Pamparo in Toronto

Timeline with Logic Express

by Rhoy Pamparo on Aug.16, 2011, under Personal Thoughts

This is for all you geeks out there who love playing with MIDI-capable devices

This short video shows how to control the Timeline with Logic Express. Although this video only shows Control Changes, it can easily do Program Changes and Note ON info for the looping capabilities. Timeline can also accept MIDI clock information but only works if the channel is set to “9″.

MIDI Event List

Not bad … but can definitely be better. The lack of specific CC for Bank UP/DOWN, Activate/Bypass presets A/B makes it more tedious to program this thing. One problem I had for example is that by mistake, I have sent a continuous CC for press-down on preset A. It went to the infinite repeats mode, which is cool if done at the right instance. But if it happens in a middle of a song, well, good luck

I think the MIDI implementation is half-baked on this device compared to other devices much older than this. For example, my old Yamaha DG-Stomp and even Behringer VAMP-2 are more robust and flexible than the Timeline as far as MIDI-capability is concerned. Of course, IMHO!

P.S.
Maybe I can do a video of the Timeline being controlled live while playing with a backing track later on … maybe

Tent Upgrade

by Rhoy Pamparo on Aug.10, 2011, under Personal Thoughts

I brought my son, Gabby, camping last year for the first time with some friends from church as part of our first “Father-and-son Camping Trip”. I have brought my beloved 2-person Eureka Autumn Wind tent which I have used in various interior backpacking and church family camping trips before. It served it’s purpose … light-weight, easy to pitch up, a breeze to tear down, nice spacious vestibule, etc …

Eureka Autumn Wind 2xD

Everything was going great until my son asked me: “Daddy, why is our tent so small”?

And looking around, I noticed that all the other tents were just huge! Even a 6-footer can stand inside and not hit his head on the ceiling. For the first time in years, I felt that my tent was getting smaller and smaller.

This year, we are again joining our friends for camping. And thanks to Gabby for reminding me (constantly), I finally gave in and bought a bigger tent … a new Coleman 5-person dome tent!

Coleman Sundome 10 x 8

Why a 5-person tent? I don’t really know … all I know is that Gabby will and should not be complaining anymore because it is BIG and spacious!

I’m still looking forward to going interior backpacking again in the future (if schedule align with friends) … Yes, I’m calling out to my hiking buddies. Let’s go!

Timeline fun with MIDI & Looping

by Rhoy Pamparo on Jul.18, 2011, under Melodic Insights, Personal Thoughts

Finally got the chance to play around with Timeline’s MIDI capability tonight. Program Changes works great as well as some parameter changes via CC. But the couple of settings I really wanted to try before I spend another penny towards this unit is whether the Bank UP/DOWN settings work and how convenient looping will be. Unfortunately, I could not test the BANK UP/DOWN because my FCB1010 (original chip) can only send one CC at a time (or 2 in succession) while the bank changes requires 4. This is not even on the manual (yet) …

for Bank Down, send:
CC# 80, value 0 //A Switch DOWN
CC# 82, value 0 //B Switch DOWN
CC# 80, value 127 //A Switch UP
CC# 82, value 127 //B Switch UP

for Bank UP, send:
CC# 82, value 0 //B Switch DOWN
CC# 81, value 0 //Tap Switch DOWN
CC# 82, value 127 //B Switch UP
CC# 81, value 127 //Tap Switch UP

So instead, I tried the settings for turning A/B on and off with 2 CCs. This works great! Again, this is not in the manual (yet) …

for switch A, send:
CC# 80, value 0 //A Switch DOWN
CC# 80, value 127 //A Switch UP

for switch B, send:
CC# 82, value 0 //A Switch DOWN
CC# 82, value 127 //A Switch UP

I spent most of the time testing out the looper functionality. It works great and seamless! And finally, the settings are in the manual but was only included after the first revision. Hey Strymon, why are you hiding these settings from your users! DOH!!!

Anyway, I got lost in playing with the looper and here’s a couple that I managed to record. Not live looping, just recorded directly from the unit by pressing “Play” after all the overdubs. I’m still getting used to cutting in and out so there’s a bit of glitch in the loop.

These are played thru a standard Tele straight into Timeline then directly to Tascam DR2D.

and

There you go!

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Quick Review of Strymon Timeline

by Rhoy Pamparo on Jul.17, 2011, under Personal Thoughts

I sold my Brigadier, El Capistan and Fav Switch as soon as I heard the news about this delay. Although, I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to get it since it took forever from the time it was publicized to the time it actually got released. But there I was, sitting in front of my computer, waiting for exactly 7:05 PM on July 5th … as soon as it became available on their online store, I bought it. Amazingly, it sold out online in a matter of 1/2 hour (not sure of the actual number of units sold)

Strymon Timeline

So now, after a few hours at home and a few songs live, I can say that it is a very good delay pedal. But is worth the $450 for what I need?

The GOOD

Sounds very very good … amazingly good!
Lots of delay options. 12 modes in total to choose from
MIDI-enabled program changes and other cool controls
Looper works great, gets a little getting used to cutting in out of the loop
Soft switch on the tap-tempo … FINALLY!
Firmware can be updated via MIDI SYSEX. I hope this will come in handy in the future (see below)

The BAD (of course, IMHO)

No global tempo option. It makes it difficult to switch between presets during the song while playing live. Some people think this is not necessary, but I am not them
Delay range is not the same on the different delay modes. I just don’t get this and why it’s not possible to make them all the same
Soft switches on the A or B presets. I can’t see the light while pressing these switches so I don’t know if the unit engaged or not. But maybe this is related to the next one …
User interface is not user-friendly for live use. Changing banks using 2 footswithces? Really?!
Some looper functions like reverse & half-speed are only accessible via MIDI

The VERDICT
Like I said, it sounds great. But after using it, I can see myself using 4 or 5 different modes and maybe only a handful of presets to give what I need. The looper is great for practicing or just doing some fun with ambient looping … what a pleasant addition to the unit. It did, however, reminded me why I gotten rid of the Brig & El Cap. So much options and sounds great but the user-interface is lacking.

So is it worth it? For me, time will tell. It really all depends on when Strymon releases a firmware update and what would be included in the update. I will keep it for now until some of these quirks become so annoying

Please take this quick review with a grain of salt, in fact, make it lots of salt. Your needs might be different than mine …

or maybe you think that $450 is ok to overlook some of the unit’s faults

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Guitar Speak: 1-5-3 Major Triad

by Rhoy Pamparo on May.24, 2011, under Melodic Insights

First off, what is a triad? By definition, a triad is:

A chord of three tones, especially one built on a given root tone plus a major or minor third and a perfect fifth

That means that we can stack 1-3-5 of the scale in any inversion to give us a major triad.

I want to share a nice major triad inversion in the form of a 1-5-3. This particular triad works very well especially if you are the lone guitarist in a band as it sounds full due to the 1-5 but also sounds melodic due to the addition of the 3 at the top.

It’s a bit tricky at first because the string between the 5 and the 3 has to be muted as you will see on the examples below (chords: G, C and F)