undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

Hi mini-KP owners. I know there's a few of you on here. I've become interested in the mini KP, primarily for the looping capabilities and also as a simple LPF when the sharp edges of LSDJ square waves give me a headache. Secondarily, of course, for miscellaneous effects.

What's your opinion of it as a looper? Is there a loop mode where you can adjust the speed/pitch of the loop, like a turntable or the time knob on an 80s delay unit, or is it always quantized to BPM? If so, does it get fairly fine? I'm not expecting miracles but I want to use it to play with phasing, i.e. multitracking slightly detuned copies of a loop or tone to beat against each other, and that's not going to work too well if it's too coarse.

If it totally sucks for looping, could you recommend some other stereo units which are comparable in terms of footprint and/or price? I have this really old Ibanez delay that's great but it's mono and lo-fi in a sometimes not-so-good way.

Thanks!

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

Kinda.

Settings 78 and 79 loop. You have to set the bmp to make it loop properly, you can make the loop slower (which affects the tempo and pitch) until it goes into reverse.
I'm sure someone will go into it in more detail.

undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

Sounds like exactly what I was talking about. Reverse is a cool option too. So how coarse or approximately what resolution is the pad? Like, if you sampled one note as a loop and then played it just one unit/notch/hair slower the original tempo, about how many notes lower would it be? I realize it's probably not consistent but I'm just trying to get an idea.

57
Offline
Camden, London

plus you can set the depth of the effect, so you can either have it playing nothing but the loop, nothing but audio through, or any percent inbetween.

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

Uhh,
not sure how many beats slower it is, but as 57 said you can choose the mix between the effect you are using and the audio being played into it by holding A and BPM together.

low-gain
Offline
Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

you'd have more fun w/ the KP3
Dedicated sample buttons allows for layered loops. smile
like a 4 track looper

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

Yeah you would. I only bought the Mini-KP as I have no money sad

undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

57 : Ah, that makes sense, because I read a review somewhere else that it couldn't trigger the loops, just keep them going, like a delay pedal. But then I watched a video on Youtube where it looked like different sections of the loop were being triggered. I guess the guy was just gating it.
2XAA : Good to know about the shortcut, thanks.
low-gain : A couple people have told me the same thing, but I like the form factor, the price, and the battery power.

Does anyone know of, or would one of you be willing to throw up on e.g. soundcloud for me, a recording of really slowly moving across the pad while a really melodic loop is playing, so that it's really obvious 1) at which point, and 2) how much, it slows/speeds?

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

Ok,

urm, what melodic piece?

undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

Anything that doesn't have a lot of dissonance, just a steady squarewave would be perfect actually.
Thank you!!

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

Ok, I'll hopefully do it tomorrow.

undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

Awesome, much appreciated smile

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK

smile

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US

you should upload one of your tracks clean (with the bpm) so someone can use a track you are familiar with to run the loopers on
btw, 78 is my favorite effect on it, and i was abusing the fuck out of it wednesday night...though i only got part of that set recorded, and im not exactly melodic, more dissonant wink

undergroundclouds
Offline
Spokompton

I dig dissonance smile I just think super melodic, primary-colored, basic waveform, 0-dynamics would make the effect super obvious, which would be the most helpful for testing. I'll upload something when I get home.

2xAA
Offline
Plymouth, UK
e.s.c. wrote:

you should upload one of your tracks clean (with the bpm) so someone can use a track you are familiar with to run the loopers on
btw, 78 is my favorite effect on it, and i was abusing the fuck out of it wednesday night...though i only got part of that set recorded, and im not exactly melodic, more dissonant wink

Awesome.
I also use 78 too much.
Speech tracks can become rather hillarious.
79 is ok aswell, but the reverse gets a little fast.