Simple Looper function with Ampero Control Midi Pedal

jeff

For host sync recording, there are two options. You either record some number of beats as defined by the host transport or some number of bars. You can record any number of beats/bars but you can't record less than one beat. You can think of it as a form of quantization or delayed action, when you start Record it waits for the next Beat or Bar, then recording begins and goes on as long as you let it. When you end Record, it rounds off the loop so that it contains one full Beat or Bar at the end.

Most people use Bar sync. Beat sync is usually used if you want to record odd numbers of beats that don't match the host and the loop phases in and out relative to the host pattern.

Regarding changing tempo and changing loop length without pitch shift...no, you can't do what you want with audio loops. Once recorded, loops will not resize themselves to track the host. This is a variant of what most systems call "time stretch", it is a notoriously difficult problem to do in real-time without adding annoying audible artifacts.

windplayer

At first… Thanks for your patience!
There was no „scripts“-folder within the „Mobius“-folder... Yes, this was the problem. I have created a „scripts“-folder and put the scripts in it. Now, it works.

Considering the time stretch-function. I would like to use it for practicing. I would then have to record the Mobius loop (and overdub) in Reaper and use Reapers time stretch-function? Is this the best way? - I thought, there would be a time stretch function within Mobius itself - or am I wrong. Perhaps via script? - now, I know how to use it. ;-)

SchrodingersCat

windplayer I'm curious about how you are wanting to practice. What instrument are you using? Can you tell me a little more about what you are trying to achieve. In an earlier post you mentioned using Reaper to provide a metronome and recording a loop in Mobius. Is this to provide a "backing track" to play over when you practice or something more complex?

jeff

windplayer "There was no scripts folder". That's very strange, this may be a bug in the installer, it is supposed to always be there.

jeff

Yeah, if you're practicing with backing tracks and you want to time stretch those backing tracks, that is best done in Reaper or some other tool before you start so it can process the audio for the best audible result.

If you want to record a loop live in Mobius then time stretch that, you can't do that live. It would be a multi-step process. 1) record a loop in Mobius, 2) export loop to a file, 3) run time stretch algorithm on it, 4) import result back into Mobius or Reaper.

On-the-fly time stretch is just not something that is easy to do without specialized DSP hardware and/or expensive commercial algorithms. Mobius 2.x had rudimentary time stretch capabilities, but the algorithm didn't sound very good, and it added a huge amount of latency so in practice few people used it. Any form of pitch shifting is best done offline and imported rather than performed live.

What is closer to possible is time stretch of MIDI sequences. There you're just working with a few numbers rather than enormous blocks of audio samples. Mobius can do that to a degree with the "follow" options, but it won't follow host tempo yet.

windplayer

I think for now I’ve got what I need. I’m using Möbius as a VST3 in Reaper. I play a wind controller, which I use to layer individual sounds over the loop. I got the Ampero pedal so I can control the looper with my feet. For now, I mainly need it for two things:
a) layering loops (classic use case),
b) recording a loop as a backing track to practice with.

Especially for case b), I would find it useful to be able to slow down the tempo. It’s a pity that this isn’t possible. When I’m on the go, I use the iPad. There, with a looper (Quantiloop), it’s possible to slow down the tempo while keeping the pitch the same. I thought maybe Möbius could do that as well. Too bad that this feature was removed in the latest update. The slightly worse sound quality wouldn’t bother me.

Thanks again to both of you for your help. What do you think: is it a good idea to consult an AI for smaller questions as well? What kind of information would you need to “feed” it so that it doesn’t come up with nonsense? Specifically with Möbius, it has often led me astray. I assume that has to do with the different versions and the corresponding manuals.

I’d also find it interesting to create scripts with the help of AI. Do you think that could work? I found a scripting guide for Möbius from 2012, but it’s probably not fully up to date anymore.

jeff

I've had a few requests to restore the old pitch shifting feature. I find the artifacts too severe for my use, but others don't mind. I'll get to that eventually.

There are two related things in the works, though I can't say when they'll be available. The first is async or offline pitch shift. What that basically does is repitch a loop using a multi-second process that happens in the background, then when it is ready it deposits the loop in a new location (or overwrites the source loop). For things like just raising a backing loop up a third or whatever, that's enough for cases where you don't really care if you need to pause for 5 seconds to get the loop repitched. The hard part of pitch shift is doing it live as you play and expect it to track immediately. If you don't need that, then we can use much better sounding algorithms to do the shift while you wait. You can accomplish this by exporting loops to files and editing them with other tools, but it's a laborious process , it would be much easier if it was all built-in to Mobius.

The second thing is tighter integration with 3rd party pitch shifting plugins. There are a few out there that do a really good job in real-time, but the knowledge required to make those is very specialized and they all cost money. Products that have built-in pitch shifting typically license the technology from other sources, which is an option when you're charging a few hundred dollars for software, but for free software it isn't an option for me. But what I can do is allow people to buy whatever pitch plugin they want, and make use of that in a way that it feels like it is built-in to Mobius, even though it's two different things in the host.

alexs1

jeff The second thing is tighter integration with 3rd party pitch shifting plugins. There are a few out there that do a really good job in real-time, but the knowledge required to make those is very specialized and they all cost money.

FWIW, Devious Machine's PitchMonster is pricey but pretty tight with polyphonic zero-latency pitch-shifting. It can also be controlled via MIDI, which makes for some routing options in Mobius, i.e., recording a MIDI loop that then manipulates the audio output of an Audio Track. Even then, it's not always perfect, though some of the jitter can be used more craftily as its own effect.

windplayer

jeff
„The first is async or offline pitch shift.“
Such a feature would be fine. Are you planning to release it in near future?

jeff

Don't get me started on AI....it is incredibly hyped right now, and you can't believe half the things you read about it.

You're not going to find the various AI tools to be of any help with Mobius. You're probably thinking of "large language models" (LLMs) that are getting a lot of press. For those to do anything useful, they need a large amount of example data to analyze, and a lot of guidance in training them to analyze that data. In theory they could be used to assist with Mobius script generation, but there simply aren't enough of those to "feed" it to allow it to generate anything useful.

I'm in the process of releasing far more comprehensive documentation on the scripting environment which is long overdue.

windplayer

I just thought about the integration of a 2nd software... Audacity is free and has good time stretching features for wav-files. I think is the best way to modify wav-files of Mobius and transfer them back.

SchrodingersCat

windplayer I've been thinking about your practising scenario. If you are using a wind controller, does that mean you are sending MIDI signals to Reaper into a MIDI track and using a virtual instrument plug-in rather than sending an audio signal from the controller? If that's the case then for practice purposes you might have the option of just using Reaper. Presumably you know that you Reaper's transport control has a loop button? It's the button just to the right of the play button. It also has a "Rate" knob on the right hand side which you can use to change the playback speed. If your track is recorded as MIDI you wont get a pitch change when you change the rate.

This won't get you live looping functionality, but could it be enough for your practising needs.

Mobius does have the ability to use MIDI tracks as well. You need to explicitly set a track to be MIDI rather than Audio. I know Jeff is still working on some of the functionality. When I had a little play I couldn't get Mobius to change the speed of the MIDI track once I'd recorded it though. That could be down to me or it could be that's not been implemented yet, but I'm pretty sure Jeff discussed being able to do this at some point in a forum post.

Full disclosure: My use of Mobius is primarily for Guitar playing, but I do dabble with using a MIDI keyboard, usually sending an audio signal from a virtual instrument plugin into Mobius. I used to play Trumpet and am kind of interested in adding a MIDI wind controller to my list. So far the price of entry has put me off. I'm not sure I want to spend the money involved for one of the proper models, but I'm wondering how far I could get using one of the cheap things you see online. What's you experience been?

windplayer

Thanks for your tips on looping in Reaper. I’ll definitely give that a try. It sounds more promising and easier than copying WAV files back and forth.
I’ll probably use Möbius mainly for pure looping. It’s great that such a functional looper is freely available. Up to now I had only used the old Guitar Rig Looper (Loop Machine) and GLoop (Gvst). The difference is huge. The free assignment of pedal buttons is fantastic and makes hands-free looping much easier.

To your question: Yes, it’s actually the case that I send MIDI signals with the Windcontroller to Softsynths, which then process the signals accordingly.
What common Windcontrollers produce in terms of built-in sounds (if they even have an internal synth) is rather poor. If you care about realistic instruments that should sound good (e.g. saxophone), the instruments from Audiomodeling for Windcontrollers are highly recommended. If you happen to have Reaktor, there are also some instruments in the User Library available for free.
If you’re more into synth sounds, there’s also quite a bit of free stuff nowadays that works well specifically with MIDI Windcontrollers (e.g. Windcontroller patches for Vital).

Among Windcontroller players there are different camps regarding which device is the best. I personally play the EWI4000s from Akai and am very satisfied. The successors (EWI5000, EWI Solo) are certainly not bad either, but by now there’s strong competition from the Far East (e.g. Greaten AP300 or 500, which blatantly copy Akai). The problem here, however, is that for defects you probably won’t find repair services as reliable as for Akai’s EWI product line. Some of these products also disappear quickly from the market.

If you’re coming from the trumpet, I’d recommend looking into the fingering options of the devices. On the EWI from Akai you also have, I believe, the option of a brass-like fingering (I personally come more from saxophone; here too, the EWI offers a comparable fingering).

Another device I find convincing—for on the go, also with iPad—is the Clarii mini, although it’s not exactly cheap. MIDI works via a built-in Bluetooth transmitter (with latency that’s actually acceptable for Bluetooth).

If you really only want to play into the computer and are fine with a USB cable connection, you could look for a used EWI-USB. For me, the perfect Windcontroller would be a mix between the EWI-4000s and the Clarii mini.

Roland also makes good Windcontrollers, but I don’t have much experience with them.

jeff

Fun discussion of wind controllers! I was a saxophone player in my youth and still have the OG Yamaha WX7 in my closet somewhere. Need to dig that out and see if it still works.

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