Gauss Field Looper update!

Will

@Gavinski said:

@syrupcore said:
@brambos is “tape editing” a thing on the potential horizon? I don’t mean full on wave editing. I’m thinking of the sorts of primitive (and destructive) edits one can do with a physical tape loop, a splicing block, a razor blade and a bit of luck/chutzpah.

Specifically, I find myself wanting to insert/cut silence before and after a recorded loop in order to adjust the frequency at which it repeats relative to other loops in the project. For long ambient style stuff.

The first track on Eno’s Music for Airports is probably a good example. He took bits from longer free form recordings and put them on tape loops with arbitrary blank tape on either side of each. Then, he edited each tape loop by either adding more blank tape or cutting blank tape to set how often each musical bit occurred.

You can kind of do this by changing the loop length after you have recorded, no? Though it it not letting you in this case choose whether the space comes before or after.

Hurrah! I didn’t even consider this as a possibility. Thank you! This absolutely works for my main use case (adding blank space vs trimming). Since the various Gauss instances/loops aren’t running in sync, it doesn’t really matter where the blank tape is inserted. Plus, the loop length parameter is modulatable! Take that, razor blade. If I find I need to offset the start of a loop for some specific reason I can always trigger play via midi.

brambos

@syrupcore said:

@Gavinski said:

@syrupcore said:
@brambos is “tape editing” a thing on the potential horizon? I don’t mean full on wave editing. I’m thinking of the sorts of primitive (and destructive) edits one can do with a physical tape loop, a splicing block, a razor blade and a bit of luck/chutzpah.

Specifically, I find myself wanting to insert/cut silence before and after a recorded loop in order to adjust the frequency at which it repeats relative to other loops in the project. For long ambient style stuff.

The first track on Eno’s Music for Airports is probably a good example. He took bits from longer free form recordings and put them on tape loops with arbitrary blank tape on either side of each. Then, he edited each tape loop by either adding more blank tape or cutting blank tape to set how often each musical bit occurred.

You can kind of do this by changing the loop length after you have recorded, no? Though it it not letting you in this case choose whether the space comes before or after.

Hurrah! I didn’t even consider this as a possibility. Thank you! This absolutely works for my main use case (adding blank space vs trimming). Since the various Gauss instances/loops aren’t running in sync, it doesn’t really matter where the blank tape is inserted. Plus, the loop length parameter is modulatable! Take that, razor blade. If I find I need to offset the start of a loop for some specific reason I can always trigger play via midi.

If you want to do it this way, I recommend setting the loop length to some arbitrary length, erase the loop and record using "Overdub". This will make sure the start and end of your recording will have a subtle fade in/out.

david_2017

@Gavinski said:

@syrupcore said:
@brambos is “tape editing” a thing on the potential horizon? I don’t mean full on wave editing. I’m thinking of the sorts of primitive (and destructive) edits one can do with a physical tape loop, a splicing block, a razor blade and a bit of luck/chutzpah.

Specifically, I find myself wanting to insert/cut silence before and after a recorded loop in order to adjust the frequency at which it repeats relative to other loops in the project. For long ambient style stuff.

The first track on Eno’s Music for Airports is probably a good example. He took bits from longer free form recordings and put them on tape loops with arbitrary blank tape on either side of each. Then, he edited each tape loop by either adding more blank tape or cutting blank tape to set how often each musical bit occurred.

You can kind of do this by changing the loop length after you have recorded, no? Though it it not letting you in this case choose whether the space comes before or after.

I already did this Eno-ish thing as Gavin described... that’s already working but not in the deep way you are requesting.. could be cool, butI dont have high hopes for this

oceansinspace

Thanks again all, the magic rhythmic part and pitch actually are now clicking and I know what Im doing! Cheers, and thanks Gav for pushing for that sync part. I love unsynched as well but a semi sync like bar is ace.

brambos

@oceansinspace said:
Thanks again all, the magic rhythmic part and pitch actually are now clicking and I know what Im doing! Cheers, and thanks Gav for pushing for that sync part. I love unsynched as well but a semi sync like bar is ace.

Retrigger is actually a feature of the Cocoquantus, and we were already discussing the merits of this feature for our app

PeteSasqwax

@brambos said:
Retrigger is actually a feature of the Cocoquantus, and we were already discussing the merits of this feature for our app

So, just to be clear, you're not ruling out that Bram X Peter Blasser iOS collaboration at this stage...?

(Btw - the Lines guys have been making PCBs for the Ciat Lonbarde "paper circuits" modules if you fancy getting your soldering iron out)

Gavinski

Oh, would love to see that collaboration. But I can't see it happening. Peter Blasser did not seem likely to be up for the idea of making an iOS app last time he discussed the idea when I sent in a question on this topic for him when he appeared on Hainbach's channel. In fact he didn't even discuss it, more just made some kind of disgusted facial expression and moved on to the next question 😂

oceansinspace

OH, thanks Bram that was the wooden unit eh. So cool. Cheers

echoopera

Decided to get lost in the deep end of the pool @brambos @Hainbach

Thanks again for such a wonderful instrument

rs2000

@brambos said:

@onerez said:
@brambos Maybe I am doing something wrong, but is there a way to snap to 100, 50 etc... tape speed with a midi controller? I still cant get it to stop at 100... its either 99 or 102. 😟

We discussed this issue in the other Gauss thread. This is something I haven't found an elegant solution for. The problem is: Gauss doesn't receive your MIDI CC messages. You're sending MIDI CC to the host and the host converts those into AU Parameter values which are then sent to the plugin.

How those CC values are converted to parameter values is up to the host (e.g. AUM does that, not Gauss). And the plugin itself will happily accept perfect values, such as 0.5, 0.25, 0.125 etc.

So I could try to be smart and anticipate how AUM converts those CC values... but that would mean you'll never be able to get those wonderfully crunchy 0.01x speed values because it would then always snap to "pause".

For this reason, I'd rather use dead zones instead of snapping.

(I've only sketched the center area but they could also sit at .125, .25, .5)

It would also mess up any recorded automation session in hosts which support that because when playing back the snap-behavior would make it sound different.

Can't MIDI control be separate from host AUv3 parameter control?

The cleverest thing I have come up with is only snapping to 1.0x speed and -1.0x speed and not the slower snap points (and only when snapping is enabled on the screen). But it feels like an ugly hack.

The 0-127 MIDI CC value range is quite simply not good enough for finely controlling speed

Indeed. And since speed comes with pitch, a finer resolution control source might be a better idea, like MIDI pitch bend maybe?

espiegel123

@rs2000 said:

For this reason, I'd rather use dead zones instead of snapping.

In my opinion, the separate parameter is much better than a dead zone. With only 128 possible midi values, dead zones would really bollocks things up. You can use the two parameters together (the non-snap and the snap parameter) easily enough to get the behavior that you are wanting using mozaic and/or streambyter (or using Drambo's logic tools I'd guess).

And depending how much of a range you want for speed values, you could also use AUM's parameter scaling to confine the range to one where it is easy to land on 1.0 with a specific MIDI number).

rs2000

@espiegel123 said:

@rs2000 said:

For this reason, I'd rather use dead zones instead of snapping.

In my opinion, the separate parameter is much better than a dead zone. With only 128 possible midi values, dead zones would really bollocks things up. You can use the two parameters together (the non-snap and the snap parameter) easily enough to get the behavior that you are wanting using mozaic and/or streambyter (or using Drambo's logic tools I'd guess).

And depending how much of a range you want for speed values, you could also use AUM's parameter scaling to confine the range to one where it is easy to land on 1.0 with a specific MIDI number).

My way of solving the CC to AU parameter mapping would be a simple Graphic Shaper in Drambo, it allows for both 'dead zones' and selected, custom fine-adjustable regions using a simple MIDI controller. This is most likely the most beneficial live setup, it could even be made to switch between different "response curves" by MIDI controller buttons.
The AUv3 would need to be hosted inside Drambo standalone of course.

brambos

But Drambo has the luxury of doing its own MIdI CC conversion. Gauss doesn’t receive MIDI, it receives AU Parameter values and it can’t distinguish between previously recorded values (which should be treated as is, without snapping) and Midi controller input (which needs the snapping).

The separate parameters (one for recording, one for remote control) was the only way to make the distinction in this case.

rs2000

@brambos said:
But Drambo has the luxury of doing its own MIdI CC conversion. Gauss doesn’t receive MIDI, ...

Ah OK, sorry, I didn't know that Gauss has no MIDI input.

Hosting Gauss inside Drambo would/might be an option though.

Edit: Just tried that with precise pitch control using the apeMatrix sampler, it works.

espiegel123

@rs2000 said:

@brambos said:
But Drambo has the luxury of doing its own MIdI CC conversion. Gauss doesn’t receive MIDI, ...

Ah OK, sorry, I didn't know that Gauss has no MIDI input.

Hosting Gauss inside Drambo would/might be an option though.

Edit: Just tried that with precise pitch control using the apeMatrix sampler, it works.

It is the case with any AU parameters you handle in AUM via MIDI Control (or any AU host that lets you manipulate AU parameters). Hosts send the parameter values to the AUs not MIDI events. So, if a host maps MIDI to the parameters it converts MIDI to parameter values (which have a much higher resolution).

In AUM, you can achieve improved granularity by using its range controls. So, if you choose 40%-60% it will map the MIDI range of 0-127 to 40% to 60% of the parameters range. It reduces the range of values but vastly increases granularity. AUM doesn’t let you map pitchbend or after touch to AU parameters. If it did that would also provide nice granularity or if it handled relative MIDI.

NoiseFloored

@brambos How is automation for this param going to work in a host like Cubasis, which allows recording just by interacting with the plugin's UI? Is it going to record both the original and the new "snapping" version of it or is this new param "input only" or something along those lines?

brambos

@NoiseFloored said:
@brambos How is automation for this param going to work in a host like Cubasis, which allows recording just by interacting with the plugin's UI? Is it going to record both the original and the new "snapping" version of it or is this new param "input only" or something along those lines?

The new parameter doesn't have a corresponding control in the UI, so in it won't be accessible unless the host gives access to AU parameters directly (either via drawing, entering values, or some other mechanism).

NoiseFloored

@brambos said:

@NoiseFloored said:
@brambos How is automation for this param going to work in a host like Cubasis, which allows recording just by interacting with the plugin's UI? Is it going to record both the original and the new "snapping" version of it or is this new param "input only" or something along those lines?

The new parameter doesn't have a corresponding control in the UI, so in it won't be accessible unless the host gives access to AU parameters directly (either via drawing, entering values, or some other mechanism).

Thanks for the explanation!

NoiseFloored

@brambos with loop decay, monitor and overdub enabled I've been experimenting using the tape as a delay, which coupled with the sequencer is giving me pretty interesting results (somewhat reminiscent of the Thermae pedal). To make it even more interesting, could it be possible to make the loop length shorter than 0.5 seconds?

david_2017

....

david_2017

Wasn’t Gauss impressing (sotospeak) the movements of the Filterknobs on the tape when i have overdub and record running? Like an additive mode?!

brambos

@david_2017 said:
Wasn’t Gauss impressing (sotospeak) the movements of the Filterknobs on the tape when i have overdub and record running? Like an additive mode?!

No, those are effects that are applied in realtime while playing only.

david_2017

@brambos said:

@david_2017 said:
Wasn’t Gauss impressing (sotospeak) the movements of the Filterknobs on the tape when i have overdub and record running? Like an additive mode?!

No, those are effects that are applied in realtime while playing only.

Thanks man. I thought i actually experienced that while playing around. But it seems not to be the case then

rud

Dearest Gaussers, please help. Is there a way to start Gauss recording by pressing play in AUM? I’m getting my head around ‘exposed parameters’ and can start recording via a ‘note’ but I’d like to record a guitar loop from the file player. Fingers crossed, cheers.

Carnbot

@rud said:
Dearest Gaussers, please help. Is there a way to start Gauss recording by pressing play in AUM? I’m getting my head around ‘exposed parameters’ and can start recording via a ‘note’ but I’d like to record a guitar loop from the file player. Fingers crossed, cheers.

You can assign a midi command for both record in Gauss and play in AUM so if assign the same midi command it should do what you want.
in "midi ctrl" on the AUM menu you can assign parameters for the transport controls

rud

@Carnbot thank you, at first I thought the exclamation mark in the yellow triangle was telling me I’d broken some kind of midi law but it worked. Cheers 👍

Bele

Does someone know a similiar plugin like this for windows?

david_2017

I dont know how it will sound but this should be pretty epic.
They listened to us and added this one feature of tape degradation which I so badly wanted. I think Christmas came late this year.... thank you so much @brambos for giving it another update round... hands down best 8.99€ I spent this year! period!

oceansinspace

yeah, It took me some time (as usual) but now its officially a niche looper I will use. The less degraded sound for less tape sounds seem kinda clear to me if I get settings right. Hails to Bram Bos and his collaborator.

hellquist

I have been using Kosmonaut a bit for doing "retrospective" looping, i.e. looping "what just happened" at a set amount of bars back in time (which can be quite a few bars if you set an external midi controller to that value). It is quite fiddly to get it "right" (seamless) though. Is that functionality in Gauss? Sorry for basic question, I don't know the terminology of "frippertronic" etc, so it might be obvious to the rest here.

Also, in Kosmonaut, one thing that I was missing was to have it start/stop at next Link cycle. Missing it just slightly would create weirdness and not do a seamless loop. I fully appreciate this usage isn't the main use case for Kosmonaut, so this isn't a complaint in the slightest (and it has been quite fun experimenting), but I was wondering if the loop recording in Gauss has a setting that allows it to be timed to the Link cycles? Much like AUM does perfect loops (if you press record whilst it is running it will start recording at the next cycle, etc).