Re: electro harmonix 2880 w/footpedal **thoughts**

[Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net>]

Title: Re: electro harmonix 2880 w/footpedal **thoughts**

I have owned and/or used nearly every looper on the planet at one point or another. If I listen to what results I have produced, I would say that to me the music is interesting in inverse proportion to the bells and whistles on the looper.

At the top of my list is the Lexicon Jam Man. Even before I installed Bob Sellon's superior OS, this looper has a magical liquidity to the tone that others lack. When used with a MIDI foot controller, it's interface is quick and intuative.

The Repeater has lots of useless bells and whistles, the pitch and tempo control creates the most worthless artifact, and permanently corrupts the data if the tempo is altered before an overdub is recorded. The repeater is also beseiged by digital clocking noises. Perfect example of "Looks good on paper".

The EH 16 second delay has some ineresting features, such as knobs for all the functions. The time stretching is quite granular. The sound quality can be improved considerably. I modified mine.

The Echoplex pro has incredible software, but uses an antiquated conversion topology which uses pre-emphasis/ de-emphasis and  this makes the unit highly subject to aliasing (ever try a fuzzbox direct into it?). It also uses companding which alters the tone in a unique way. It's an instrument, right?

The Line 6 pedal is quite simple but you cannot defeat the direct signal path, which because it is digital, produces latency. It's only useful as a stompbox in line.

The Boss RC50 has far too many menues and pedestrian features. How do you start a new loop without the damn drum machine blasting your audience??

The 2880 falls somewhere in between all those loopers, it promises features found only on the repeater, but suffers from originality, so it is often harshly compared to the Repeater. It lacks any of the editing capability of the multi segment loopers, such as A/B loops. It certainly sounds better than the repeater. It's more like a crazy 4 track recorderd with a 2 track mixdown deck than a phrase looper, though it can be used this way.

CZ

> I've been really interested in the 2880
> recently and am thinking about picking it up.
>
> Right now I'm using the akai headrush to loop my sounds.
> Most of my songs are around the 5 minute range, and I create my loops
> using the headrush,
> but basically when I want to create a new loop with a different beat
> or melody, I have fade out the existing loop into silence
> and then start recording a new loop.
>
> I'd like the ability to transition into a new melody without any
> silence.
> So on the 2880, I'd create maybe a 4 layer loop on track 1..then when
> I'm bored of that melody, create a new loop on loop 2
> and then fade track 1 down to make the full transition to loop 2 and
> so forth.
>
> For those of you that are using the 2880,
> what are your biggest complaints?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Dan
>
> --
> kosukeweb
> http://home.comcast.net/~kkatayama76

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