Frippertronics without plugins

[PFN78]

Aside from buying some old cassette players, ripping them apart, and building a dedicated Frippertronics unit (I was seriously considering that), or perhaps buying two used R2R units, I came up with the following idea for simple Frippertronics in Ableton:

*Audio Track A will accept input from my audio interface and output it to Audio Track B;

*Audio Track B will have the normal I/O settings (input all, output to Master);

*Audio Track C will take input from Audio Track B and send it through a delay and then route it back to Audio Track B.

Now here's the kicker: how can I get the delay FX to delay the incoming signal from Track B by 3-5 seconds, and then repeat it only once before sending it back to Track B, ala a real life Frippertronics/R2R setup?

I'm trying to avoid having the delay FX "echo" the sound multiple times before sending it back to Track B, and I'm assuming I can control this by adjusting the feedback dial. But what about the initial delay itself? How can I adjust that?

Thanks!

[Angstrom]

Hmm, that's a strange way of going about things.

My understanding of his original Revox setup is essentially : it's a looper. Just like the Ableton looper. He used the record head of one Revox, the tape then travelled to the playback head of another Revox where the delayed signal was outputed. Some of this output was sent back to the first Revox, re-recorded. This is what he describes here:

. It's simply one reel of tape going from one machine into the other. The playback system from the right machine becomes the second input for he left machine. So, its not actually a loop, although in a sense it is, because the output from the second machine loops back into the first. There are limitations to the system, but limitations don't worry me. I accept limitations fairly happily.

http://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Inter ... r_article)

And here

RG: Could you simply explain the process of Frippertronics?
RF: Yes. I record on the left machine, the guitar is recorded on the left
machine, the signal passes along the tape to the right machine where it's
played back to the left machine and recorded a second time.
RG: OK.
RF: The signal recorded the second time passes along the tape to the right
machine where it's played back a second time and recorded a third.
RG: And at what point is it released into the room?
RF: Oh, straightaway.

http://www.loopers-delight.com/tools/fr ... onics.html


All he is describing is a very basic looper. What the revox sytem did have, which his later digidely setup did not, is tape satuation, wow&flutter. An unavoidable evil back then, but it gave the loop some additional life. The ableton looper has an insert point which allows us to put some instability in the loop. Its best to refer to the manual on how to set up the looper insert.

If I am missing some crucial detail about what you want, or understand his set up to be, let me know. I have made many, many looping setups. Almost all in software. My first one was cassette based, 1985. Idiosyncratic, but not a useful repeatble touring method to follow. Tape is still unreliable.

[PFN78]

I see what you mean. What I wanted to do is achieve that "it's not really a looper but kinda is in certain ways" effect...that is, it sorta loops but fades slowly/degrades slowly over time for a more realistic sound.

I'm assuming by adjusting the delay FX here and there I can get it to "mostly" loop but ever-so-slowly degrade (kinda like I did with my old Boss DD-3 pedal with a microphone and playing with the feedback knob to achieve a sort of loop).

Thoughts?

[Angstrom]

You can achieve the degradation using the Ableton Looper insert. Effectively it allows you to put any effects you want into the feedback path, (example EQ8->Saturator->something wobbly) so feedback loop-back one might be very slightly muffled->saturated->destabilised. Only very slightly. The next feedback is reprocessed by the same insert chain, and degrades the signal further.

That's using the Looper, and its insert.

If you would prefer to try this with Delays - here is my alternative method (actually I do this most often, because it's easy to set up)

1. Create a return channel,
2. allow it to return to itself (right click the return channel send knob)
3. add two Simple Delays and set them both to 0% feedback, 100% wet, 16 beats
4. slap a Saturator in there, map the Drive to a macro
5. also a Compressor, map the Ratio to a macro
6. whatever else you want
7. turn the return channels feedback up.

the amount of feedback is either controlled by the return-send, or by the saturator/compressor macros. You can get two different sorts of clean/degraded signal that way.


that's a looper you can now send onward to any further effects (eg a multi-tap delay, or a reverb). And if you wanted to send those additional effects into the loop, the sends allow you to do it very easily.

Example:

[PFN78]

So I got it successfully set up!

Two issues:

1) My singing voice sucks, so looping it sounds terrible. That's longer term...

2) Occasionally I'll get these massive spikes in volume on the audio track and return track. How can I stop this from happening?

BTW I am stuck using Live 8 Launchpad edition so I am limited in what effects I can use.

[re:dream]

Thank you for a great thread

1) My singing voice sucks,

If Brian Eno could release several classic records with his voice, you should not have problem.

[PFN78]

Thank you for a great thread

1) My singing voice sucks,

If Brian Eno could release several classic records with his voice, you should not have problem.

It's a matter of confidence. And not only Eno, but Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Gary Numan, Lemmy, etc.

EDIT: I also added a limiter VST to the return track with the two delays. Seems to keep the audio in line. Is this a good place or are there other places I should put it?

[Angstrom]

You can put a limiter in there, But it may cause issues. Anything with a look-ahead in a send-enabled return track will produce an incrementally increasing offset to your loop. When returns are send enabled they cannot calculate latency and correct it. So, its important that your looped compressor is set to 0ms lookahead. I think the limiter cannot have 0ms lookahead? Memory fails me.

I actually use a saturator as my limiter (like a revox!) any peaks are folded down by the waveshaping. No offsetting. My only problem is I dont have Fripp fingers. Diddly diddly widdly widdly, etc.

Side-quest, Fripp released a full tour of 1979 frippertonic gig bootlegs, using the revox setup. http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?artist=25&show=1459

"purchase tour : $60"