MSuperLooper Wishes

[nbyte]

Hey All,
I really enjoy the new MSuperLooper - but as often there are a few wishes for future releases:
1. decoupled playback and record direction. So I can record in forward direction but playback in backward or vice versa. Maybe also decoupled playback and record speed.
2. It would be useful to have a feedback level of the playing loop when I overdub. So I can say that with every overdub the original Loop will be at 80 % of the initial level. And with every overdub cycle the play backed loop will be reduced....
3. The possibitiy to overdub record the fx channels with a button! So you can degrade your Loop with every cycle ....

Thanks

[nbyte]

My three wishes are implemented in this VST Looper from AudioDamage called ENSO. Maybe a Inspiration for MeldaProduction:

[R13]

I own Enso but stopped using it after my multiple emails to support over the export function not working on Mac went unanswered. They also haven’t released a single update for the Mac version in the year since it was released.

[nbyte]

Even better for Meldaproduction. They can implement the cool function but with a working plugin!

[sinkmusic]

- a big +1 for feedback decay.
- à big+1 too for track resampling !

[Herby_K]

+1 for sidechain working on Mac and Logic
+1 for updating so no more glitches and jumps while recording on Logx Pro X

[TVbene]

Awesome, just found out about MSuperLooper. I kind of have been waiting for two years, since when I tried and tried to make Möbius work and there was the rumour that Melda could make a looper!
For me there are two things I'd like to be considered:

1) It seems MSuperLooper atm is not meant to be a multi input plugin? This was how I tried to setup Möbius and I think how many live loopers do it, routing tracks from the DAW to individual tracks inside the looper, ready for recording with a MIDI controller.

2) Something more long-term probably: If you look at live looping videos nowadays, everyone seems to use a Push 2 with Ableton Live instead of the classic foot controller. And I can understand that - when syncing to the DAW and using "record at next bar" it's easy to just press a button on a pad controller and have the visual feedback with the LEDs. So I would consider the option to send out play states per "slot" as MIDI feedback, to control LED colours. Imagine a Maschine Mikro Mk3 where every row represents a track and 4 possible "variations" of it. Having these big pads representing the layout in MSuperLooper would be great but you'd need the visual info, which element is recording, which one is filled/empty, which one is playing.

[misteraudio]

I just got the license after trying the demo. Awesome looper plugin with a lot of potential. The MIDI mapping options are great. One amazing addition would be time-stretching and/or pitching when changing the speed/bpm. Drag and drop of the WAV files into a DAW arranger would be nice to have as well.

[MeldaProduction]

Thanks for the feedback folks. There are several bugs and stuff, working on it!

nbyte: 2 noted, makes sense. 1 not sure, will check. 3 interesting, will try.

sink: What do you mean by track resampling?

Herby: What would the sidechain do?

TVBene:
1. There's quite no benefit in multiple inputs - you always record one anyways. Even if that would be a good idea, most DAWs just don't like plugins with more than 2 inputs...
2. I'll add it to long term stuff. No idea how that works and I fear it will be different with every controller.

[sinkmusic]

sink: What do you mean by track resampling?

Track resampling would be the ability to save the processed audio as wav (either into the same track -and then bypassing the FX, etc-, or into another track).
Just like when you load a file into a sampler, apply some FX? pitch it, twist it, trim it, and then save it as a new file.

1) It seems MSuperLooper atm is not meant to be a multi input plugin? This was how I tried to setup Möbius and I think how many live loopers do it, routing tracks from the DAW to individual tracks inside the looper, ready for recording with a MIDI controller.

+1 for multi inputs (and outputs... some hosts may not support it, but Reaper does, and many VSTI -like drumsamplers for instance- features this).

nbyte: 2 noted, makes sense.

Feedback decay ? Great !

[ericzang]

2. ... No idea how that works and I fear it will be different with every controller.

If I understand correctly, what he means is that the looper would simply send out a midi message that represents its current state (play, rec, overdub, track, a track's loop, etc). Then it would be up to the user to associate that command with an indicator on the user's midi controller. Lemur on ipad/android could handle this easily. This would allow scripting enabled controllers such as Lemur and MAX to perform conditional operations based on the current state.

[TVbene]

2. ... No idea how that works and I fear it will be different with every controller.

If I understand correctly, what he means is that the looper would simply send out a midi message that represents its current state (play, rec, overdub, track, a track's loop, etc). Then it would be up to the user to associate that command with an indicator on the user's midi controller. Lemur on ipad/android could handle this easily. This would allow scripting enabled controllers such as Lemur and MAX to perform conditional operations based on the current state.

That would be a way to achieve this. I'd even consider something where users could customize the messages so that standard LED controllers could be used (see video at the end for example).
It's a complex feature, but I wanted to write about it because it's very rewarding in my opinion to have this kind of haptic and visual feedback with a controller.

Just to complete my thoughts on it, I see two possible ways to make this work with the standard pad controllers:

1) Using the GUI for letting the users map pads to tracks and "slots" (e.g. pressing pad 1 starts recording track 1 into the first slot) and also assign specific MIDI values to the states (e.g recording state means velocity = 33, playing state means velocity = 56,... - these are different for every controller). So in the example, if track 1 is recording the correct MIDI "velocity" of 33 must be sent back to pad 1.

2) Scripting files that users/devs could write and share to support specific controllers.

For the scripting approach there are some examples that I know of and like. For example Playtime for Reaper, I made a demo video a while ago where you see 8 tracks (from the left to the right) and my Launchpad Mini mirrors that layout. On the first track "M2" two loops were already recorded, now they are playing together - quite like loop and overdub - so two pads are lit. On the fith track "P" I record three additional piano loops. While recording, the buttons change to red on the corresponding pad, that's just not so easy to see in the video.

[ericzang]

Or perhaps to minimally accommodate the request, a fixed midi message and value would be associated by Melda to the various Looper states and other relevant functions. Then the user would find an external midi conversion plugin or standalone program (for example, Bome, Lemur, Max) to translate those values to the ones needed for a particular controller. Personally I would be ok with this if it were to allow a high likelihood of the feature being implemented.

[Dirk Diggler]

Request 1:
In mapping a midi controller the ability to use note on and note off for button pushes, currently everything needs CC's. All other soft and hardware loopers I've used prefer note on and offs.

Request 2:
I will echo the requests for playback speed changes, half is mandatory, double would be cool. Pedal control would be even cooler.

Request 3:
The ability to map the reverse controls on each highlighted track.
Personally I find the whole midi implementation very confusing, so maybe I've overlooking something. I only see the top 8 Main buttons being available in the mapping window.

Request 4:
multiple outs, not just recorded track outs.

Great looper at a screaming deal, I am hopeful for future updates.
Dirk

p.s. my midi foot controller is currently a very flexible SoftStep2.

[TVbene]

Then the user would find an external midi conversion plugin or standalone program (for example, Bome, Lemur, Max) to translate those values to the ones needed for a particular controller. Personally I would be ok with this if it were to allow a high likelihood of the feature being implemented.

For inexperienced users that means they'd have to learn a bit about MIDI translation and virtual loopback cables, but I'd be totally fine with this. Most important would be to have a lot of info sent out. Then everyone can choose.

1. There's quite no benefit in multiple inputs - you always record one anyways. Even if that would be a good idea, most DAWs just don't like plugins with more than 2 inputs...

I'd argue that this would really improve the workflow for those who do live looping with multiple instruments, like I do. Then one instance of MSuperLooper mapped to one MIDI controller would be enough. For switching instruments, just navigate to a MSuperLooper track where the next instrument is routed to. But yes, DAWs are a big limition there. How would you do multiple instruments? Have an instance of MSuperLooper for every instrument? Or one instance and then change the routing in the DAW?