Bastl Instruments has introduced Midilooper, a device that listens to MIDI messages (control information about notes, dynamics and other parameters) and loops them like an audio looper can loop audio.
Because loops of MIDI messages are control messages, though, you can tweak the synths that you are controlling independent of the looping notes.
Midilooper can be synchronized either by MIDI clock or analog clock, or it can also run on its own clock (tap tempo/free running).
Midilooper has 3 voices that can each be assigned to a different MIDI channel, allowing it to control and loop 3 different pieces of gear. Each voice can be individually recorded, muted, overdubbed, or cleared.
Midilooper also offers some basic processing of the recorded information: transposition, velocity locking and shifting, quantization, shuffle, humanization (random variations of velocity), adjusting the length of the loop, or doubling and halving of the playback speed.
In addition, it features CV and trigger inputs to integrate with modular synths: reset, retrigger, velocity, and transpose. It can also be controlled by connecting foot pedals.
Features:
- 3 independent voices (each has MIDI channel assigned)
- overdub/overwrite
- transpose mode
- octave transpose
- quantize, velocity lock, shuffle, humanize
- odd looplengths, time stretch
- mute, clear, erase
- one MIDI Input and two MIDI Outputs
- clock input (accepts analog clock or TRS MIDI Clock)
- analog reset input
- metronome output
- CV input connectivity (transpose, velocity, re-trigger)
- pedal control (record, clear, voice selection)
- USB powered
- adjustable divider/multiplier for analog clock
Pricing and Availability:
Midilooper is available now for €238.84.
I’m a huge fan of this concept. The Roland TD7 drum module had this feature over 20 years ago, though they mostly dropped it in the many following modules. An open ended looper where it didn’t force you to predefine the tempo or # of measures. You hit a footswitch to arm it and started playing until you hit the switch again to start the looping. Then you could go in and out of overdubs as needed. That made it ideal for spontaneous loops while playing with others. Sounds like this box adds a bunch of cool features like undo and quantize. Not sure I love the interface for my purposes, so I’ll continue to explore doing this myself with pure data and max. But it’s pretty cool. Electronic drummers in particular should take notice.
midi looping with max is one of those things where you think “huh, this should be surprisingly simple, max has spoken midi since its inception”, and then you realise that there are SO many pitfalls when doing midi looping. The objects that support things like this natively in max are absolutely ancient, and haven’t really evolved much.
still, I wouldn’t have it any other way, but there are so many compromises involved, I feel.
Im curious what pitfalls/comprises you’ve experienced… are you talking about midi looping in general or looping in max specifically?
I’ve been doing midi looping with my octatrack and Virus Ti2 for years. The hardest part is setting up the channels/clock and stuff, but once that’s done it’s pretty straight forward and a lot of fun.
Love this, simple straight-forward piece of hardware that is intuitive and immediate to use, sure you could do it with a computer, but this is immediately there & hands-on and performance oriented. Sold 🙂