Is there is a “degrading looper” type plugin, similar to the Strymon el Capistan or Industrialelectric Echo Degrader?
The idea is that a sample gradually degrades with each loop playback.
I’m wondering if this could be accomplished by extending the SooperLooper with an effects loop that would process and alter the samples as they’re played? I’m a developer and although new to audio processing and plugin development, I’d give this a shot if there are no better options.
Well, you could do many things with the output of the SooperLooper. Run it through a delay and a plate reverb and a filter, then feed the result back into the looper input. Don’t forget to add a volume knob for controlling the feedback loop. Depending on what you put into this feedback loop, you will get some weird degrading effects.
Then leave out the delay, smear the audio with some reverb and filter the highs and lows, this will smear everything more and more with each pass through the looper. Some subtle very long vibrato effect might also work wonders. Start subtle first. You can build up dramatic changes with such a feedback loop, but if you want to for example emulate real tape and some bad circuits, don’t overdo.
Thanks for your suggestions. I’ll give them a try. I think though that the samples themselves will not degrade because they’re never actually altered, right? So part of the signal will always contain those dry signals, as pristine as when they were first recorded.
Oh, you are right, the SooperLooper will not allow you to record over the current loop while playing it back. Just checked it on my device. I’ll think about it. Maybe I have another solution…
Yeah that’s why I was thinking of extending SooperLooper (or another looper) with an effects send/return loop, and some settings for how many times each sample would be sent through.
I’ve taken a shot at making ALO support this. If you take latest master from github, Loop6 is now an overdub loop, which makes it degradeable - just patch the output through a fuzz/reverb/whatever pedal and wire that back to the ALO input…
Nice. I’m working on extending SooperLooper, and the degrade will work across all loops. I have settings for how many degrade iterations the loop will do, and how often to do them. When you hit degrade, the selected loop will read the current settings, store them, and degrade using the effects send/return. You can then move on to other loops. It’s nowhere near ready yet though, this is my first plugin and I don’t have that much time to dedicate to it.
@psyndrome i wouldn’t claim it’s “really good” but ALO is a multi track looper, and you can sync different loop track lengths with it - just have one instance for each required loop/track length.
In any case, can’t wait to see what the Looperlative loopers are