Van Sinn's LD 2880 comments and questions..

[zmix]

I am reposting this email which originated on the Loopers Delight mailing list...

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Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:39:10 +0100
From: van Sinn <[e-mail]>
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To: Loopers-Delight <[e-mail]>
Subject: EH 2880 notes

I made some comments while close reading the manual. Comments?
I'm aware some things may have changed with the firmware mentioned in another thread.



Notes on Electro Harmonix 2880 looper


Manual pp 10:
Feedback control is partly possible. While overdubbing, previous contents can be set to fade out with each loop.
No direct way of simply activating a 'loop fade-out' function is available, but can maybe be emulated using overdup without actually recording new material.


Manual pp 13:
The designated 2880 Foot Controller provides buttons for:
New Loop, Record, Play, Track Select, Reverse, Octave
Most buttons and faders et al.. still needs to be operated before being
possible to use the Foot Controller.


Manual pp 19:
In punch-in mode, hitting Record will immidiately start overwriting a track at the location where Record is hit. It isn't possible to activate recording and just punch in replacement material in bits where appropriate; IOW, 2880 doesn't have an input threshold detection mechanism. Just be ready and record!


Manual pp 23:
2880 has only a very basic MIDI implementation: Sync, Start/Stop (recording), and Song Position Pointer. Any mode buttons, mix/control faders et al.. needs to be manually pressed before using the sparse MIDI commands.

It's strange not even the full Foot Controller functionality is MIDI available.

When used with an external MIDI Clock Master device not sending contineous clock, the 2880 will still sync, but may lag behind.


Manual - nowhere:
It's clear the 2880 doesn't store any settings upon power-off, i.e. any use must be setup after each power-on by operating buttons and faders.


Conclusion: The 2880 is useful from the desk, on/at a keyboard and such,
or with it's designated Foot Controller, though this will still only provide limited remote control.

--
rgds,
van Sinn

[zmix]

... said:

I am reposting this email which originated on the Loopers Delight mailing list...

Old-Return-Path: <[e-mail]>
X-Original-To: [e-mail]
Delivered-To: [e-mail]
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:39:10 +0100
From: van Sinn <[e-mail]>
Organization: van Sinn
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
To: Loopers-Delight <[e-mail]>
Subject: EH 2880 notes

I made some comments while close reading the manual. Comments?
I'm aware some things may have changed with the firmware mentioned in another thread.



Notes on Electro Harmonix 2880 looper


Manual pp 10:
Feedback control is partly possible. While overdubbing, previous contents can be set to fade out with each loop.
No direct way of simply activating a 'loop fade-out' function is available, but can maybe be emulated using overdup without actually recording new material.

With the 2880, it's all about the interaction with the physical controls. THere is a 6 channel mixer right there..!

Manual pp 13:
The designated 2880 Foot Controller provides buttons for:
New Loop, Record, Play, Track Select, Reverse, Octave
Most buttons and faders et al.. still needs to be operated before being
possible to use the Foot Controller.


Manual pp 19:
In punch-in mode, hitting Record will immidiately start overwriting a track at the location where Record is hit. It isn't possible to activate recording and just punch in replacement material in bits where appropriate; IOW, 2880 doesn't have an input threshold detection mechanism. Just be ready and record!


Manual pp 23:
2880 has only a very basic MIDI implementation: Sync, Start/Stop (recording), and Song Position Pointer. Any mode buttons, mix/control faders et al.. needs to be manually pressed before using the sparse MIDI commands.

It's strange not even the full Foot Controller functionality is MIDI available.

Not true, the MIDI implementation allows every parameter, including playback speed to be controlled.

When used with an external MIDI Clock Master device not sending contineous clock, the 2880 will still sync, but may lag behind.


Manual - nowhere:
It's clear the 2880 doesn't store any settings upon power-off, i.e. any use must be setup after each power-on by operating buttons and faders.


Conclusion: The 2880 is useful from the desk, on/at a keyboard and such,
or with it's designated Foot Controller, though this will still only provide limited remote control.

--
rgds,
van Sinn

[Deleted]

"Not true, the MIDI implementation allows every parameter, including playback speed to be controlled."


From an old loopers-delight post:
"There must be at least 300mS between each button push message. "


What can you tell me about the MIDI control for the 2880 in light of the 300ms disclaimer? If I send multiple pc's and cc's from an FCB, will the 2880 flip out and ignore all but one of the events?

[van Sinn]

Yup, things like this "every parameter" is what I'd like to know more about. The 300 ms timing issue as well.
I mailed EH couple days ago about the latest firmware, but so far only had an ack mail.

If they want to sell 2880's to loopers, I fail to understand why they don't keep firmware revisions ready for download, plus the assotiated docs as reference, so we can easily see if it'll work for our intended use.
Surely they know what goes where, else they wouldn't've created such a seemingly interesting box.

[lg]

blackdollar said:

From an old loopers-delight post:
"There must be at least 300mS between each button push message. "

What can you tell me about the MIDI control for the 2880 in light of the 300ms disclaimer? If I send multiple pc's and cc's from an FCB, will the 2880 flip out and ignore all but one of the events?

No idea, but I did hear about similar behavior on different types of other gear already. I heard about it frequently enough to extend our MIDI foot controller design for it : you can add a programmable delay between each of the multiple PCs/CCs being sent, if you do so these machines suddenly start responding correctly to the foot controller...

Grtz,
Xavier
www.gordius.be

[nick robinson]

lg said:

: you can add a programmable delay between each of the multiple PCs/CCs being sent, if you do so these machines suddenly start responding correctly to the foot controller...

So it's a midi bottleneck? Is there a finite minimum latency inherent in midi? Any of you midi-whizzkids know what the future holds for midi? WIll it be ugraded? I've heard about "High definition midi"....

[van Sinn]

admin said:

lg said:

: you can add a programmable delay between each of the multiple PCs/CCs being sent, if you do so these machines suddenly start responding correctly to the foot controller...

So it's a midi bottleneck? Is there a finite minimum latency inherent in midi? Any of you midi-whizzkids know what the future holds for midi? WIll it be ugraded? I've heard about "High definition midi"....

Not exactly a MIDI whizz.. FWIW, I don't think those (forced) delays are MIDI-enforced limitations, but device dependent limits, i.e. some devices may lack processing power, lack of realtime interupt handling for immidiate response to MIDI streams/messages, improper protocol design or whatever.. else most all devices (not limited to loopers) should suffer from such limitations, which isn't the case.
If it were, things like MIDI controlled wah and pitch/whammy et al.. wouldn't be possible.

EDIT: In the case of the 2880, to react to MIDI messages, it'll need to load a nof settings, setup registeres in a processor.. When building a battery powered device (can run on bats IIRC), a low-power processor needs to be found; such design consideration aren't easy.
We saw the initial MIDI implementation being quite sparse, with far more added later.
EH may have been cought by the ooups! factor: "we can't implement all this and have near-realtime response, so better enforce a minimum response time", i.e. the 300 ms.

My Digitech TSR24, upgraded to 20Mhz host cpu, is so fast I can dial presets on the rotary encoder just about as fast as I like. Same with the (loopers familiar) Vortex.

The MIDI specs should've had a set of protocol definitions for maximum response times, to which any vendor/devices had to comply to be allowed to claim MIDI V1.x conformability.

It's good to see Xavier implementing a workaround to such imperfections.
Shouldn't've been nessesary in the first place, though, but isn't it always like that in this life

Whatever.. info and specs can be found on, tada! www.midi.org
The closest I could find about MIDI-2 and HDM without too much hazzle was
Spotlight on "MIDI-2" and the future of MIDI - www.midi.org/newsviews/intervw.shtml


Digestion in progress..

[Bob Amstadt]

vansinn said:

FWIW, I don't think those (forced) delays are MIDI-enforced limitations, but device dependent limits, i.e. some devices may lack processing power, lack of realtime interupt handling for immidiate response to MIDI streams/messages, improper protocol design or whatever.. else most all devices (not limited to loopers) should suffer from such limitations, which isn't the case.

Exactly correct. Those limitations aren't limitations of MIDI in general, but rather just this specific device. MIDI is actually a nice protocol when implemented correctly. It isn't perfect, but it does a good job of what it was designed for.