analog loopers?

[paradigm_shift]

Are there any analog loopers on the market beyond the zvex? Tiny boutique lines are ok.

[rsmith601]

Analog delay chips do not offer long delays without seriously degrading the signal. Mechanical tape loops can do it. I think Fulltone makes such a thing. What is the need for it to be analog? This is a case of where a well implemented digital solution has many advantages, and will sound great (unless your mind tells you it sounds bad because it is digital - OK, I withdraw that last comment!).

(we do not make loopers and have no plans to do so)

[paradigm_shift]

Oh I do think digital loopers are better. I just like the idea of analog. The purity of the flow of energy,sure it evolves as it goes through the chain ,but the energy I put in is the energy that comes out of the speakers. Its not transferred into 1 and 0's .There's nothing wrong with digital. But I'm sold on the idea of an analog signal path.

[RickenBoogie]

Yeah, not sure of the motive here, but unless there is an actual tape involved, I can't see it being feasible.

[Explorer]

Edit: Just saw you excluded the Zvex, which is the only analog looper out there with such a long loop time.

I suspect that there's more people motivated by having longer loop times with clarity than by a philosophical approach....

[bongomania]

Also, and I say this as a fan of analog and a fan of the ZVex unit... it's still just 1's and 0's.

Analog delay is done with bucket-brigade chips, which get their name because they store a voltage level in a memory location for a short period of time, then hand it off to the next memory location, which again holds it and then passes it along. It's squarely in a grey area between analog and digital, where analog voltages are processed using devices that are technically digital, even though the audio signal is not converted into data per se.

So in the case of looping (done with analog delay chips), the philosophical thing totally breaks down and falls apart.

Now, if you ask me about any other type of effect, I might fall more into the analog-worshipping voodoo camp.

[Taylor Livingston]

Bongo's pretty right in that chipcorder tech, and BBDs, are not strictly analog in that they are quantized in the time axis. But the samples that are taken are stored as continuously variable analog voltages, not quantized into digital bits, so they aren't ever 1s and 0s.

Once you start reading about quantum mechanics you will find that, in point of fact even "analog" continuously varying signal are quantized in amplitude once you look really close. So in a sense (and not one that needs to be taken very seriously) analog is just really high resolution digital.

But anybody who has played with an analog looper will know that none of the commercial digital loopers available can sound like answering machine technology, and a lot of people really like that sound (myself included). A lot of people don't, or are looking for features that chipcorders can't do - and that's cool too.