Hey guys, I’ve been searching online and have found almost nothing to help me answer this question. Any info on how this can be done would be much appreciated, thanks!
I want to integrate the Boss into my techno live rig, and be able to trigger different lengths loops, I understand that each loop can have different bar lengths but what about smaller subdivisions?
can’t answer your question, but what you describe is not polyrhythms, it`s polymeter.
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Are you looking to do live looping or just clip launching?
It sounds like you’re interested in the latter; in which case, just get yourself an SP-404. On the other hand, if you want a looper that can grab polymetric phrases on-the-fly, get a 'Rang III.
Cheers!
P.S. As mentioned in the post above, what you’re talking about is called polymeter: i.e. wherein each rhythmic component is happening at the same meter, but with different measure lengths. Polyrhythms are altogether different, and could absolutely be done on the RC-505, on account of the fact that they require each loop to be of the same length, but containing different meters.
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Thanks for the replies guys…
I mostly want to launch pre-prepared loops with the 505
So just be clear, I cannot create polymetric loops with the 505?
I’m pretty sure you can. It’s been a while since I’ve used my 505 but the reason I got it was because I wanted to be able to have loops of different lengths play off each other…something my EHX2880 could not do. In my case I specifically did not want loops that played in sync…and the 505 can do this as well as supporting different divisions.
Page 13 of the manual has a diagram on it illustrating the various loop length options quite nicely. Also mentions a setting to specify loops shorter than 1 measure.
Note that I was capturing loops from gear on the fly and not loading my own prepared loops into it…so can’t confirm how it handles this but I do recall that timing was rock solid when capturing loops from slaved midi gear (unlike the 2880 which was flaky). I haven’t used it since I’ve got an octatrack.
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Thanks @sb, now I get it, great stuff.
My studio partner has a 505 and we’ve been looking to integrate it into out Live set, I want to be able to fire off odd length loops so I’ve been doing some research but could not find a definitive answer.
For any track on the 505 you can set the “Measure” to as low as a 16th note and up to 1000 measures. As well as “free”.
The sub-measure increments are 16th, 8th, quarter, half.
So yes, I’m pretty sure it does polymeter; I loop with preset lengths, and will choose different lengths depending on what i’m about to record.
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