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 Forum index » Instruments and Equipment » MIDI Controllers and Interfaces
Hardware MIDI Looper
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ClementVidal



Joined: Nov 26, 2013
Posts: 2
Location: France

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 5:50 am    Post subject: Hardware MIDI Looper
Subject description: Small hardware device that loop MIDI commands (like a regular audio looper...)
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Hello everybody !

I'm making music using looper since quiet some time now, i mainly use the Boss RC300 for looping audio signal comming from various devices.

I noticed that there was actually no real good Hardware device that can do not audio looping but MIDI looping.
So i decided to create my own solution:

A MIDI Looper !

It's is (or at least it will be, when the project will be finished !) a small device containing MIDI in/out/through connectors which record MIDI commands coming from the MIDI in (send from an external controller), and which send those commands over the MIDI out (to an external sound generator) and loop those commands over time...

I'm currently creating this project, and the entire solution is OpenSourced..

I'm also writing a blog about the development of the project: http://midilooper.wordpress.com/

I hope it will interest some of you !

Clément
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Cynosure
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Joined: Dec 11, 2010
Posts: 966
Location: Toronto, Ontario - Canada
Audio files: 82

PostPosted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

This is a cool idea. Ableton Live can do this in the session mode, but it would also be cool to have it in a small self-contained device.

Concerning the limitations you are running into - I think that you might be over complicating the project (or maybe you want it to do more than I am envisioning).

Why do you need an LCD?

If you quantize the notes then you can maximize the ram usage. You could think of it as a 128 stage step sequencer that is squeezed into 4 measures. That could be done with just two byte arrays and that gives a quantize resolution of 32nd notes. The only limitation would be polyphony. You would need to limit polyphony to the amount of ram available.
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ClementVidal



Joined: Nov 26, 2013
Posts: 2
Location: France

PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks Cynosaure!

I'm using a LCD screen to display information concerning the settings of the looper.

I'm planning to support up to 4 tracks, so the user can select, for each track on which MIDI channel note are send.

He can also select which MIDI Control Change trigger the "start record" and other various options...
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MusicMan11712



Joined: Aug 08, 2009
Posts: 1082
Location: Out scouting . . .

PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I took a quick look at your blog site. The idea of a midi looper might be useful. It would certainly be a good exercise in programming. l opted for a mega 2560 myself because I was interested in processing midi data. That has 4 uarts.

I may have missed it, but I didn't see a discussion of time. Nor of midi filtering. Let's say you only want to loop note data, you should have a filter to ignore all other midi data.

As for time, so far as I can tell you would need to store time somehow, not just the midi data.

Steve
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Cynosure
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Audio files: 82

PostPosted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Oh ok - I can see how multiple channels could eat away at the ram very quickly. Especially if each channel also records polyphonic midi data.

Have you tested using the MIDI Library to read and write to multiple channels? From what I recall, I set the channel during the initial setup function. I never tried changing the channel while the main loop was running. Please let me know if you figure out that part.
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