EP-40 LSS/LOP Varispeed
I'm really interested in buying an EP-40 along with a Sidekick. I have a ton of vintage gear and grew up on the old school MPCs including the 60. I've got a PO-33, PO-16, and OP-Z which I use mostly outside of the studio, and finish tracks later in the studio. They get a TON of use. I also have an OB-4, which is one of my favorite things I own, and I learn new things every day (did you know you can save a loop while Sliding the loop, and the glitchy slides will get recorded in the Disk Mode loops? I just realized this last night).
I love the OB-4 looping and I actually sample from it quite a bit. I am obsessed with the Slide feature as that's something I've never seen in anything else before, and I feel like it would be SO powerful in a sampler. The EP-40 manual states: "the LOOP function is inspired by our beloved OB–4 magic radio" and shows a diagram stating that the Slide function from the OB-4 is present. However, I've yet to see anyone show this off. The one video I found, they just showed looping and dividing the loop length. How does Sliding work, can you record/sequence slides within a loop? If not, can you resample yourself messing with the Loop/Slides? When resampling, is it easy to capture a perfect x-bar phrase, or will trimming always have to be done? One more question: varispeed. How does the "vinyl-style time stretch" mode work? It seems it has to be in the Live State, which I don't fully understand. Can I create and resample a loop while in the varispeed time stretched live state? Could I record a sample/phrase/loop at 120bpm, change the EP tempo to 60bpm, record a new phrase, put it back to 120 and now that new loop is double speed (tape style)? Can I just always keep it in vinyl time stretch mode? I only use regular time stretching for effect and don't like the artifacts from it - one of the reasons why I didn't gel with the Octatrack despite buying it extremely early on in 2011. I prefer the varispeed style recording found in many loop pedals, and of course tape machines.
I want to use the EP-40 for live performance and for quick loop capture and mangling. I also want to dub mix using these loops, doing mutes and delay throws. I'd like to quickly capture perfect loops, without pressing stop, and put them on a pad. From there, messing with the Slide function and recording that, or resampling if needed. Bring these loops in and out and dub them out. Resample. Rinse and repeat. Basically, I want a destructive dub mixing sampler with varispeed - the EP-40 on paper sounds like it can do all of this. Sorry for the long winded explanation, I just really want to know if it's what I'm looking for!
