes sense for reverb? I feel like I’ve seen both in action, but maybe not. I do think it would be cool if the bottom knob added something other than Pre/Post.
Ehh… I feel like this would be weird with the middle position unless it is notched. But maybe another parameter or effect?
Ah! Yeah, maybe closer to .5 second? I was (per a demo video) wearing socks, so I’m guessing the press time could have been slightly on the longer side.
For me, if I’m wanting to sample a 1 second loop, I might want to be able to nail down the start time of said loop instead of just trying to line that up with the beginning of a loop that started 1 second before I hit a button. It was kind of weird with guitar, but I get it for grabbing a sustained note from a synth.
Yep, you’re right that it’s non traditional. For me the idea is: as tape degrades it loses more high frequency response, so as you turn up the knob clockwise you lose treble and get more of an aged sound. I think this could be set up differently but only if it weren’t called “tape age.”
@randycrouton mentioned this too. Short answer is that there’s not enough processing power left to run them simultaneously. One thing that could be done (in theory) – if loops are running and you jump back into tape mode, the Touch footswitch becomes a tape stop effect for all four loops (but not incoming audio). This would be less CPU intensive.
That’s exactly what I would want! I think it would be totally fine (and great) if the touch modes effected incoming audio in regular mode, and only effected the looped audio in looper mode. I can imagine many situations where I would record in audio to “load up” the loops, and then mostly manipulate playback.
having a lot of fun in loop mode, would love more gradation/steps to the pitch knob, also maybe a way to clear all loops ? or is that just switching back to tape mode
also is it just me or is the reverb incredibly quiet? also seems locut at like 150hz. I just cant rly hear it.
I love this pedal, Jaak! I have very little experience with complex digital pedals but the learning curve didn’t seem nearly as steep as I anticipated.
A few initial impressions…
I think the LP filter knob would make more sense reversed.
Having the knob functions labeled with the first page’s info was a little confusing at first but then I got used to it. The 4 pages don’t seem very hierarchical when you’re using it, so it seems a little confusing to have the first page info printed on the enclosure. It seems to imply that page one’s functions are primary functions but the knobs each seem to have four functions that are of equal priority, rather than a primary function and three alternate functions. Maybe others see that differently.
It’s probably not possible but it’d be cool to be able to “play” the chord table chords in magnetic dance with a MIDI controller or something, rather than being limited to turning the knob. Maybe I’m overestimating the possibilities, but my initial thought would be that you could make a song out of playing the “chords.”
Also maybe not possible, but I wonder if there would be a way to have more control over what you’re looping in magnetic dance mode. “Previous second” is fun but it’d be nice to be able to control the start point (and possibly the end point.)
This has become a common request. Should be in the next firmware update!
When designing the front panel, I made up with this requirement that “the knobs should display four parameters that hint at some key things Ribbons is capable of”. This may feel inviting but it prevents any sort of hierarchical / thematic layout for the parameters. I realize now that this thematic layout is pretty important for Ribbons and I’d like to address it. We’ve got some good ideas going about how to resolve this on this thread. Feel free to chime in there if you have more to add or, at the very least, vote on the polls going there.
This is possible with the current setup. I could add another notch to the chord table called “midi” or something. I’d just have to decide what to do about the 4-voice sine synth, which also responds to MIDI note-on/off data. I could ditch the 4-voice synth all-together in-exchange for this feature or just disable the synth when the “midi” option is selected from the chord table. I’ll add this to the feature request list and prioritize it if it’s something others are interested in.
Someone else mentioned something similar to this. It’s totally possible but I think I need some more encouragement to change it. I like the current implementation of MD because a single-action produces an immediate output/reaction. Sort of like an EHX freeze pedal. I could change it to a two-action process where you can hold or tap to define the start point but that would break from the other touch modes being single-action / immediate reaction.
Sadly, the touch/bypass LEDs are just Blue / Green. I’m using a 16 channel LED driver chip inside the pedal and RGB leds. 3 led colors x 6 leds = 18 channels, which is two too many! I dropped the red channel on both touch footswitches because of this.
In general, I feel like they’re pretty distinct but if others report similar feelings, I could try to dial it in or try a different approach.
I did claim that “everything is controllable via CV/MIDI”. I guess I forgot about the touch footswitch! I’ll add this to my to-do’s. Do you have a model # for a sustain pedal that you like?
Totally possible and a cool idea but I think I’m going to reject this. I can’t think of another button combo to implement it.
A great idea but hard to manage with a CV/Exp input. It would be much easier to manage with a MIDI Clock. It would be a big project to add clocking/synchronization to all the DSP blocks but I could see it being pretty cool. I’ll add this to the feature request list and think about how it might work.
I’ll play around with this and see what I find. How were you using the pedal – mono in / mono out ? stereo in / stereo out? Make sure you have the mix settings set correctly for your setup.
See my response to @mount_curve below. I did try a relative/less jumpy approach once upon a time, I just remember there was something awkward about it. Can’t recall now though! I will do “jump” or “relative” but not both. There are already enough menus and not enough combo presses to allow the user to change a setting like this.
Unless something is wrong, I feel like ‘nonexistant’ might be a little exaggerated but I agree it does seem to get quieter. Can you send me an audio clip (text or IG message is cool)? Just want to make sure something isn’t wrong.
Ah! I got you. I’m starting to feel like the ‘unassigned’ looper knob would be great for choosing a scale (no scale, chromatic, fourths, fifths, octaves, octaves + fifths). Maybe that seems uneventful but Ribbons is currently maxed out at 95% with all four loops running simultaneously and additional looper features are tricky.
well i just feel like the knob could be stepless entirely like a real pitch shifter knob on a 4 track tape recorder, it doesnt rly need to be constrained to a scale (tho personally id really rather it didnt)
I dropped the red channel on both touch footswitches because of this.