The Echoloop plugin contains the LOOP IV-C software, written by Matthias Grob, with help from Johannes Schmid, Andy Butler, Bernhard Wagner, Tim Crowe (graphics) and Per Boysen. It is a C++ translation of the original LOOP IV software, written in assembler by Eric Obermühlner, Matthias Grob, Keith McMillen and Kim Flint between 1992 and 2002 at Aurisis Research for the Paradis LOOP delay / Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro. Ideas were added by the frist users Willy Strehler and Ljubo Majstorovic and after 1996 by the Loopers-Delight members Andre LaFosse, Claude Voit, Andy Butler and many more...
complete credits here

Echoloop does everything the Echoplex did, just a little better. 

A Gibson Echoplex user shall be able to play everything the way he is used to, with the same MIDI controller, and a newcomer can experience the famous "deepness" that made the Oberheim/Gibson Echoplex sell during 13 years.
As the plugin does not suffer from the limitations of the old Echoplex hardware we are able to offer the following advantages:

- Stereo operation
- Audio quality is given by your audio interface
- Loop time is only limited by the computers RAM (~100 times bigger than original!)
- Several instances of the Plugins can be synced and selected for Multitracking
- Better display
- Easy to access parameters
- Many small improvements in functionality based on user feedback from LOOP IV

To simplify things, we left out the confusing Interface Modes, Midi sysex and MIDI dump features. Don't worry though, it's easily possible to accomplish the same results with the plugin by using the features of your vst/au host.

Also, while reproducing the software, we started with a more solid base structure, which brings more consistency and allows to expand in the near future. We have over 100 times more processer power and memory than the Echoplex had in any average laptop!

So this is a manual for the differences between the LOOP IV and Echoloop. 
For all the basic functions, please use the LOOP IV manual, written by Kim Flint.

•  Installation 

OSX: unpack the .zip and place the .vst file into /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
Windows: unpack the .zip and place the .dll file into your Vst-Plugins directory.

•  New Appearance

We imitate the later Gibson Echoplex, but instead of the small LEDs below the buttons, the whole buttons change color. On top of the classic part, we added a cream area for the and the menus which are much easier to find and change than with the original Parameter button and 3 digit display.

•  New Buttons

There is one more main button, on the right of Next, which is dedicated to Reverse.

•  Totally different Parameter Selection

The Echoplex Parameters changed little, but the way to edit them was replaced by a row of controls across the top of the plugin. On the left, you can type in numbers and on the right there are some menus where you can select values from a drop down list. 
Since there are more number parameters than space, the most frequently used (and saved as VST Presets) are shown at start up, and the others (saved as SetUps) can be called with a menu on the left.

From left to right:

-- Local Parameters

- Loops
Set the number of possible loops just like the top left Parameter in the Echoplex. 
New is that a bigger number of loops does not change the size of each loop nor erase them all, but just add the new loops and occupy more memory of the computer.

- Signature / Bars
Without using Sync, these parameters have no meaning.
With those three numbers you can select the relation between loop length and MIDI clock. This replaces the 8th/cycle parameter of the LOOP IV. 
If the host sends a signature, the Echoloop picks it up. this is correct for most applications where host and loop play in time. for some experimental use, its still possible to type a different signature into these fields of the Echoloop.

- XFadeTm (default: 100)
Crossfade Time in milliseconds. When creating a loop a crossfade ensures that there isn't a click at the point where the loop is joined. The bigger the number, the smoother... but: If you set the value to high, you may hear the first attack of the part you dont want to hear any more! In LOOP IV it was fixed to about 2ms and only worked on the input signal. Echoloop also crossfades jumps in the memory as caused by functions such as Undo and Retrigger.

- Subcycle
This number is only used together with Subcycle Quantize. In LOOP IV, this feature is connected to 8th/cycle. Now its totally separate. Set the number of subdivisions you want in a Cycle.

- Sync
Similar to LOOP IV, the sync source can be selected. 
In Host means that the Echoloop takes the bpm of the host application as a base to sync to, which is quicker and more acurate than MIDI (which only transmits clocks)
In MIDI is only usefull in connection with a external hardware unit
Out means its not receptive but sends out MIDI clocks and bpm to the Host (only Bidule can be slave)
the LOOP IV OuS was not reproduced, since it does not make sense to sent out StartSong... does it?

- Quantize
Select the quantize mode just like in LOOP IV.

- SwitchQ
The SwitchQuant parameter from LOOP IV, with one additional option 'SubCycle'.

- Sampler
Similar to SamplerStyle
SamplerStyle is a Parameter in LOOP IV to define which bit of a loop is played when you switch to it.
 - Run = just loop on from where it was left
 - Sta = loop on from its start point (like Next+Retrigger)
 - One = play the loop once (as if it was a sample) (like Next+Mute-Insert)
 - Att = play the loop as long as the key is pressed (even more like a sampler, if you connect a keyboard and define a key for each loop, Michael Schiefel is smart at that...) (Andy's rename to Sus makes sense)
 - OneRet = play the loop once and jump back and go on playing the old (LOOP IV does that at One/MIDI)
 - AttRet = play the new loop as long as the key is pressed, then go on playing the old

- Copy  
this is all about what happens if we switch from a playing loop to a resetted loop, especially if we want the switch to happen immediately (otherwise we rather recommend SwitchQuant and second press):
The first to items TmMult and SndMult are exactly like LoopCopy-Time/Sound in Loop4. They call the very same function as Next-Multiply and Next-Insert
 - SndOvd does exactly what Next-Overdub does: copy the old to the new loop and stay in Overdub.
 - TmOvd does the same but without copying the sound, just the loop time and cycle number.
 - SndCycOvd copies one cycle lenght of sound from the old to the new loop
 - TmCycOvd does the same but without copying the sound, just the cycle time

- InsertMode
As in the original, you can choose what the Insert button should really do. 
The SUS option moved to the Checklist, so there you can make any of the following options become SUS:
			LOOP IV display
 - Insert only	InS
 - Rehearse 	rEh
 - Replace	rEP
 - Substitute	Sub
 - Reverse	REv
 - Stutter		(used to be accessible through Interface Mode)
Rehearse was the Record-Insert cross function since LOOP I. In LOOP IV we wanted to allow the real Record-Insert function, too, so that was InsertMode=InS and rehearse became InsertMode=rEh. The idea is to simplify the creation of a precise loop... you may call it Rec-Ins Substitute...

- Checklist
This is really a collection of parameters which all can be On or Off. So go to the one you are interested in and check or uncheck it. So we list them separately here:
 - FeedBack Safe is identical to the LOOP IV RecordMode = SAF, just that now its independent of SUS
 - RecordSUS is the RecordMode of LOOP III
 - OverdubSUS is the OverdubMode of LOOP III/IV
 - MultiplySUS was available in LOOP IV, but only together with InsertSUS as InsertMode=SUS
 - InsertSUS was an option of the InsertMode in LOOP IV, now its independent
 - MuteSUS is new
 - ReverseSUS is new
 - Multi Increase now can be switched on/off . Users complained multi-increase was confusing.
 - MuteMode
 - RoundMode
 - Record Autostop
 - Auto Record
 - MIDI velocity     ... are all identical to the equally named Parameters in LOOP III/IV

-- Global SetUps:

- MemorySize (in MSamples, default 4) :
The size of memory available for each channel and each loop, in Samples (about 3x more in MegaByte).
Note that only 1,2,4,8,32,64,128 are possible, the values in between are rounded up automatically
If the size is increase while a loop is running, there may be a click. if its decreased, the cuts are often chaotic and there is no way to recuperate the loop (use Reset!)

- Latency (in samples, default: 128) :
Every computer has a latency, the time it takes for the sound to travel from its input to the output. Some musicians find it drastic, others don't worry, because they get used to it. In case of looping its different again, because the sound you are playing to also arrives a bit late, which is much harder to get used to. But as opposed to the real time latency, there is a fix: you can make the loop play as much in advance as it is delayed in the machine. Set it in milliseconds if you know the output latency of your computer, or try by overdubbing now notes exactly on top of notes in the loop.
Latency correction can only fix it for some things. Stuff like Retrigger, and any other button press that should change the sound immediately will still suffer delay.

Another strategy is to set Latency = 0 so there’s no compensation, and monitor your dry sound with the latency of the setup. In that case, as everything you hear is delayed a bit, and your brain can do the compensation. (Note: in any case case, the latency between and event and your perception of that event is measured in 100’s of mS, so this is 

-- MIDI Parameters
all those are only of use if you send MIDI commands directly to Echoloop

any MIDI notes or controllers can be switched off by setting their Channel to 0 (zero)!

- MIDI Type Menu
select between operation by Notes or Continuous Controllers (CC) just like LOOP IV. 
New is the option ProgramChange, some help for users with a simple pedal that does not send Notes and Controllers. Since there is no button release message being sent with ProgramChange, its not possible to operate the SUS and long-press actions. So a separate button just for Reset is needed, for example...

- BtnChan  /  BtnNote  /  VolCntr  /  FBCntr  /  LoopTrig (default: 1 / 38 / 1 / 7 / 84) :
Identical to the Echoplex, you can select the MIDI channel, the note or controller nr for Record (the following buttons are the following nr, see a table later in this manual), the controller for Volume and Feedback and (for Next functionality) the note to call the first Loop (the following loops are then the following notes).
(note: in Ableton Live it’s possible the plugin will be sent all commands on CH 1, whatever you send into the Ableton midi track)

- InCntr  /  MixCntr (default: 6 / 8) :
Added to choose a MIDI CC to control of the Input and Mix (Dry-Wet) knobs

- LoopChan (default: 1) :
Added to allow the selection of a separate channel for LoopTrig, or to switch it off: set to zero.

- OutChan / CntlOut (default: 1 / 24)

-- Learn menu: 
all parameters are on a menu so you can touch them for the hosts MIDI-Learn! nothing is executed and the selection has no further effect, it just sends the parameter name to the host so it can be connected with the next incoming MIDI command. (this is of no use if you send MIDI commands directly to Echoloop)

Note: in Ableton Live you’ll need to use CC values rather than Note-On. This is because Ableton does not pass Note-Off to the plugin. Essentially this means you are still going to have to program your midi controller. 
We recommend routing the midi from your controller direct to the plugin and have provided instructions on how to get Ableton to do this. 

-- SETUP menu ("global preset") : 
Choose between 8 combinations of the parameters that appear when SetUp is pressed. when you change one of those parameters, its value is automatically saved with the SETUP selected.

•   Presets

We use the standard preset structure for VST, so all parameters changes are saved immediately to the preset you are in - exept for the SetUp parameters which we save separately, assuming that you want them to be the same for every preset!
Just like in LOOP IV, the presets can be called by MIDI ProgCh (if MIDI is connected directly to Echoloop)
Some of the deeper parameters are used rarely, basically when the setup changes. thats why they are saved separately from the Presets, as Setups

•  More Display

- State display:
on top of the classic LED 7 seg display there is a display for the state in color and writing. This corresponds to the color combination of the main buttons which we also maintain.

- QuickState display
in the same space as the State display we show actions that are not really states, or somehow parallel states like:
Half/FullSpeed
Reverse/Forward
ReAlign
ReTrigger
GeneralReset
Start/StopSong etc

- More colored LEDs:
In LOOP IV, the Parameter LEDs blinked at Loop, Cycle, Rnd Cycle and SubCycle. Now there are 3 dedicated LEDs being that RndCycle is shown as Cycle blinking yellow.
LOOP used the dots of the 7 segment display to indicate AutoUndo and Sync. 
Now separate LEDs show Sync (be it from MIDI or Host), AutoUndo and Defrag.
The Sync LED flashes 
	Green to tell that the master reached beat one,   
	Red to tell that there is a correction being done because the Sync arrived early
	Yellow to tell that there is a correction being done because the Sync arrived late
Defrag is a state sometimes caused by Undo or Retrigger, probably only interesting for developers and fanatics...

- New Multiples display:
in addition to the green counting MULTI number we also display the max multiples in yellow (editable!)

- New Growbar
above the display numbers, there is a grow bar which shows the actual position in the loop

- all Knob values are displayed white in the LoopTime window (not just FeedBack as in LOOP IV)

- when HalfSpeed is active, the Looptime number turns yellow

•  Changes in Next

- As opposed to LOOP IV, the number of loops can be changed while playing.
If you reduce the number so that the loop you are in is erased, it sets you back to loop 1

- New functions to change Loop:
 -- Previous Loop (lowers the number by one)
 -- Original Loop (returns to the one before this one)
 -- Set Loop (the value of the CC sets the loop number)

- New function for errasing:
before we only had GeneralReset to errase all loops 
now the following MIDI note does ResetOtherLoops, so you only stay with the one runing and have space to recreate the others (creation of Phil Clevenger) 

- New NextReverse
reverses what is there or does a reversed NextMulti if nothing is there.

- New SamplerStyles:  AttRet and OneRet
In LOOP IV, when SamplerStyle=ONE and a new Loop can be triggered once by MIDI, and then it goes back to play the previous. Now, this idea is presented as two new values and they make it work when triggered by mouse or parameter as well.

- If you are in OneRet or AttRet on principle you always fall back to the same loop. but you can escape by pressing a second key, in other words by switching to loop C while you are shortly in B, because then you fall back from C to B but not back to A. I hope this is usefull (rather than consistent) and similar to LOOP IV ;-)

- In LOOP IV, on principle the loop can be left in any state and its there again when we come back to it. But does this make sense? We are never happy if we come back and the loop is in Mute or SamplePlay, so now we always switch to Playing (exept when its in Reset).

- the new structure allows to maintain the previous state while Nexting, so that if for example you have been Replacing when pressing Next, you continue Replacing until the loop really switches.

- a second hit on the same key makes the sample play (I guess we had that in LOOP IV)

- Velocity is now the last item in the "Checklist" menu

•  MIDI Direct turns into VirtualButtons and Parameters

In LOOP IV, the real buttons have a counter to create long press functions, so they can execute a LoopFunction at press, short release, longpress, long release. To extend functionality, we added the DirectMIDI commands, but due to a tech limitation, they are only press/release.
Now in LOOP V, there are only a lot of VirtualButtons and a table which relates the real buttons and the MIDI commands to them. All work with all four press states (they understand longpress).
This brings more flexibility and stability for the future, but so far, we kept the command table very similar to the original DirectMIDI.

To simplify the setup for the original Echoplex users, you can route MIDI directly to the Echoloop plugin and the commands will be interpreted according to the MIDI parameters, in the sequence shown below, just like in LOOP IV
But the original VST way of dealing with Parameters (all button commands and knobs are called parameters, too!) is very different. Instead of bringing MIDI to the plugin, every host is capable to assign any MIDI command to any parameter (well, almost: Live does not understand Notes). Usually this is done with MIDI Learn. So, now you can create the command sequence you like. All commands are on a menu so you can touch them for the hosts MIDI-Learn!

Loop IV started with C = 36 = Parameter Button, which we dont need any more, so we start at D = 38:
38	D1		RECORD	
39	D#1	OVERDUB
40	E1		MULTIPLY	
41	F1		INSERT	
42	F#1		MUTE
43	G1		UNDO
44	G#1		NEXT LOOP	
45	A1		REPLACE
46	A#1	SUBSTITUTE
47	B1		INSERT ONLY
48	C2		HALF SPEED
49	C#1		REVERSE

50	D2		RECORD SUS		
51	D#2	OVERDUB SUS
52	E2		MULT SUS
53	F2		INSERT SUS
54	F#2		MUTE SUS
55	G2		LONG UNDO (short undo in LOOP IV, not really useful)
56	G#2		NEXT LOOP SUS
57	A2		REPLACE SUS
58	A#2	SUBSTITUTE SUS
59	B2		REVERSE SUS
60	C3		HALF SPEED SUS
61	C#3		RESET

62	D3		GENERALRESET 
63	D#3	RESET OTHER LOOPs (thanks to Phil Clevenger)
64	E3		UNRND MULT SUS
65	F3		UNRND INSERT SUS
66	Reserved
67	G3		LONG UNDO    (will eventually become more interesting)
68	G#3		PREV LOOP (New !)	(for DoReverse: REVERSE SUS On)
69	A3		SET LOOP (New !)	(for UnReverse: REVERSE SUS Off)
70	A#3	ORIG LOOP (New !)	(for HalfSpeed: HALFSPEED SUS On)
71	Reserved			(for FullSpeed: HALFSPEED SUS Off)
72	C4		PLAY SAMPLE
73	C#4		RETRIGGER

74	REALIGN			
75	MUTE REALIGN
76	QUANT START SONG	
77	MUTE QUANT START SONG
78	START POINT		
79	QUANT START POINT

84 Loop Trigger (Next…), set by the LoopTrig parameter just like in LOOP IV, but can be set to any channel

For the VST Parameters (accessed by the host...), its slightly different since the knobs (CC in MIDI) are in the same list:
- 8 real buttons
- 34 virtual buttons
- 4 knobs
- 25 menu items

•  MIDI out for Remote Control

MIDI commands are sent out to control LEDs or whatever kind of displays outside of the computer screen, be it lamps for other members of the band or elements on a tablet (see TouchOSC file included!)…

If you do not want those signals to interfere, just set the ChanOut to 0 (zero)

the output is defined by the new fields ChanOut and CntlOut in the MIDI param page
default is Chan 0 and CntlOut 24 (matches the TouchOSC file):
first the timing LEDs:
CC 24 	Loop flash
CC 25	Cycle flash
CC 26 	Subcycle flash
CC 27	Sync In
CC 28	AutoUndo
CC 29	Quant (ooo)
then the button LEDs:
CC 30 	Record green
CC 31 	Record yellow
CC 32 	Record red
CC 33 	Overdub green
CC 34 	Overdub yellow
CC 35 	Overdub red
... the usual keys...
CC 48 	Next green
CC 49 	Next yellow
CC 50 	Next red
CC 51 	Reverse green
CC 52 	Reverse yellow
CC 53 	Reverse red
then the menu values:
CC 54	SyncMode
CC 55	QuantMode
CC 56	SwitchQuant
CC 57	SamplerStyle
CC 58	CopyMode
CC 59	InsertMode

then, below the default CC: 
CC 23 	actual state, the value means:
0	STATE_RESETTED
1	STATE_PLAYING
2	STATE_OVERDUBBING
3	STATE_REPLACING
4	STATE_SUBSTITUTING
5	STATE_MUTED
6	STATE_SAMPLEPLAYING
7	STATE_TIMECOPYING
8	STATE_SOUNDCOPYING
9	STATE_RECORDING 
10	STATE_SYNCRECORDING
11	STATE_ROUNDSYNCRECORDING
12	STATE_MULTIPLYING 
13	STATE_ROUNDMULTING
14	STATE_INSERTING
15	STATE_ROUNDINSERTING
16	STATE_STUTTERING
17	STATE_ROUNDSTUTTERING
18	STATE_NEXTING
those create a constant MIDI traffic:
CC 22	Input VU level
CC 21	Loop VU level
CC 20	GrowBar (where we are in the loop)
those create commands when loop length changes:
CC 19	Multiples
CC 18	Multiply
CC 17	Loop Nr

•  "Multitracking" and BrotherSync

We think it brings a lot of flexibility if "Tracks" are separate instances of the Loop plugin. Soon we will offer a new system to sync and operate them together. 
Note: this system exists! 

In Bidule, BrotherSync is possible. Its just clumsy, because after starting it up, one has to set each plugins' sync to off and then to the other plugin again. In other hosts its necessary to set a tempo in the host and then sync to that. I hope this can evolve...

Matthias Grob
Salvador, 2010 – 2012
Andy Butler (minor additions)
Norwich 2012