Re: Software: J-Looper-X (Plogue Bidule)

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

Title: Re: Software: J-Looper-X (Plogue Bidule)

At 3:03 PM +0100 11/24/07, Raul Bonell wrote:

> > 2007/11/24, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > I just ran into this software looper "Group" for
> > > Bidule. Anyone
> > > checked it out yet?
> > > http://www.plogue.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2930
>
> Wow... Holy Shit!...
> Let's go test it..

Gave it a quick functional run-through yesterday.  Quick, as in I merely opened the Bidule AU inside Live and blasted a few clips through there to see if it works.  Looks promising, but here are some specifics.

You need to have the latest version of Bidule.  I was a bit behind (0.94) and it kept giving me permissions errors when I'd try to open the Group.  An upgrade to 0.96 solved that.

It's a bit of a CPU hog.  With just this one AU/Group alone sitting idle in Live, I was just over the 40% CPU mark (this on a Macbook 2Ghz Core2Duo).  While processing, I could hear some clicks and pops as the load would occasionally spike, this was more of an issue while tweaking the controls in realtime.  This is not so much a consideration when using Bidule standalone, as the CPU only pops up to 22% while idle in that configuration.  That's still a lot for a single widget, but not insurmountable.

Basics: one stereo track, with Overdubbing and Feedback.  It'll run either synced to a host -- you plug in the beats/bars -- or free-run where you define in the loop length value, ala delay-line looping.  It has Pitch Shift (tape style; where it stretches the time simultaneously) and loop Reverse.  It also features individual sections for optional Distortion/Saturation as well as a section with about 7 different types of Filtering, each of which can be applied to degrade the loop on every iteration as it fades.

At first glance, pretty capable, although I was only able to dedicate about a half-hour to it.  I did notice some issues with changing pitch in realtime, but I think that was actually due to the extra load the calculations were placing on my box.  And I kept getting a looped click when I used the "clear memory" button in sync mode under Live, but no problems in free run.  I didn't get a chance to test out MIDI I/O, but I already know that's pretty solid in Bidule.

It's fun.  If you've got Bidule, give it a whirl.

Thanks for the link, Per!!!  :)

        --m.

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