pv grabber vs.c-loops

  • Thread starter Thread starter ekitel
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ekitel

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I read somewhere that the guy who invented this thing had a problem with Redsound, so now Peavey is making his loop machine...

so how is the Peavey version? just as good? better? worse?
 
i have heard that it is identical inside -- with the pv chassis outside --

i have a c-loops -- sound quality kinda sucks, but a cool toy nonetheless....
 
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under features it lists:

Variable sample rate: (96 kHz maximum)
24-bit conversion resolution


on the c-loops site it says:

Sample rate: Variable (48kHz maximum)
Conversion rate: 16 bit


so I wonder if this represents a real and practical improvement in sound quality or just marketing mumbo jumbo
 
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i have a cloops, and looking at it it looks a little different. for one, there is two 4 beat samples instead of two 1 beat samples - thats much smarter.
 
Also reverse and stutter play. I love my Redsound units, and am thinking about getting one of the new ones too...
 
I bought it and I'm sending it back...

main reason is that it's really a pain to get it to sync to your record, and you can't really use the headphones to adjust it because the headphone channel has to be on the record that's playing in order to calculate the bpm, and even when you do adjust it the adjustments are incremental, there were a lot of situations where one increment would be a little too high and the next lowest increment would be a little too slow, never right on, that might be ok if you just use it for acappelas but I want to use it with beats, and it would often just drift, plus the loops are continuosly cycling, the button doesn't start it looping, just un-mutes a loop that is already in the middle of the cycle, and if you haven't used it in a little while it will be way off, so you have try to get it back on while it's train wrecking like crazy, instead of just having a start button to throw it in right on time, you waste too much time with that, I'd rather be able to start it when I want and then have to beat match it manually, I also have a CDJ1000 and I like looping with that much better, only problem is most of my music in on vinyl...

this just confirms what I've believed for a long time, that any kind of automatic beatmatching is bull****, you want to believe it can really happen, but it doesn't, not well enough, close enough maybe for a wanna-be dj toy, but not the kind of precision I expect, and even when I mess up my beats a little it's a human error and it sounds human, not like when the machine messes up it sounds really annoying!
 
i have not used the pvdj grabber, but my Redsound cloops is spot on when it comes to beat matching. i have 2 products from Redsound that use their beat matching engine and i am constantly amazed at how well it does compared to other products i've used. of course i use my cloops in a different manner than they recommend... that headphone rigging bit is just silly. i use the aux out on my mixer and bring the return to a separate channel. unless Peavy has totally deviated from the Redsound design, i would give it another shot hooked up in a different manner. also make sure your input signal is strong enough - a weak signal and the thing just can't beat match well. the adjustment increments were more than sufficient for me. when the live mix starts drifting slighly, one notch on the cloops dial and the loop slipps just enough to sync things back up. - jeff h
 
I use an aux out too, and the beatmatching is spot on. I use mine in live situations, and I know others that do too with no complaints. If the Peavey one does not work as well, please give us some more details...
 
the only time it would really sync up perfectly is right after sampling a loop and then comparing it to the same record while it was still playing, but obviously I want to use the loop with different records

another way to get it to sync nicely was to disengage and beatmatch my record to the loop, and engage it again when it sounded perfect, that way it would sound nice for a little while at least, this is great if your mixing into the loop, but it doesn't help if you're mixing the loop into a record

I don't know if the Peavey model is somehow inferior, from what I reaed here it seems that redsound developed a really good beatmatching engine for their products, so maybe now with Peavey they had to come up with their own bpm detector that's not as good, or maybe it's just me, maybe this product is just not for me

the headphone setup is good because it let's you sample intro's and outro's of records while you're mixing in the headphones, you wouldn't normally be able to grab those parts from the main mix, but on the other hand it sucks because you have to keep cueing the record that's playing in order to feed the bpm engine, you can't just let it go while you cue up another record

I know someone who has a c-loops so maybe I'll try a side by side comparison b4 I send it back
 
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cool - we'd like the downlow on a side by side comp of the 2. i know Josh Wink and Richie Hawtin swear by the Cloops live so maybe there is a difference between the two. - jeff h
 
this is from the Redsound website description of c-loops:

"Combining RED Sound's acclaimed V2 BPM engine with a new invention 'cyclic sampling' (patent pending),"

I'll bet the Peavey one doesn't have the same BPM engine
 
ekitel said:
I'll bet the Peavey one doesn't have the same BPM engine
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that thing could not resemble the C-loops so much without some sort of licensing agreement between Peavey and RedSound.

The Grabber is just a C-loops with higher audio quality and a few extra bells and whistles.

EDIT: by the way Ekitel - a great way to use those samplers is with a DJ mixer with a pre-fader effects loop. The Xone 64 and 92 have one, as well as many Vestax mixers.
 
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Another thing that I have not seen mentioned yet, is what kind of music do you spin? The engine seems to have a much tougher time with broken-beat non 4/4 stuff...
 
drc24: thanks for the tip unfortunately the effects loop on my Empath is post fader

Nikon: I spin house and techno, I've been testing it mostly with techno...
 
In that case, it should be pretty spot mine. Mine often resets itself if it is drifting a bit, so things are never very off. It took me a few days to "master" using it in ways that would make it sound seamless with vinyl and CDs, but these days, it works like a charm. It is the only thing that plugs in that I take to every venue I play...
 
i've also been impressed by the ability of the cloops to beatmatch fairly well. its not perfect, and will drift from time to time, but usually it just takes one notch up or down on the wheel to put it back into place. and it used to be better than i was at getting the tempo right for some breakbeat, etc.

i'm still using the headphone way with it, mainly because i thought it was simpler when you are in the mix - but since i have a 92, maybe i'll give the AUX a try.
 
the plot thickens!

just found out about this thing http://www.htfr.com/more-info/?catno=MR129834

Redsound Soundbite, Redsound's replacement for the c-loops, only available in UK, looks exactly like the grabber, all the same buttons, but it only claims to do 16/48 while the Grabber claims to do 24/96.

Now like I said I read that the inventor of the "cyclic sampling" technology had a disagreement with Redsound and took it to Peavey, so maybe Peavey is using that tech but with and inferior BPM engine... though the things look so similar I would guess that they're the exact same thing made in Taiwan and sold to the 2 different companies, but if that's true then why the difference in sample rate, also the Soundbite is about $100 more expensive after you convert GBP to USD

this raises more questions than it answers, I wonder what the real story is
 
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ekitel said:
the plot thickens!

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Now like I said I read that the inventor of the "cyclic sampling" technology had a disagreement with Redsound and took it to Peavey, so maybe Peavey is using that tech but with and inferior BPM engine...
Click to expand...
Do you by chance know the date of this disagreement between the inventor and RedSound? I thought that all happened when the Cycloops first came out years ago....
 
That stuff did all happen years ago. I think Jeff wrote Redsound awhile ago asking about a new cycloops, and if I can remember, I think he got a rather informative answer. Maybe someone should do that again...
 
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