LOOP delay Story

The LOOP delay story

(this page is still the way it was in 1996, exept that the pictures are bigger since all have quicker internet now :-)
Here is a newer page of the whole history with credits

The original propaganda
The original manual in English
The original manual in German

The original Loop Group idea

No manufacturer was willing to expand an existing delay with the specific looping functions I discovered while living as a musician in Rio. So we had to go the hard way and developed the LOOP delay, with little experience, including all programming, graphical and mechanical work and part gathering.

FF music fair 1993

Discussion with looping musicians (I recognize Matthias Becker) at the PARADIS booth in Frankfurt, '93.
To create something really new is very different from an industrial development with a defined aim or a university research on facts.
I often felt solitary and considered CRAZY because I was not able to explain what I was heading for. A lot of crazy things really happened on the way, like the bug that caused this beautiful waveform on the scope:
Scope art

Sometimes it took weeks to find a bug, since we had very little test equipment and often did not know whether we had to fix the hardware or the software.

Hous of creation in Biel

Here in Biel, Switzerland in '92, I worked 14 hours a day. We had no secretary and I used to rush to the post office by bicycle...

Loop creation Table
The table where it all happened... the Macintosh IIcx hard left... the fax machine did all communication... the Neutrick analyser the audio measuring and the 40MHz Iwatsu scope (worked 1976-2006) was enough to show the codes and pulse delays...

I often felt helped by destiny, especially when Eric appeared out of nowhere to take over the programming. Also, some things we had planned wrongly ended up coming out right in rather miraculous ways.

In the original design there was a key called "suprise" because we felt we were going to need it for some function. We really did because it was not practical to operate Overdub as a long press of Multiply. But we had a lot of good times phantasizing what we could do with it otherwhise, like calling a bass drum sample...

The LOOP delay story (this page is still the way it was in 1996, exept that the pictures are bigger since all have quicker internet now :-) Here is a newer page of the whole history with credits
	The original propaganda The original manual in English The original manual in German The original Loop Group idea
No manufacturer was willing to expand an existing delay with the specific looping functions I discovered while living as a musician in Rio. So we had to go the hard way and developed the LOOP delay, with little experience, including all programming, graphical and mechanical work and part gathering.
Discussion with looping musicians (I recognize Matthias Becker) at the PARADIS booth in Frankfurt, '93.	To create something really new is very different from an industrial development with a defined aim or a university research on facts. I often felt solitary and considered CRAZY because I was not able to explain what I was heading for. A lot of crazy things really happened on the way, like the bug that caused this beautiful waveform on the scope: Sometimes it took weeks to find a bug, since we had very little test equipment and often did not know whether we had to fix the hardware or the software.	Here in Biel, Switzerland in '92, I worked 14 hours a day. We had no secretary and I used to rush to the post office by bicycle...
		The table where it all happened... the Macintosh IIcx hard left... the fax machine did all communication... the Neutrick analyser the audio measuring and the 40MHz Iwatsu scope (worked 1976-2006) was enough to show the codes and pulse delays...

I often felt helped by destiny, especially when Eric appeared out of nowhere to take over the programming. Also, some things we had planned wrongly ended up coming out right in rather miraculous ways. In the original design there was a key called "suprise" because we felt we were going to need it for some function. We really did because it was not practical to operate Overdub as a long press of Multiply. But we had a lot of good times phantasizing what we could do with it otherwhise, like calling a bass drum sample...