I love all your videos Alex, often watching them I get the feeling that I need more, but I’ve just come to understand that what I actually need is to DO MORE
I've recently added a few loopers into my rig... A Magneto... and a 2hp Loop, which is killllller... so far I've been using it inline with my DFAM! I can set up a hat loop and then add more on top, or set up a polyrhythmic loop over top of the dry signal!! Has a great dry/wet blend knob. So rad and small.
@@thinthinwalls should be able to! you can trigger the record with a gate, so you can just mult that to start them all at the same time. I'm seriously considering a second one of these!
Whoop Whoop. Welcome back. You are my very favourite you tuber. Many moons ago you hooked me into modular with your amazing Morphagene vid. 3 years later, I have contributed to a book on performing with modular and made an album with its power. Thanks for everything you do. 👏🙏👏🙏👏❤️
I bought the RC-505 a few months ago - one of my best musical gear purchases. This combined with my JD-Xi has been a great combo. I bet paired with a modular would be phenomenal.
I’ve just tried my 1010 blackbox as a looper and it had all the right features! The only thing lacking is an overdub function, but with 16 tracks I should be fine. Really excited to get into live techno with my 6U case!
This is great. In the 5 years since I first watched you make a case out of cardboard and then demo Clouds( which i immediately went out and bought as my first module),this is the first time that I've ever been on the same page as you in terms of gear and technique - almost. That has given me some hope that I'm not doing this all completely wrong😂. I got the 505 after watching the Blawan clip and I'm using it to grab complete loops, letting that run whilst I make some changes to the rack and then cross fade between them. I'm going to try your way of layering too. Currently toying with the idea that the Deluge might be able to replace the 505, add drums and sequence. Thanks for another excellent demo..
Nice one!! Yeah lot of folks saying the Deluge is amazing. And hah, it’s taken years of being told “loopers are amazing” for it to really sink in - I guess it’s just not something you see a lot of artists using, with some very notable exceptions!
Could you make a version of this with the Moog sound studio esp. DFAM? I am really into the DFAM thanks to you and now you sold me the idea of the looper, which would also help multiply DFAM voicing.
I'm using a 1010music blackbox as a looper (together with a Polyend Seq sequencer). That's why I only need one mono synth (Norand Mono), one nice sounding 8-voice wave synth (Argon8 M) and one drum (Nord Drum 3P). Love it.
Strong recommendation here - the black box is perfect, designed for modular level audio, small, and has up to 16 tracks (or a mix of loops and drums).... far from perfect but a great bit of kit for modular.
This deserves to be your most watched video, man. I find the way this expands the modular into a full setup via something else is a very underrated aspect of how people make music. As modular content creators get more gear, things become very... "lets bring 70k worth of kit to the gig lul", and less relatable to "normal people", with a reasonably sized rig.
Lol yeah I have the 505... I just need the 3 grand for the rest :-p I can still try to make due with my cheap behringer monosynths and my microfreak. Actually this video is inspiring because I haven't had had my RC-505 make friends with my synths. I've been too busy trying to keep my analog signal path separate from my digital / solid-state / inbox setup. I'm now seeing the error in my ways.
Thanks Andreas!! And yeah agreed. If there was ever one 'secret hack' that gets so often missed, it's this (and I count myself in missing it for all these years!)
when i do over dubs on my 505 i sometimes move the balance over on the mixer before it gets to the loop station. then swap sides when i add the next part on the same channel. that way you still maintain a sense of space when your stacking sounds.
still waiting for that multi-buffer looper in eurorack... the layout of the 505 as a mixer as well is so ergonomic.!! Raw Yaw Media Torus *might* be that but they are very cagey on saying exactly what it does and how it works... hopefully an in-depth demo video will come out
I was just about to put my Boomerang loop pedal on reverb because I don’t play much electric guitar anymore (thanks to fine folks like you) and was thinking my reverb pedal wasn’t justifying the HP of intellijels 1u pedal I/O. Wow, thank you for this saving me from making a dumb decision.
Gonna try this with my deluge! Which can add its own drums and makes it easy to mute or pause the modules at the correct timing when a recording is done 🙂
Best looper pedal I've had was a TC Electronics Ditto X4. Midi looping so all your loops are synced and on-board FX like double or half made it very good for ambient.
Very cool and I've always been curious about these after seeing them in a few friend's setups. I would be interested in seeing it used with a more complex system with extreme modulation capability and sound design potential. Maybe time to investigate on my own!
I use my Squid Salmple like a looper and works well. I wish the 1010 Music Bluebox had a looper function that would be perfect. Erica Synths Black Code Source is a fun noise generator module like Befaco Plethora.
Excellent video and being a devout Endlesss user I hope you were going to mention it 👍 Also Endlesss is now completely free to use, no subscriptions. They dropped the paywall last week. Awesome community too ♥️
Of all your vids, these 62hp rigs are my favorites. I’m putting together a little case for a trip next month and combing your back catalog for ideas. Thanks, Alex! (Edited to add: The day we see you present a system without a Turing machine we will know that is your secret duress signal and alert the authorities. 😜)
Yes! Awesome! I've gone back to my traditional instruments lately, just because of the unquantized funky timing of things, but I bet a modular looper system combined with maybe a Landscape AllFlesh kit could actually sound incredible!
yeah, loopers have been my safety net for the past 3-4 years. I started with the KaossPad3 looper (having it midi synced is amazing), then moved to Abletons looper and now I am using a couple iOS loopers. You can easily make infinite music with a simple voice, a touchy sequencer, a looper and a bunch of drum samples, as well as being a great way to bring recall parts during a set (as a sort of "chorus" or theme that goes through out)
Do you use Enso? What interface do you use? I’ve been doing guitar loops with the behringer uca222, but need midi if I want to start using it for live techno.
Excellent video! How would you use Octatrack to replicate such a looper? I would like to use it with DFAM, M-32 and some iPad synth apps as well as for samples from Octatrack. Thank you in advance.
Electro-Harmonix 95000 looper pairs really nicely with a small modular setup. Syncs really well with Pams clock via MIDI and my CVOCD. And you have the option of then mixing down the 6 tracks to a master track, which frees up those 6 tracks for new loops. Maybe the Boss can do that too?
I had an RC202 and it's so immediate. Decided to sell it and concentrate on using the Octatrack with the modular in this way but I haven't nailed it yet - takes far more practice.
I wonder if there are any pedal loopers with armed monitoring - so you don't need to handle volume knob on a module to kill audio input. Sth like Instruo Lubadh has.
the 1010 black box is really fun for this purpose too and you could have more than 5 slots, apart from cv clock, so no need for midi in case your system dont have it.. nice video. cheers
I just ordered the 2HP Loop for reasons like this. Obviously it doesn't have the capacity of the RD-505, but I think it's a good way to start. As far as drums go, I used a 4MS Pod to add in the Tiptop 808 Kick, OH/CH, and snare modules and a Euclidian sequencer. I can use this pod with any of my gear and get some super funky rhythms.
I've tried doing similar things but on a smaller scale with a Harvestman Time Safari and Sound Machines Uloop but the Time Safari is way too dirty and both have buffers of maybe not even 10 seconds so i tend to use them more for spoken samples from movies etc. Looks like it may be time to dig out my TC Electronic Ditto×4 pedal.
Amazing vids.. So.easy to watch and understand. The 505 is one of the best machines I have ever used so much fun with a decent mic.... I am after the Mk2 now... I've used the Tr8s , microfreak , Volca bass with the 505..
i considered to buy the RC 505 mk2. has some great new editions. but the disting ex has a lovely lovely looper as well in its single mode!! i have 2 in my system and you can do fun stuff with it!! the vpme QD as a drum modle could work amazing with this set up. i personally never heard a better drum module!! absolutely love the QD to death!!
I've been playing around using Norns running MLR as a looper. It has the advantage of also being able to cut up t he recorded buffers (and recording the cuts), as well as being able to load samples into the buffer.
Why only now and not 10 years ago.....? But I’m glad you make this one. Only need a Boss RC-505 mkII and no more VCA’s VCO’s VCF’s LFO’s Multiples cases etc. Maybe Colin Benders should take a look at this.😂
Excellent video! After Blawan's Thomann video I was wondering how he was using the looper and you made a great explanation, of course he cut the volume of the modular after the recording was done! One question: why don't you use the drum machine models on Plaits for the kicks and hats?
thanks!! Well you totally could do that - my thinking is to dedicate a section to drums and a section to voices to speed up the process of accessing one of them, followed by the other in really quick succession. As mentioned I think I’d actually prefer to go one further and actually have a few drum modules in the case to make this instantaneous as I fear fumbling around trying to find drums (which need to change on the fly to remain interesting more than melodies do) and then keep them evolving. If you’re in the studio though it’s all academic, you could pretty much just try plaits plus ears and go a long way to making music - consider that the RC-505 has decent built in effects too!!
I eventually made it to this video after beginning research in making live music. Can the 505 be used with Moog Semi Modular Synths like the Minitaur and Mavis, and also a Roland V-Drum electric drumkit?
what i've learned in the first 8 minutes is that I need to use more looping with my Octatrack and that I can use the Noise Plethora as a harsh noise machine for other stuff
This video makes me wish I could get faster/more performance-oriented with my reflex liveloop instead of just using it as a FSU module. Also, the beginning jam is my favorite sounds of yours I've ever heard.
Very cool! My current looper is just the old DD-20's Sound on Sound mode, so it's very bare-bones; seeing what you can do with a more modern unit is great. Having clock sync is particularly interesting to me, and I'll have to keep that in mind for the future. (The DD-20 does have an external tap-tempo pedal jack; I built a gate-to-S-trig cable so my Eurorack stuff can sync the pedal's delay modes to a clock or LFO, but the looper portion doesn't do more than record, play, overdub, stop.)
Really neat noise / percall combination, very dynamic, wild sounds. Maybe I missed it but is it easy to set up odd polymeters on the 505 for funky variable lengthed loops like 5 steps on one channel and 7 on another?
With "loop sync=on" you can set the measure of the master track, and different measures (in integers) for each track. This way you can create poly-metric stuff easily.
Would you ever consider making a video on a starter Eurorack system as an extension of a semi-modular synth like the Grandmother? Thanks for the great content ❤
Regarding the no-kick-in-the-case conundrum, how about using the CV.OCD for MIDI sync (you could probably use some MIDI out from the RC-505 to control the modular too with it), get a 1U logic module, and a li'l 2HP kick. Done. :)
Have you ever dug into the Joranalogue Switch? I imagine you have but it's a pretty genius routing option. I use two of them side by side for most of my trigger routing.
Although, the Morpho is really out there for various reasons, unfortunately, looping (or precise looping) isn't one of them. I would go for the 4ms for looping.
Morphagene can easily do precise looping, I use it for that all the time, getting an arpeggio going for instance, recording it, then fading between the live arpeggiator and however many recorded ones, then add modulation. There are some videos out there showing how to set up play and record clocks to keep it in sync.
Please help talking 1010 music in updating the blackbox. If they added a little script copying 1 button looper behaviour selectable for each pad, and couple it via midi learn to a footswitch, theyd blow boss out of the water. 16 track looper. Or just 8 . The rest for samples sequencing etc. man what a box. If it just had batteries...
Ok, the squid by toriaz, it has the retro record thing. It's my favorite thing about that at Sequencer. The are some things that aren't perfect about that sequencer, which is a shame. They seem to not be too receptive to comments and recommendations, which is a shame because it could be the greatest sequencer of all time but it's not but it's close. And it records everything you do and when you do something cool you hit the button and there it is I love it there should be more like it
It does indeed, but still it’s not the same both sonically and functionally as having a dedicated kick drum module that’s live (so can be always adjusted/pattern changed mid-bar), I think while you can absolutely improvise all the drums from scratch, it’ll help a lot to have a kick outside the looper - if we’re talking about making club stuff, which a key part of what’s in my mind with this.
This kind of system with a dedicated drum machine or vcv patches to accompany it would be real good, drum machine for pre-practiced part/song changes and the modular with looper as the lead guitarist 😂
I’ve been having some sync issues connecting my 505 to my expert sleepers fh2 via 5pin midi. Sometimes it will skip which throws off my loops. Is there anything you did to solidify the sync within the 505?
Possible alternative? How about a low powered - and cheap - windows tablet with a VST host, running Augustus Looper? As many instances of looping as the CPU can cope with, plus probably a record facility in the host. Plus you have access to the hugest free pool of FX and synths available, OK - latency needs t be planned for but the vastly increased options for other tools may offset that problem?
Great breakdown thanks! One question - having to turn the volume down on the modular when the loop starts playing to avoid doubling, seems a little clunky. Is there no way to get the 505 to automatically mute the input once the track begins playing?
I don’t think so unless I’m missing something - part of the conceit of the looper is it loops what you just played, so it’s critical that the audio be audible to the audience AND you as you record, and since the assumption perhaps on Boss’ part is you’ll be playing a live instrument into it, they assume you’ll just stop playing that instrument when the loop is played in full - we don’t have that luxury of course with sequences gear, but we have to stop our gear from making sound nonetheless too.
This Rc 505 topic is still not solved for me.... Luv the Layout and we don't have to talk about the necesarity of a looper in a lil setup..... But i heard so much bad about the sound quality of the mark 1, is this true in your opinion? Hugs and keep it up
Sound quality sounds absolutely spot on to me, you only have to look at the amount of shows people have played on that device and ask yourself if there is some kind of undiscovered issue?!
Nice Video! One small thing which threw me off though. It’s not quite clear if you’re syncing the 505 to MIDI clock coming from the modular or the other way around. The way you explain it, the details re sync are conflicting. I only understood it after seeing that you have the MIDI cable in the MIDI output of the 505. So for the record, if anyone else is trying to figure this out: The 505 is providing the master clock.
I'm curious about how this handles multitrack - i have 2 stereo outputs from my modular rig and i think this looper only has one stereo output / merges all its work into that one output? that would make multitrack recording a pain
Yep it does. I think you can use the aux as an extra out. The 505MKII has more outs though! In use for me at least it’s not a problem with the mixed output since it’s a live tool - it’s about committing and printing and working fast!! If you mess something up, do it again.
11:58: It's like a digital trashcan :D ! I think this make quite a lot of sense (similar to a sampling workflow, but live). A small rack brings more consistency to musicians sound too; less clutter. This would really rock with: a cue/headphone system, and synced volume controls (so you don't have to be as quick )
This was my thought as well - interesting that it was not brought up here - I noticed that Blawan does not monitor his similar setup while working either.
Is the 505 a midi slave or the master clock? If slave, does it sync well? Thx for the video btw :) very inspirational, looking forward to getting mark 2
@@mylarmelodies Thx for the link and for clarifying :) Not sure if I missed it or you didn't mention it. It's a bit of a mystery for me why some people seem to have more troubles making it slave than others.
Have you seen anyone use the 2hp loop to incorporate looping straight into the rack? It seems like a great small scale module but I haven't seen much dialog about it
Aka why I need to dare to dive into the manual of the Reflex liveloop. Also gotta love the noise plethora in there just days after it officially came out.
I would love some feedback on this module. I've been lurking on it for ages, but wasn't ready to take the dive, and the informations around it are quite obscure
Befaco sent me it! Couldn't have been better timed. Didn't know anything about it then was like..."Oh. This is basically the perfect thing for this case idea". Instant Autechre drums combined with the Percall.
Sorry I was speaking about the Reflex Liveloop @Bastian van Hoorn mentionned ! But yeah the Noise Plethora sounds wicked and perfect for those blipz blopz glitchy drumz !
@@MrPeyghman The thing is a dangerous beast. It's by far the most feature-packed module I have but that has its obvious trade-off with an immense learning curve and general usability. However the parts of the module that I have managed to learn so far have been amazing. I originally bought it for live glitching drums for which it is amazing, and it serves well as an echo. However there's so much more stuff in it: 2 different looper modes, and slice mode where you can live record a bunch samples and play them back at will. Again tho, using those modes is not super intuitive or easy, but with patience, practice and some creativity it can get you almost anywhere.
Loopers are freaking fantastic. Especially the RC-505. I think every musician should have one. Sure, they're not great for composing songs with, since a short loop generally doesn't go anywhere... but they're _awesome_ for exploring and jamming and just zenning out into a flow state of musical meditation.
Another looper-like device which works well is the Akai Force. It's not quite as immediate or as intuitive as the RC-505, but it has one huge advantage -- instead of 5 clips, it has 8 tracks with unlimited clips each. So you can, if you want, actually record and arrange entire songs... instead of just having a jam session. It has a much higher ceiling, so to speak, with more room to grow. I'm loving mine so far, and my last jam session turned into a coherent 7-minute song. Oh, um, and it has retrospective recording... at least for midi. It's always listening, and can insert whatever you just played, after the fact, even if you weren't recording explicitly at the time. So there is at least one hardware device which has this type of feature. About 16th-note triggering, it also has a nice solution for that. There's an on-grid arpeggiator with a note-repeat mode, and it works particularly well for finger-drumming on the pads. I typically play in my drum parts real-time , intuitively, and it typically only takes a couple overdub passes to get bass, other bass, snare, clap, hats, and cymbals. It can be especially helpful to do an 8th-note pass and then a 16th-note pass, for more varied and interesting timing. Making a beat hardly takes any time at all, so it's not much work to have unique drum sequences for each scene.
@@quilrosaeh I don't generally do videos of the process, but if you'd like to hear some of the results, I have a couple on my channel and plan to post more periodically as I finish things. My usual process, though... is to tap in a tempo, hit record, then hit a pad to record into an audio clip. I'll hum a melody in my head, and when it feels like it reached a pattern break, I'll tap the next pad down to start a new scene. When that's done, I have a few scenes worth of melody to use as a scaffold for the rest of the song. After that, I'll generally play in the melody on a synth, and mute the original voice track. Then play in a bassline, tap in some drums, add some chords or arps or something, add a second melody, etc... and pretty soon, I've got the whole grid filled out. This can then be performed into the arranger to make a rough song... and then tweaked until I feel I've done enough, and then render to a .wav. There's also generally a lot of noodling and experimenting along the way, which is fun. Sometimes some manual editing of midi data to clean up sloppy performances. And a lot of scrolling through patches to decide which sounds fit. The most recent song I made this way was "Lazy River". I woke up with a song in my head, so I wrote it down before breakfast... and then uploaded it later in the day.
Are there any modules good for looping in this fashion? Would love to incorporate something similar into my case. I could probably sync my rc-5 as well
@@mylarmelodies thank you I’ll check those out! Almost wondering if I could use a few 2hp Loops plus a lapsus os to mix between loops in a similar fashion. More research to do lol
I love all your videos Alex, often watching them I get the feeling that I need more, but I’ve just come to understand that what I actually need is to DO MORE
That's the spirit!!
@@mylarmelodies But also I need more...
Ha
I've recently added a few loopers into my rig... A Magneto... and a 2hp Loop, which is killllller... so far I've been using it inline with my DFAM! I can set up a hat loop and then add more on top, or set up a polyrhythmic loop over top of the dry signal!! Has a great dry/wet blend knob. So rad and small.
im looking into the 2hp loop myself. is there a way to sync two or more of them? looks fun and simple enough for improvising tracks
I love my 2hp loop
2hp loop is great when used with a clock divider too!
@@thinthinwalls should be able to! you can trigger the record with a gate, so you can just mult that to start them all at the same time. I'm seriously considering a second one of these!
Hey, can you tell us, does the 2hp Loop start recording when a. Gate goes high, then stop recording when it goes low?
Whoop Whoop. Welcome back. You are my very favourite you tuber. Many moons ago you hooked me into modular with your amazing Morphagene vid. 3 years later, I have contributed to a book on performing with modular and made an album with its power.
Thanks for everything you do. 👏🙏👏🙏👏❤️
This is so fun. I don't know how you always manage to create such distinct vibes in each of your videos.
Thank you!! x
I bought the RC-505 a few months ago - one of my best musical gear purchases. This combined with my JD-Xi has been a great combo. I bet paired with a modular would be phenomenal.
Thumbs up for Octa! The best live looper.
I’ve just tried my 1010 blackbox as a looper and it had all the right features! The only thing lacking is an overdub function, but with 16 tracks I should be fine. Really excited to get into live techno with my 6U case!
This is great. In the 5 years since I first watched you make a case out of cardboard and then demo Clouds( which i immediately went out and bought as my first module),this is the first time that I've ever been on the same page as you in terms of gear and technique - almost. That has given me some hope that I'm not doing this all completely wrong😂. I got the 505 after watching the Blawan clip and I'm using it to grab complete loops, letting that run whilst I make some changes to the rack and then cross fade between them. I'm going to try your way of layering too. Currently toying with the idea that the Deluge might be able to replace the 505, add drums and sequence. Thanks for another excellent demo..
Nice one!! Yeah lot of folks saying the Deluge is amazing. And hah, it’s taken years of being told “loopers are amazing” for it to really sink in - I guess it’s just not something you see a lot of artists using, with some very notable exceptions!
Could you make a version of this with the Moog sound studio esp. DFAM? I am really into the DFAM thanks to you and now you sold me the idea of the looper, which would also help multiply DFAM voicing.
This would be fantastic!
I'm using a 1010music blackbox as a looper (together with a Polyend Seq sequencer). That's why I only need one mono synth (Norand Mono), one nice sounding 8-voice wave synth (Argon8 M) and one drum (Nord Drum 3P). Love it.
Strong recommendation here - the black box is perfect, designed for modular level audio, small, and has up to 16 tracks (or a mix of loops and drums).... far from perfect but a great bit of kit for modular.
This deserves to be your most watched video, man. I find the way this expands the modular into a full setup via something else is a very underrated aspect of how people make music. As modular content creators get more gear, things become very... "lets bring 70k worth of kit to the gig lul", and less relatable to "normal people", with a reasonably sized rig.
Lol yeah I have the 505... I just need the 3 grand for the rest :-p
I can still try to make due with my cheap behringer monosynths and my microfreak. Actually this video is inspiring because I haven't had had my RC-505 make friends with my synths. I've been too busy trying to keep my analog signal path separate from my digital / solid-state / inbox setup. I'm now seeing the error in my ways.
Thanks Andreas!! And yeah agreed. If there was ever one 'secret hack' that gets so often missed, it's this (and I count myself in missing it for all these years!)
You read my mind dude... I've been praying for you to get blawan on to show his setup. Now you are on it... Amaaaaazing
Literally on Boss website looking at the 505 and this shows up in my feed. This is quite the convincing argument!!
Great video, this has helped me re- think looping 👍🙌
when i do over dubs on my 505 i sometimes move the balance over on the mixer before it gets to the loop station. then swap sides when i add the next part on the same channel. that way you still maintain a sense of space when your stacking sounds.
still waiting for that multi-buffer looper in eurorack... the layout of the 505 as a mixer as well is so ergonomic.!! Raw Yaw Media Torus *might* be that but they are very cagey on saying exactly what it does and how it works... hopefully an in-depth demo video will come out
I’ve been thinking the Micropitch and Blackhole might be great, easy ways to expand the Sound Studio. I think this is a great example.
Brilliant ideas 💡 mate! 😎👌❤️ Thanks for sharing!
I was just about to put my Boomerang loop pedal on reverb because I don’t play much electric guitar anymore (thanks to fine folks like you) and was thinking my reverb pedal wasn’t justifying the HP of intellijels 1u pedal I/O. Wow, thank you for this saving me from making a dumb decision.
Love this setup. I’ve been wanting an rc-505 for a long time to try this setup out. Gonna pull the trigger eventually.
Gonna try this with my deluge! Which can add its own drums and makes it easy to mute or pause the modules at the correct timing when a recording is done 🙂
Best looper pedal I've had was a TC Electronics Ditto X4. Midi looping so all your loops are synced and on-board FX like double or half made it very good for ambient.
I have an RC-505. It’s all that and more
Is there a way to sidechain a kick? By the end I couldn't hear the kick anymore.
Very cool and I've always been curious about these after seeing them in a few friend's setups. I would be interested in seeing it used with a more complex system with extreme modulation capability and sound design potential. Maybe time to investigate on my own!
I use my Squid Salmple like a looper and works well. I wish the 1010 Music Bluebox had a looper function that would be perfect. Erica Synths Black Code Source is a fun noise generator module like Befaco Plethora.
The 1010 blackbox works as a pretty nice looper, so it won't be coming to the bluebox really 😉
I made a eurorack LoFi Looper with ISD1820, it is incredibly fun especially with 4 or 5 of them doing different things.
Excellent video and being a devout Endlesss user I hope you were going to mention it 👍 Also Endlesss is now completely free to use, no subscriptions. They dropped the paywall last week. Awesome community too ♥️
Of all your vids, these 62hp rigs are my favorites. I’m putting together a little case for a trip next month and combing your back catalog for ideas. Thanks, Alex! (Edited to add: The day we see you present a system without a Turing machine we will know that is your secret duress signal and alert the authorities. 😜)
Ha, pray for me if that happens!
Yes! Awesome! I've gone back to my traditional instruments lately, just because of the unquantized funky timing of things, but I bet a modular looper system combined with maybe a Landscape AllFlesh kit could actually sound incredible!
Nais Input (mindblowing Strategys) >> i have a Ocean Machine Pedal with integrated Looper !
That simple logic based percussion quantiser. Very clever!
yeah, loopers have been my safety net for the past 3-4 years. I started with the KaossPad3 looper (having it midi synced is amazing), then moved to Abletons looper and now I am using a couple iOS loopers. You can easily make infinite music with a simple voice, a touchy sequencer, a looper and a bunch of drum samples, as well as being a great way to bring recall parts during a set (as a sort of "chorus" or theme that goes through out)
What iOS loopers do you use?
Do you use Enso? What interface do you use? I’ve been doing guitar loops with the behringer uca222, but need midi if I want to start using it for live techno.
Excellent video! How would you use Octatrack to replicate such a looper? I would like to use it with DFAM, M-32 and some iPad synth apps as well as for samples from Octatrack. Thank you in advance.
Electro-Harmonix 95000 looper pairs really nicely with a small modular setup. Syncs really well with Pams clock via MIDI and my CVOCD. And you have the option of then mixing down the 6 tracks to a master track, which frees up those 6 tracks for new loops. Maybe the Boss can do that too?
Boss is better
I've been using the RC-505 with synths for years - superb bit of kit
I had an RC202 and it's so immediate. Decided to sell it and concentrate on using the Octatrack with the modular in this way but I haven't nailed it yet - takes far more practice.
I wonder if there are any pedal loopers with armed monitoring - so you don't need to handle volume knob on a module to kill audio input. Sth like Instruo Lubadh has.
this is what i will do when I have modules! but it also works with drum synths etc. Shared to 505 facebook group...
thank you!!
the 1010 black box is really fun for this purpose too and you could have more than 5 slots, apart from cv clock, so no need for midi in case your system dont have it.. nice video. cheers
I just ordered the 2HP Loop for reasons like this. Obviously it doesn't have the capacity of the RD-505, but I think it's a good way to start. As far as drums go, I used a 4MS Pod to add in the Tiptop 808 Kick, OH/CH, and snare modules and a Euclidian sequencer. I can use this pod with any of my gear and get some super funky rhythms.
Yess ! Marc Rebillet would love this
you would make the most incredible school teacher dude
I've tried doing similar things but on a smaller scale with a Harvestman Time Safari and Sound Machines Uloop but the Time Safari is way too dirty and both have buffers of maybe not even 10 seconds so i tend to use them more for spoken samples from movies etc. Looks like it may be time to dig out my TC Electronic Ditto×4 pedal.
What’s wrong with the kick drum from plaits on a looper channel?
Amazing vids..
So.easy to watch and understand.
The 505 is one of the best machines I have ever used so much fun with a decent mic.... I am after the Mk2 now...
I've used the Tr8s , microfreak , Volca bass with the 505..
Why not get two uOCs running the squares and circles firmware? Each is 4 outputs of either drum dsp or synth voices including MI ports
Don’t know the squares and circles firmware, link?
thank you for this great video! does the Boss have a send / return for the fx or do you just go through the modular -> fx -> looper?
Yea that! I Print the effects
Inspiring stuff again, Alex, thanks loads! Been thinking about this approach for a while and it makes so much sense. Got to give it a try soon!
Going to try this tonight, I don’t have a looper but I have an es-8 and vcv rack 👍👍
i considered to buy the RC 505 mk2. has some great new editions. but the disting ex has a lovely lovely looper as well in its single mode!! i have 2 in my system and you can do fun stuff with it!!
the vpme QD as a drum modle could work amazing with this set up. i personally never heard a better drum module!! absolutely love the QD to death!!
ah I need to figure out how to use the looper in my Disting EX!
@@GuitarsAndSynths same here, I got a second one so that I can use the single mode algorithms, but I just keep using it for other things!
@@GuitarsAndSynths os did a lil video on the looper .just type disting ex looper. its a great looper. trust me!
I've been playing around using Norns running MLR as a looper. It has the advantage of also being able to cut up t he recorded buffers (and recording the cuts), as well as being able to load samples into the buffer.
Ooh. That’s a very interesting application, sounds like a good excuse to try norns.
I would love some help on how to sync the looper to the modular. You didn’t get into that in a way that I understand
Why only now and not 10 years ago.....? But I’m glad you make this one. Only need a Boss RC-505 mkII and no more VCA’s VCO’s VCF’s LFO’s Multiples cases etc. Maybe Colin Benders should take a look at this.😂
I’m a slow learner.
@@mylarmelodies 😂👍
Excellent video! After Blawan's Thomann video I was wondering how he was using the looper and you made a great explanation, of course he cut the volume of the modular after the recording was done!
One question: why don't you use the drum machine models on Plaits for the kicks and hats?
thanks!! Well you totally could do that - my thinking is to dedicate a section to drums and a section to voices to speed up the process of accessing one of them, followed by the other in really quick succession. As mentioned I think I’d actually prefer to go one further and actually have a few drum modules in the case to make this instantaneous as I fear fumbling around trying to find drums (which need to change on the fly to remain interesting more than melodies do) and then keep them evolving. If you’re in the studio though it’s all academic, you could pretty much just try plaits plus ears and go a long way to making music - consider that the RC-505 has decent built in effects too!!
@@mylarmelodies Totally makes sense! Melodies and drums require diffrent kind of sequencing, definitely better design to separate both in your system.
I eventually made it to this video after beginning research in making live music.
Can the 505 be used with Moog Semi Modular Synths like the Minitaur and Mavis, and also a Roland V-Drum electric drumkit?
absolutely, it can loop any audio, or mic!
Anyway you could explain the 505s MIDI set up and what I need to do get clock and midi data sent correctly
what i've learned in the first 8 minutes is that I need to use more looping with my Octatrack and that I can use the Noise Plethora as a harsh noise machine for other stuff
This video makes me wish I could get faster/more performance-oriented with my reflex liveloop instead of just using it as a FSU module. Also, the beginning jam is my favorite sounds of yours I've ever heard.
Very cool! My current looper is just the old DD-20's Sound on Sound mode, so it's very bare-bones; seeing what you can do with a more modern unit is great. Having clock sync is particularly interesting to me, and I'll have to keep that in mind for the future.
(The DD-20 does have an external tap-tempo pedal jack; I built a gate-to-S-trig cable so my Eurorack stuff can sync the pedal's delay modes to a clock or LFO, but the looper portion doesn't do more than record, play, overdub, stop.)
Really neat noise / percall combination, very dynamic, wild sounds. Maybe I missed it but is it easy to set up odd polymeters on the 505 for funky variable lengthed loops like 5 steps on one channel and 7 on another?
I second this question. I am interested in polyrhythmical looping. Could not find this in manual
With "loop sync=on" you can set the measure of the master track, and different measures (in integers) for each track. This way you can create poly-metric stuff easily.
Great video as usual! Btw where do you got these flat patch cables from?
Those are Tendrils cables - I should have shouted them out in the vid. They’re amazing, make everything so much more playable.
Would you ever consider making a video on a starter Eurorack system as an extension of a semi-modular synth like the Grandmother? Thanks for the great content ❤
This is wild
Such a fun inspiring video, and awesome shoutout to the Endlesss where your loops play with friends across the globe :D (Plus it's totally free now)
Regarding the no-kick-in-the-case conundrum, how about using the CV.OCD for MIDI sync (you could probably use some MIDI out from the RC-505 to control the modular too with it), get a 1U logic module, and a li'l 2HP kick. Done. :)
Thank you, this was just the inspiration I needed right now. You rock.
Have you ever dug into the Joranalogue Switch? I imagine you have but it's a pretty genius routing option. I use two of them side by side for most of my trigger routing.
One of my Patrons has one of those and it looks really smart. I bet it would be a good solution for this
The sp404-mk2 captures samples like endless.
Does itttttttt - thanking you. Will have a butchers
I’ve been meaning to run my modular through my mk2, might have to give that a shot soon!
Do you have any suggestions for good looper Eurorack modules? Magneto, Disting, and the Bitbox come to mind.
Disting EX, DLD, Morphagene come to mine - more I'm forgetting I'm sure
Although, the Morpho is really out there for various reasons, unfortunately, looping (or precise looping) isn't one of them. I would go for the 4ms for looping.
Morphagene can easily do precise looping, I use it for that all the time, getting an arpeggio going for instance, recording it, then fading between the live arpeggiator and however many recorded ones, then add modulation. There are some videos out there showing how to set up play and record clocks to keep it in sync.
Instro Lubadh?
You don't necessarily need an actual logic module to make an AND gate, a simple VCA works! :)
Dang VCAs being awesome again, it’s like you can’t have too many!
so good!
Does the RC-505 quantize your press to stop the loop to keep the lengths in lock, or do you have it set to "loop a quarter measure" or something else?
It does, AFAIK you can’t have half or quarter measures looping!
You made me buy one after contemplating whether to get one after studying live sets by Karenn. Thanks !
Please help talking 1010 music in updating the blackbox. If they added a little script copying 1 button looper behaviour selectable for each pad, and couple it via midi learn to a footswitch, theyd blow boss out of the water. 16 track looper. Or just 8 . The rest for samples sequencing etc. man what a box. If it just had batteries...
As soon as I saw the noise plethora I was like ah man why did I sell my percall!! I see it's exactly as good a pairing I had imagined!
Ok, the squid by toriaz, it has the retro record thing. It's my favorite thing about that at
Sequencer. The are some things that aren't perfect about that sequencer, which is a shame. They seem to not be too receptive to comments and recommendations, which is a shame because it could be the greatest sequencer of all time but it's not but it's close. And it records everything you do and when you do something cool you hit the button and there it is I love it there should be more like it
But Plaits has a kick as well!🧐
It does indeed, but still it’s not the same both sonically and functionally as having a dedicated kick drum module that’s live (so can be always adjusted/pattern changed mid-bar), I think while you can absolutely improvise all the drums from scratch, it’ll help a lot to have a kick outside the looper - if we’re talking about making club stuff, which a key part of what’s in my mind with this.
The 505 has seperate faders for each track, too.
Very inspiring video, thank you!
Fripp was so ahead of his time. 👽
This kind of system with a dedicated drum machine or vcv patches to accompany it would be real good, drum machine for pre-practiced part/song changes and the modular with looper as the lead guitarist 😂
I need recommendations for a good looper, preferably in eurorack form
I’ve been having some sync issues connecting my 505 to my expert sleepers fh2 via 5pin midi. Sometimes it will skip which throws off my loops.
Is there anything you did to solidify the sync within the 505?
Not sure there was anything special to be honest, maybe ask Expert Sleepers for any tips?!
I think a circuit rhythm can also be used as a looper Kind of and has other sampling ans Sequencing Features
Possible alternative? How about a low powered - and cheap - windows tablet with a VST host, running Augustus Looper? As many instances of looping as the CPU can cope with, plus probably a record facility in the host. Plus you have access to the hugest free pool of FX and synths available, OK - latency needs t be planned for but the vastly increased options for other tools may offset that problem?
Defo. Or an ipad and the Alesis IO DOCK running Loopy Pro?
Great breakdown thanks! One question - having to turn the volume down on the modular when the loop starts playing to avoid doubling, seems a little clunky. Is there no way to get the 505 to automatically mute the input once the track begins playing?
I don’t think so unless I’m missing something - part of the conceit of the looper is it loops what you just played, so it’s critical that the audio be audible to the audience AND you as you record, and since the assumption perhaps on Boss’ part is you’ll be playing a live instrument into it, they assume you’ll just stop playing that instrument when the loop is played in full - we don’t have that luxury of course with sequences gear, but we have to stop our gear from making sound nonetheless too.
@@mylarmelodies Octatrack does it perfectly
Can't you just turn off the inout to that channel?
This Rc 505 topic is still not solved for me.... Luv the Layout and we don't have to talk about the necesarity of a looper in a lil setup..... But i heard so much bad about the sound quality of the mark 1, is this true in your opinion?
Hugs and keep it up
Sound quality sounds absolutely spot on to me, you only have to look at the amount of shows people have played on that device and ask yourself if there is some kind of undiscovered issue?!
Nice Video! One small thing which threw me off though. It’s not quite clear if you’re syncing the 505 to MIDI clock coming from the modular or the other way around. The way you explain it, the details re sync are conflicting. I only understood it after seeing that you have the MIDI cable in the MIDI output of the 505. So for the record, if anyone else is trying to figure this out:
The 505 is providing the master clock.
That’s right! Sorry it wasn’t clear - RC-505 is indeed the master clock.
I'm curious about how this handles multitrack - i have 2 stereo outputs from my modular rig and i think this looper only has one stereo output / merges all its work into that one output? that would make multitrack recording a pain
Yep it does. I think you can use the aux as an extra out. The 505MKII has more outs though! In use for me at least it’s not a problem with the mixed output since it’s a live tool - it’s about committing and printing and working fast!! If you mess something up, do it again.
11:58: It's like a digital trashcan :D !
I think this make quite a lot of sense (similar to a sampling workflow, but live). A small rack brings more consistency to musicians sound too; less clutter.
This would really rock with: a cue/headphone system, and synced volume controls (so you don't have to be as quick )
This was my thought as well - interesting that it was not brought up here - I noticed that Blawan does not monitor his similar setup while working either.
How can synced volume control be implemented technically?
Octatrack can do that
Is the 505 a midi slave or the master clock? If slave, does it sync well? Thx for the video btw :) very inspirational, looking forward to getting mark 2
Master Clock! Have tried it as the slave to a TR8S in this jam, that worked well: ruclips.net/video/s7lb0-qR8CE/видео.html
@@mylarmelodies Thx for the link and for clarifying :) Not sure if I missed it or you didn't mention it. It's a bit of a mystery for me why some people seem to have more troubles making it slave than others.
Loopy Pro, my dude. Sick setup btw., really damn cool!
Have you seen anyone use the 2hp loop to incorporate looping straight into the rack? It seems like a great small scale module but I haven't seen much dialog about it
Really enjoyed this as with all your videos. Is there any reason why you chose this over a 1010 bitbox?
Handsonability - as shown so well by Blawan! Not really looked into the 1010 stuff, looks great though.
first synthline... instant thumbs up.
@mylarmelodies do you record your fx as well?
Yes - print as you go!
Aka why I need to dare to dive into the manual of the Reflex liveloop. Also gotta love the noise plethora in there just days after it officially came out.
I would love some feedback on this module. I've been lurking on it for ages, but wasn't ready to take the dive, and the informations around it are quite obscure
Befaco sent me it! Couldn't have been better timed. Didn't know anything about it then was like..."Oh. This is basically the perfect thing for this case idea". Instant Autechre drums combined with the Percall.
@@MrPeyghman Hopefully the vid answers some of that, tried to shoehorn in some demo to explain it, it's smart.
Sorry I was speaking about the Reflex Liveloop @Bastian van Hoorn mentionned ! But yeah the Noise Plethora sounds wicked and perfect for those blipz blopz glitchy drumz !
@@MrPeyghman The thing is a dangerous beast. It's by far the most feature-packed module I have but that has its obvious trade-off with an immense learning curve and general usability. However the parts of the module that I have managed to learn so far have been amazing. I originally bought it for live glitching drums for which it is amazing, and it serves well as an echo. However there's so much more stuff in it: 2 different looper modes, and slice mode where you can live record a bunch samples and play them back at will. Again tho, using those modes is not super intuitive or easy, but with patience, practice and some creativity it can get you almost anywhere.
Loopers are freaking fantastic. Especially the RC-505. I think every musician should have one. Sure, they're not great for composing songs with, since a short loop generally doesn't go anywhere... but they're _awesome_ for exploring and jamming and just zenning out into a flow state of musical meditation.
Another looper-like device which works well is the Akai Force. It's not quite as immediate or as intuitive as the RC-505, but it has one huge advantage -- instead of 5 clips, it has 8 tracks with unlimited clips each. So you can, if you want, actually record and arrange entire songs... instead of just having a jam session. It has a much higher ceiling, so to speak, with more room to grow. I'm loving mine so far, and my last jam session turned into a coherent 7-minute song.
Oh, um, and it has retrospective recording... at least for midi. It's always listening, and can insert whatever you just played, after the fact, even if you weren't recording explicitly at the time. So there is at least one hardware device which has this type of feature.
About 16th-note triggering, it also has a nice solution for that. There's an on-grid arpeggiator with a note-repeat mode, and it works particularly well for finger-drumming on the pads. I typically play in my drum parts real-time , intuitively, and it typically only takes a couple overdub passes to get bass, other bass, snare, clap, hats, and cymbals. It can be especially helpful to do an 8th-note pass and then a 16th-note pass, for more varied and interesting timing. Making a beat hardly takes any time at all, so it's not much work to have unique drum sequences for each scene.
@@ToyKeeper would be very interested to see how you do that !
@@quilrosaeh I don't generally do videos of the process, but if you'd like to hear some of the results, I have a couple on my channel and plan to post more periodically as I finish things.
My usual process, though... is to tap in a tempo, hit record, then hit a pad to record into an audio clip. I'll hum a melody in my head, and when it feels like it reached a pattern break, I'll tap the next pad down to start a new scene. When that's done, I have a few scenes worth of melody to use as a scaffold for the rest of the song.
After that, I'll generally play in the melody on a synth, and mute the original voice track. Then play in a bassline, tap in some drums, add some chords or arps or something, add a second melody, etc... and pretty soon, I've got the whole grid filled out. This can then be performed into the arranger to make a rough song... and then tweaked until I feel I've done enough, and then render to a .wav.
There's also generally a lot of noodling and experimenting along the way, which is fun. Sometimes some manual editing of midi data to clean up sloppy performances. And a lot of scrolling through patches to decide which sounds fit.
The most recent song I made this way was "Lazy River". I woke up with a song in my head, so I wrote it down before breakfast... and then uploaded it later in the day.
The Loopy Pro update coming out soon would be amazing with this setup!
OK that does look amazing! Definitely will be everything you could want, especially with some added midi controllers
We must be just about due for another MylarMelodies Suggested System?
Are there any modules good for looping in this fashion? Would love to incorporate something similar into my case. I could probably sync my rc-5 as well
Quite a few although not as dedicated as the RC-505, see other comments but: 4ms DLD, Morphagene, Disting EX for starters
@@mylarmelodies thank you I’ll check those out! Almost wondering if I could use a few 2hp Loops plus a lapsus os to mix between loops in a similar fashion. More research to do lol
it would be interesting to try that with a Roland MC-707 and 8 looper tracks.