Sonuus Kickstarter - Loopa

Sonuus

This isn't actually a guitar product!

At Sonuus we were working on making a great looper, but trying to make a "great looper" pedal for guitar is difficult: how do you make it stand out? Any thoughts, let me know.

Instead, we put a looper inside a microphone. I know lots of guitarists sing too (I'm a guitarist and I came up with this idea!), so wanted to share.

We've launched a Kickstarter campaign to help bring this to market. It's a pretty cool video too -- love to hear what you all think about it.

http://bit.ly/Loopa

Drew_TNBD

Will it actually be made in the UK, or will it be made in China?

Sonuus

It will have to be made in China. There's no way we could reach that price point manufacturing it in the UK. I have investigated manufacturing in the UK but the cost was many times (more than 3x) higher, and the final quality would be no different -- selling the exact same product at £150, or £450 with a "made in the UK" sticker doesn't often make sense.

However, everything except the final production and assembly is done in the UK (90% of it by me!). Of course, you need a very good factory too -- which we will be using.

BigMonka

Looks like a cool product, but for us guitarists we won't get far pressing the buttons whilst playing 

Sonuus

BigMonka said:

Looks like a cool product, but for us guitarists we won't get far pressing the buttons whilst playing 

I agree!

EricTheWeary

I like messing about with expression pedals and delays and there has been a strong trend towards making delay pedals useable in this way ( at the posh and multi fx end but fairly recent single delay pedals like the Boss DM2W, Minifooger Delay, Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail, Dwarfcraft Mini Van all have expression pedal access). So something like a delay Wahoo (ie with delays, not filters) would be kinda awesome. * I know that is not a looper but associated technology so I thought I'd throw it in.

The Hotone Wally looper has a cool** tempo function so you can warp what you are looping. But you can't really do that on the fly so manipulation of what you are looping in those kind of ways - tempo, pitch, modulation I guess - doesn't seem to have been explored all that much (although it could have passed me by).

Finally, every new looper should come with an automatic self destruct if the pedal user tries doing a KT Tunstall in front of actual other human beings. Unless it's KT Tunstall, that would be OK. But nobody else, ever...



*I appreciate I am a middle aged man and saying kinda awesome is a bad fit.
**similar bad fit.

Sonuus

Eric, thanks for those ideas. Delays and loopers are certainly quite similar, and some combination of that with lots of modulation would be very cool.

fretmeister

What about an outboard control? Leave the brain in the mic, but have an option of a footcontroller.

The TC Helicon Mic Mechanic (and others) have the brain on the floor with a control switch on the mic, but the other way round could be done. 

Then you keep the guitarist singers as potential customers too.

Sonuus

fretmeister said:

What about an outboard control? Leave the brain in the mic, but have an option of a footcontroller.

Yes. We've had quite a few suggestions of this today since we launched the campaign. Having a remote controller option is a very good idea, though it does increase the cost. For a singer, one of the great things about the Loopa is being able to walk around without being tied to a foot controller... but having the flexibility to do that, or use a foot controller ticks all the boxes!

Teetonetal

I guess if it's a vocal looper then a cool thing would be to intelligently pitch shift your loop, with or without changing tempo.

Oh and make sure the microphone part is actually good...

Sonuus

Teetonetal said:

I guess if it's a vocal looper then a cool thing would be to intelligently pitch shift your loop, with or without changing tempo.

Oh and make sure the microphone part is actually good...

Yes that's a nice idea.

And, of course, you are right -- it's pointless if the microphone itself isn't good! We're expending a lot of effort to make sure this part is good. Initial testing had very good comments from artists, but the production version will be even better.

bobliefeld

My #1 wish for a looper is some sort of midi synchronisation.

I have Maschine for our drum beats and I'd like to plug a looper into it and for the looper to sync up with the tempo of the beats. Somehow.

My issue with loopers is that unless I'm absolutely 100% spot clicking start/stop the loop will start drifting out of time.

If this does that I'll buy 2.

Sonuus

Yes, sync'ing is a great idea... we can certainly do that (I made Akai MPCs for many years!) Not in the Loopa mic though (adds too much complexity for the user; the Loopa is aimed at keeping it as simple as possible).

guitargeek62

Maybe I'm missing the point*, but what makes this option more attractive than an in-line looper pedal with XLR input and a remote-on-mic control set? That way you'd not have to develop a great mic too, and could just focus on the looper and interface.

*Note: I can't sing, so I'm not the target audience anyway!

Sonuus

Three advantages:

(1) Simplicity - you have a microphone and connect to an amp. No other pedals, mic preamps (unless you have that on your looper pedal), etc, required. It makes it very easy for a novice to start looping

(2) Cost - it's cheaper to build a microphone with a looper inside because you don't need to make 2 products. For a cost similar to a good microphone, you can have a good microphone with a looper (and built-in preamp).

(3) Ergonomics - having the buttons in the right place, and ensuring the microphone rests correctly in your hand so those buttons are easy to press when you need them, makes a big difference to the usability.