Having tried my hand at building my own looper using Modular IV, I was very interested when 'Mooxer' made its debut on Planet Z.  For simplicity, this new looper won hands down.  Ultimately, such a device would be useful as a rack mount hardware device for a guitar soloist busking in the city, where a foot controller would allow the performer to keep playing whilst building improvisational loops.    With Mooxer, this is possible as the various controls can be mapped to MIDI controllers.

     

Roy Thinnes:  Mooxer = Mixer & Looper.  It's a descendant of Atom's Looper Delay device, designed for use with Ableton, but can of course be used with any live input.  Each channel can be passed-thru ('REC' position) or looped ('loop' position), or 'mix-looped' (any position in between).  You can choose between four loop time dividers (2 bars, 1 bar, 1p, 1/2, 1/2p, 1/4, 1/4p, 1/8, 1/8p, 1/16, grainy), with the loop divider settings on the right.  The 'select divider' pots allow remote-control via CC#.  After the loop delays there are low pass and high pass filters, for track blending.  After that, the effects inserts.

Download Mooxer here.  You have to copy the LDHDS DSP file to your Scope App/Dsp directory.

Dante:  A good feature is ease of use.  I recorded the following demo simply by connecting the stereo output of my guitar pre-amp to both inputs of Mooxer, and setting both REC/LOOP sliders to half way.
 

 

     

Jimmy:  Such a nice device deserves more than the usual thank you and here's my small offering. I hope it helps others.  It's great having your CFF sweeps applied from Mooxer instead of trying to record it via audio.  The CFFs work great when you match the BPM to the rate in a pair of SSB Modulators.  I can mangle them, or add phase to match the CFF sweeps.  The four moving faders in the patch can be assigned the same CC number in Mooxer which I am using on the filter faders. This moves the fader of the filters really slow so they are swept while you play the loops.

Dante:  Can you explain what you mean by 'CFF' ?

Jimmy: Cut-off Frequency Filter.  It's electronically dynamic, meaning that instead of using volume as a dynamic, the filtering process gives the illusion of less volume, even though the audio db may be constant.  The values of the low pass filter can be considered as volume if you like, therefore making it a dynamic component, and the high pass filter can be considered more of a tonal shaper, which makes it sound insect-like, or waspish.  Sorry I don't speak like some of the scientists, but my ears know what they want and the mouth tries to follow.

In order to control the four filters in real-time I mapped them to the CC controllers from my KS88 keyboard (CC16, CC17, CC42 and CC34).  Anyone can re-assign the controllers to whatever they need.

     
 


 

 
     

Dante, Roy and Jimmy November 2011