it’s really hard to follow what you talk about when you don’t put breaks in your run-ons.

No, there’s not a feasible way to include microloops on the 2880. It’s a very useful tool if you treat it like a looper, not like a sampler.

You’re

Looking

For

A

Sampler.

A sampler will do what you are describing. Not a looper. Are you following me yet?

well, that would be a question for whoever designed it, not the owners of said product. it doesn’t respond that way. I haven’t looked into any of the Alesis/Akai drum machines so I wouldn’t know whether you can put multiple start/stop points in their patterns.

1 nope.

All four tracks on a 2880 share their start/stop points. All play simultaneously; any fading in and out is done with the sliders or cc messages to the sliders. You’re looking for a sampler, not a looper. Personally, I recommend the Korg ESX-1.

you can find that info here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?authkey=CJXI1aEF&key=0Ak9R7oW8W8MidHhCOHdKSkFTdGowdklDd2sza2VXMFE&hl=en&authkey=CJXI1aEF#gid=0

then just google the model number and you should be able to find where you can buy it.

The Alesis MODFX line is pretty much ideal, imo. The phaser, flanger, tremolo and compressor are just flat out awesome, the filter I’m sure you’d have a lot more use for than I did (you can sync it to an LFO and sync that to whatever) and if you really feel like shelling out for them, the bitcrusher and vocoder are pretty rad too. The first four you can find for about $40 on ebay; the filter is generally under $100 and the last two can go for up to $300. The modfx units also have serial ports on the side so you don’t need patch cables – just click them together like legos.

Also the Alesis ineko is a really nice tabletop unit (it also came in a rack version called the Akira). Very simple, just use the arrows to scroll to the effect you want on the matrix, each effect lists what the three knobs do under it.

A Korg Kaoss pad would be a good option too, probably the miniKP, KP2 or KP3 rather than the original – the original has some headroom issues.

If you’re not using the midi out on your taurus, you could hook up another synth and use a DJ mixer or Morley FXblender to crossfade between the two. I’d recommend the Korg EA-1 as it can be had for about $90 and you can use the audio in to process sounds with the oscillator options (ring, sync and cross mod) + the filter, distortion, chorus, etc.

As far as EHX options, I’d look at their array of envelope filters – the tube zipper, the Qtron/Qtron+, the Dr Q, the Bassballs, the Enigma, etc, as well as the Ring Thing, Stereo Memory Man w/ Hazarai, Bass Big Muff, Ravish, Talking Machine, and Black Finger.

Other more ‘pedal-y’ options would be the Moogerfoogers and the units from KOMA Elektronik (which does open up some interesting options with their light controlled expression pedal.)

incidentally, DSP = digital sound processor.

use a compressor

To be fair, the start button on the looper sends a midi message too. When you’re syncing to an external clock, you’ll need to start it to cue the looper to go; from that point, while the external clock is running, you can stop the looper/restart it freely.

OK. I was just pointing this out because sometimes I program my fills in half time or double time and my loops would tweak out.

right. I mean, if you play in stocking feet and press carefully, you can just toe the buttons on the 2880 but the foot controller is worth it.

so the loop keeps going while the audio is off. it leads the audience to believe you’ve stopped whatever loops while preventing asynchronous errors due to mis-timing cues. (see the post about the rotating squares above)

yes, it can do that. but you’ll need to have the drum machine running (not just idleing/stopped) the whole time.