Loopmaster

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Summary

LoopMaster is a Mod that controls up to 4 individual MaxLoopers that are grouped in a rack on a seperate audio channel. LoopMaster must be placed on a MIDI capable track. It is possible to control the loopers by assignment of its controls in Live's MIDI Map, by triggering its functions from MIDI (from live input or a session clip), and by connecting a pedal device to a MonOhm through its expansion port (Block to come shortly, if anyone tells me they need it). You can see a picture of the pedal that is used to control it on the bottom of the page, along with the LCD screen app designed into the Lemur AumPad/256 scripts to display feedback information from the loopers.

The LoopMaster's controls are mostly just redundant versions of the MaxLooper's controls, with a few exceptions.

Loopmaster.jpg

Loop Selector

This drop-down allows you to select an individual loop to act upon, or all at once. This is usually controlled by the pedal, but can be accessed from the grid as well. ALL is useful for making global settings like inertia, quantization, and latency compensation. However, some of the settings reflected in the GUI may not be an accurate reflection of the Loopers, since it can only report one at a time.

Invert

This control changes the polarity of the expression pedal connected to the Loop Pedal. Since I'm the only one that has one, I'm pretty sure this is immaterial to anyone else at this point.

Port and Host

If you are using the Lemur version of AumPad/256, there is an LCD built into the first page. Turn it on with the little round button on the Lemur, and make sure that you've entered your iPad's host address correctly. It will reflect all the changes in the LoopMaster/MaxLoopers. The correct port is already assigned @ 8000, if you have something on this port you will also have to edit the Lemur patch (or change the port setting on your other application).

Mod Number

The plugin transmits and receives from Monomodular. Each quadrant on the 256 represents one of the four loopers. The bottom row turns quant on/off and sets the quantization amount. The Center swirly bit shows the loop position, and allows retriggering by pressing the keys on the time-line square. Pressing the middle of this square will hit Reverse. The first 5 buttons on the seventh row are: Undo, Overdub, Record, Mute, Clear. The far right column, top 5 buttons are 2x, 1x, stop, -1x, -2x from the top. The next column over controls inertia amount. You can select the loop that belongs to the quadrant by hitting the lowest right button (I think...its down there somewhere, I never use it really).

This is all going to change soon....I'm going to limit the whole grid to 64, and allow selection of loop# with the bottom right 4 buttons. Probably also the timing keys will become 4x 2x 1x .5x 0. Another grid screen will allow different retriggering or something....I dunno, its late.

010212 rev11

These are the implements of the LoopMaster plugin, which is designed to control 4 instances of MaxLooper. The pedal selects loop number, reverses, clears, overdubs, records, and mutes for individual loops or all at once. It can advance back or forward between loops, select a specific loop, or select all loops. It also has a quarter inch stereo jack on the rear which allows you to connect an expression pedal to control feedback amount for the selected loop (here I have it hooked up to a slightly modified volume pedal, just because it feels better).

The pedal is designed to offer a bunch of controls in a small amount of space. There are seven buttons, at staggered levels so that the top four can be hit to select loops without touching the bottom three that are used for controlling the loops. I was tired of trying to carry the FCB1010 around, and I'm very glad to be rid of it.

The top four select individual loops.

The right top two (together) increase the selected loop number by one, while the left two decrease it.

The center two top buttons select all loops.

The left bottom is Overdub, the center bottom is Loop, and the right bottom is Mute.

There are other combination functions as well (left top w/Mute is reverse, right top w/Overdub is clear, center two top w/Record is Undo).

The pedal can be configured for sequence launching in my setup with another controller (so that it can trigger Looper MIDI sequences from Lives session). Still working on this part though, as I would really like to use scripting for this ala ClyphX.

PedalPic.jpg

This is a pic of the new LCD app, which will work for either a Lemur setup or a window on your computer that's running Live and Monomodular. The upper window shows the Looper GUI, and the lower shows the LCD for the OhmRGB that's currently connected to it. The plan is to have that same panel work for all the other controllers that I support with Monomodular.

LoopmasterLCD.jpg

Basically, the top portion functions as feedback for the four MaxLoopers connected to it. The current selected loop is highlighted in white. The current loop position is indicated by the dial. The state of the looper is indicated by the button in the middle. The amount of feedback is displayed below each dial.

Eventually, these LCD objects will become controls as well.