Introducing Polyend Loop

Announcements
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Introducing Polyend Loop : Standalone Looper & Drum Machine

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Meet Loop

We’re at Guitar Summit this week, and you can get your hands on Loop at the Polyend booth. Come by Booth 033 on Level −1 and try it for yourself. Record a loop, add some drums, throw on an effect, and see where the idea takes you.

Start with a sound

Loop gives you four independent loop tracks, four sample-based drum tracks, and more than 100 effects to play with. Record straight in from your guitar, bass, synth, or microphone, then reshape what you’ve recorded with reverse, ping-pong, and varispeed playback options.

Make it your own

There are 350+ rhythm patterns, 500+ kits, and more than 2,000 drum samples to get you started. You can also sample your own sounds directly into Loop and build your own kits, then save up to 1,000 projects so the ideas you stumble across can become something you come back to later.

Loop in action

Watch the intro video to get a feel for how Loop works.

Get Loop

Loop is available now for $599 / €599, with orders beginning to ship mid-October.

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Geeeze - what is a poor boy to do! The BOSS EX-4 Effects Expander was released today too. And last night I purchased a used Zoia on Reverb. :rofl:

Loop looks like a curious and unique mix of different elements.

The ability to change “scenes” or sections of a song is being done in an interesting way. Will be interesting to hear how well this works in practice. It may have this facility, but I didn’t see it in the doc: the ability to automate scene changes would be a very welcome capability. Or to lay in the planned sequence of changes, and then press a button to “advance to next scene”. Argh! Look at me. Loop has been announced 5 hours ago, and I’m putting in a feature request! :zany_face:

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I was watching some of the YouTube videos available on the new Polyend Loop. Quite interesting!

And someone at Polyend should get a prize for asking Doug Hanson do a review. Doug may not have the largest following, but he is a brilliant reviewer, and provides much more helpful reviews than many of the “bigger names.” His review of the MESS was the best, and the quality of his review is why I felt confident I would be successful with the MESS.

What’s been interesting viewing these demos is trying to discern who Loop is actually for. So, far from the 2 or 3 guitar player demos, the clear distinctive strengths of Loop (compared to other tools like the Aeros and RC 505 MkII / RC 600) are not apparent.

I suspect - given Polyend’s deep experience with synths and sequencers - a major differentiating capability of Loop is how it fits into more of a synth and sequencer-based workflow. If that’s the case, I look forward to seeing reviews of Loop by folks who can help demonstrate and unlock how Loop fits their workflow.

It might be relevant to mention that I’ve been involved in looping since the mid-90s when I purchased my first Oberheim Digital Echoplex Pro (EDP). I actually helped get the EDP back into production after Gibson purchased Oberheim and discontinued the product. (FYI - A link to music I made dedicated to Kim Flint, one half of the duo who brought the EDP to life).

A mostly quiet (now) website captures some great history about Looping and hardware-based looping technology - LOOPER'S DELIGHT!

If the Polyend team is looking for a skilled looper who has been the looper’s looper, Andre Lafosse is your man.

Dear Polyend team, I am sure you already have many ideas for any potential future development of the Loop. Should you ever be curious to tap into the accumulated knowledge of a premier hardware looper, Andre Lafosse could be a great resource.

To be clear, I’m not asking for anything, nor suggesting anything. But if the ideas here are helpful, then cool.

When I look at my favorite music-tools, they are from Polyend (MESS / Synth) and I look forward to more of the cool ideas you guys are bringing to the market. Thank you.

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This was a fascinating read! Thanks so much for sharing this.

In case you are not familiar with Matt Elliott, I would encourage you to listen to the Trio of albums “Drinking Songs”, “Failing Songs” and “Howling Songs”. He is very skilled with his looping techniques and writes beautifully haunting music. Lots of fun to see him play live.

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Thank you for sharing this clip. It was the PERFECT musical companion for me as I drove home from rehearsal tonight. I will investigate further! Thank you!

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Again, I really do not want to overstep or be inappropriate, so please accept these as ideas, no more…

Starting from a place of not being quite sure what segment of the very large and diverse Looping community Loop is best targeted at, when Firmware 1.1 is released and initial bugs ironed out, here are some Loopers with followings who will give you honest reviews of Loop.

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For the looping “nerds”… Matthias Grob and Kim Flint who created Aurisis Research is where almost all the concepts in current digital looping technology originated:

  • Doing live looping as compositional structure with Record, Overdub, Multiply, Insert, Undo, synchronization – and not just a repeating delay, or a live multi-track… How the Oberheim Echoplex Came About

Frankly, there are still many things the Echoplex Digital Pro w/Loop IV firmware can do that 25 years later more modern loopers can’t. Glou-Glou’s Loupé is probably the closest modern hardware descendant of the Oberheim EDP philosophy that I know of.

My apologies for so many posts in one day!!
Polyend Loop just brings it out of me. :smiley:

For anyone who is curious about looping and looking for new loop ideas:

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Nothing constructive.

Oh nice another faulty design pedal like the Mess with 2 mix knobs, 5 gain stages and 10ms latency. Good luck…

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Thanks for the feedback, and the reminder about Andre. I’ve worked with him in the past, not sure if he is active on the pedal demos anymore, though. Big fan of Doug’s demos too!

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Yes, Andre’s YT is quiet for a while. I hope he’s doing well.

Been thinking about ideas that could help Loop be unique among looper boxes at this price-point. Here are some thoughts that occurred to me for future firmware/update consideration.

I suspect some (many?) of these ideas are already on the Loop drawing board!

  1. One-button post recording half/double speed on a loop track.
  • this is a widely-found capability many loopers have enabled.
  1. Per-step pitch changes on loop tracks from the step sequencer.
  • this would be a unique and powerful capability that would be mostly impossible on other loopers, and leverages the built-in step-buttons on the Loop,
  1. Randomize to select Drum Sounds/Kit +/- Randomize to select Drum Patterns.
  • this would be a unique capability, not seen on other loopers that have build in rhythm/drum tracks. Also this leans into the “quick creativity ideas machine” vibe of Loop.
  1. Scene changes that send program changes.
  • so moving from verse to chorus on the Loop would also switch patches on Synth or patterns on Step, all quantized to the same bar.
  1. Expose looper transport/actions per track over MIDI
  • this would open up incredible synchronization capability with Record, Play, Stop, Overdub, Undo/Redo, Erase/Clear, and track selection via MIDI note/CC. Loop already exposes many per-track parameters, so extending MIDI to these performance actions could help sequenced loop actions and gives deeper MIDI foot-controller integration.
  1. Timing, pitch and tempo ideas
  • speed multipliers per loop track - Time-focused (1/4, 1/8D, 2/3 3/5, 2x and so on), matching the speed parameter the drum tracks have, ideally available from a footswitch combination, or midi, perhaps as Scene states pre-set/applied on tracks?
  • speed multipliers per loop track - Pitch-focused - switches that represent 3rd, 4th, 5th,etc. intervals up & down.
  • imagine ideas from what the Red Panda pedals Raster 2 and Particle 2 can do - but able to be applied to individual recorded tracks
  • beat-based loop lengths, not only whole bars so a 5-beat or 7-beat synth loop against a 4/4 drum pattern can get locked into a polyrhythm.
  1. Treating individual track loops as material to sequence.
  • slicing loops across the steps, maybe with per-step pitch, reverse, volume, and retrigger, like the drum steps to turn a recorded synth phrase into a playable, rearrangeable sequence.
  • parameter-lock effects on loop tracks, for example a filter cutoff or delay send could change on specific steps?
  • add probability to loop tracks, so a loop layer could drop out of a bar at random, or play only every third cycle, using the same Chance conditions in steps and the drums already have.
  1. Multitrack USB audio.
  • sending each loop and drum track separately to a DAW would make the Loop much more useful in a studio / live rig.
  1. Deeper integration into the Polyend family.
  • sharing of kits and sample packs between the Loop, Play, and Drums. Being able to use the “drums” tracks to play other sounds in rhythm would again be a very cool and different capability.

So much of the vibe I get from Polyend is how Polyend instruments give users a unique and easy interface that unlocks new capabilities and helps users quickly make cool music.

There are many Looper boxes already available. And many people already migrated from hardware to ipad/loopy pro software based workflows. So, what can help Loop stand out at its current price-point?

Maybe leveraging Polyend’s brand recognition / appreciation for synth & sequencer instruments opens an untapped audience and workflow leaning more toward DAWless electronic ijams/performance with sequencers / synths? And less toward singer-songwriters at a pub?

Yes. I’ve been thinking about this much too much! :rofl: