Bastl Instruments’ Midilooper brings greater control to live-looping with MIDI
The device brings MIDI-based parameter control to loop-based music setups
Czech device maker Bastl Instruments has unveiled its new Midikooper – a compact looping device that works with MIDI information – not audio – to offer flexible parameter adjustment capabilities on the fly.
Audio loopers have become a live performance necessity for countless artists – just take a look at performers like Marc Rebillet, whose set-up revolves around a BOSS RC-505. MIDI loopers aren’t so common, though, and Midilooper might open up some new possibilities for artists with an abundance of MIDI instruments.
Through its single MIDI input, the device listens to all MIDI channels, sending that information to two output channels. In terms of physical outs, the device sports two identical MIDI outputs that can be routed to analogue synths, audio interfaces with MIDI I/O – really any device that accepts MIDI information.
Starting a loop is easy because the Midilooper is always listening, just hit a button and start playing, and hit it again to stop recording. It’s been designed to be an intuitive live performance tool, and as such, clearing and overwriting notes is made easy too. Thanks to MIDI CC, you can make changes to parameters and modulators to loop, adding flair to your performance. Midilooper can also make alterations to the recorded information with transposition, velocity locking and shifting, quantisation, shuffle, humanisation, loop length and doubling/halving playback speed.Each voice can be individually recorded, muted, overdubbed, or cleared.
The device can be clocked with MIDI input and has CV and trigger inputs for analogue clocks – meaning it plays nicely with modular instruments as well.
The Midilooper comes with several practical MIDI effects baked in. Straight and shuffle quantization, note length adjustment and velocity lock all make appearances here, as well as some niftier features like octave transpose and time-stretch.
Bastl Instruments is available now at €239. Learn more at bastl-instruments.com
For more music technology news, click here.
