Soundbite XL
Got a couple of spare minutes, so I thought I'd let you all know about the Soundbite XL from Red Sound. The Australian distributor for it came through here a few weeks ago to show us. To be honest, our initial reaction was that it seemed a little expensive for what is essentially a loop capturing device. We had a bit of a play with it, couldn't really see anything special about it and had pretty much decided that we wouldn't stock it.
When Adam (the distributor) came back, however, he gave us a lengthy demo (he's been using one in his own DJ sets for a while), and I have to say we were gobsmacked. This is hands-down the most accurate and easy way to capture and replay loops that we've seen. Once we'd seen what it can do, we signed up to stock them straight away.
To give you an indication of just how good it is, Carl Cox, Richie Hawtin and Pete Tong are all using it extensively. We have it on good authority that Carl Cox has it in his contract for every gig that one is supplied for him to use.
The Soundbite XL has 6 'cells' or 'slots' in which you can store your captured loops of varying lengths. In the default mode the loops are captured in 1, 2, 4, 4, 8 and 16 beats. You can also change it to capture loops in 1/4, 1/2, 1, 4, 8 and 16 beats, and lastly 1/4, 1/2, 1, 4, 4 & 32 beats.
It can be connected to your mixer in a variety of ways. The usual way of course is to use a Send/Return channel, as with any other outboard module. If the mixer you're playing on doesn't have a Send/Return however, you can instead take the output from the headphone jack and then connect the output of the Soundbite to a spare channel on your mixer. This is pretty handy if you're playing at a gig somewhere and their mixer either doesn't have Send/Return or you don't have access to it for some reason (e.g. may already be used by an inhouse effects unit). Also makes it much easier and quicker to setup.
Once you're connected and you power it up, the Soundbite immediately picks up the BPM of the audio coming into it. The BPM is displayed in the LED screen, and each of the 6 buttons' LEDs also flash in time with the music.
Capturing a loop is as simple as pressing one of the buttons. You don't have to be absolutely accurate as it'll capture on the downbeat even if you press a tad before or even after the beat falls. After it's finished capturing, it'll begin playing back immediately in time. You may want this to happen, but we've found that the best way is to have the volume of the channel that the Soundbite is playing back into turned down whilst you load it up with all of the samples you need.
Once you have them recorded and you've stopped them all from playing, you can start firing off loops at your whim, either dropping them in over the top of the main track or cutting into them by using the crossfader. This second way is really the most fun, as you can essentially remix the track on the fly, and the loops stay perfectly in time the whole time. And when I say perfectly, I mean PERFECTLY. Even after playing the main track for a couple of minutes and then cutting back into a loop we found that it was still keeping it in time. You don't even have to adjust the beginning or end of the loop the way you do with CDJs, it just works!
This is really the most accurate BPM engine that we've seen. Nothing else we've used has ever been so easy or so much fun. Every time we walk past our demo model on the counter we can't resist having a quick play with it. With all of the hard work taken out of making sure the loops stay in time, it frees you up to wreck havoc with your mix. Very, very cool.
And as if that wasn't enough, it also has a very respectable filter effect built into it. You can either run the loops through the filter, or you can just use it as an effects unit and run the main mix through it.
It does seem like $519 is a lot to drop on a bit of gear that really only does one thing (excluding the filter for a moment), but it just does it so well and allows you to be so creative so easily. If you're interested in trying it out, drop in sometime and we'll give you a demo.
