I’m totally with you on this, I would love to have pyramid be a more flexible midi looper. I agree that jumping back to track mode (even with the two-button shortcut) is distracting when I’m trying to record a loop. I think it’s at least once or twice per jam session that I thought I was recording even when I wasn’t.
edit: oh oops, thread necro
Is there any chance this live midi looper functionality will be improved in any future updates? If so, I will definitely buy a Pyramid!
The Future Artist - Midi Looper looks like a good tool, but it can only do one trick (which I think it does very good). I would need a sequencer together with it to do everything I want, but I’d rather have one piece of gear that does it all…
I signed up literally to ask you why you think the Future Artist MIDI Looper is unreliable. Do you own one? On the fence with the Pyramid as-is, but this thread is kind of deal-breaking for me.
@loekazz also, have you looked at the MidiREX?
Each track can have different length. The longest track in part defines the part length. When track is played to its end it loops back to the beginning and keeps playing. The track length is set when the track is recorded and can be changed at any time, even during play back. Changing track length does not add or delete recorded track MIDI events, it merely defines a point at which track is looped back.
Although the FA MIDI Looper is a nice concept and has some nice features, I’ve experienced quite some trouble with it unfortunately, both hard- and software:
HW:
rotary controllers were broken quickly, during first test of the looper already! Seemed to be a bad batch and needed tot send it back for repair. Doesn’t feel good if you need to send back your gear after initial try-out. Even if it’s labeled ‘made in Germany’ 
standard USB connection for power is weak, especially in a live situation. Just a matter of time this connection will fail when the device is used a lot.
1/4 jack to mini jack adaptor to connect a footswitch pedal is a very weak point also, will also fail soon due to the weight & tension on that mini-jack socket…
when you connect all the cables (especially with the footswitch + mini-jack to jack adaptor), the unit is tilting backwards due to all the weight, so you can’t operate it very well anymore! Unless you use velcro or find another solution of course, but this is quite ridiculous. So, the design of this device really should be re-thought!
SW / functionality:
not always reliable, especially with polyphonic instruments and in combination with external clock coming in…
not always very tight MIDI recording
CC’s don’t seem to be recorded very well (think the memory or processing power is limited).
-…
So tho conclude, although it’s a very nice concept and something that doesn’t really exist, for both SW and HW the FA MIDI looper just feels like an unfinished and unreliable ‘first’ product. Especially not good enough for live use!
Together with the rather limited functionality it’s a really overpriced device. It’s almost half the price of a Squarp Pyramid, that has way more possibilities and more solid soft- and hardware that we need in a live situation.
I really feel there’s place for still a lot of improvement on the FA looper and I shouldn’t have bought it.
On the other hand, the creator of the FA Midi Looper really appreciates the honest feedback and is willing to improve the device, first the software and maybe later a second hardware version is coming. This will take a while, though…
I really recommend the pyramid above the FA looper, as you can do quite similar things (and much more). But still, especially for what concerns live looping & live recording (eg in track mode), there should be some quicker / less complex / more free ways to do this!
I really hope Squarp have ears for this and make their midi looping functionality better and more user friendly in the next OS update…
Best,
L
I’m not sure as I’ve had just a quick look to this,
but it seems like the FA Midi Looper might be some HW device based on MidiRex, as it seems to have similar specs and functionality…
That’s interesting. MidiSizer’s firmware is open source, with full schematics, etc., so could very well be.
I’m a bit confused by how well the loop “freedom” works with the FA MIDI Looper: I imagined that it “intelligently” set the end-loop point to be the next closest downbeat, so you could have the freedom to play a phrase on the keys and even if not perfect, it would set an end point that makes sense, calculate BPM in real-time, and send that BPM value as MIDI clock out on the next iteration of the loop.
Is that not how it works? The whole “calculate BPM on the fly thing” is really what’s piqued my interest.
I’ve mainly tried the MIDI looper while synced as a slave to an external clock.
The 4 loops can be of different length, yes, what makes it interesting indeed!
So you can record a loop of 4 measures and above that record a new loop of 5 measures, or even 4 and a half, or a loop consisting of 17 beats because it syncs to the next beat when finishing recording, If I remember well…
The BPM calculating thing is done by taking the time of the loop length (so between start and stop record) and just devide it by four. But, I’m not sure anymore. You can read the manual of course to find out more about this.
I have a Midirex. Can answer questions on it.
In the meantime, I couldn’t resist to buy a Pyramid, whether the looper function works how I would like it to work or not.
Haven’t played with it too much yet, but can someone explain how the looper function now works?
The manual says it records until you press record again, but do you have to set a tempo in advance or does it detect the tempo?
After your first recording, the track length is set, but how about the length of other tracks? Can you for instance record a 1 bar long track for 1 instrument and then a 4 bar long track for a different instrument? Will the 1 bar track then loop itself 4 times in the same time as the 4 bar track is looping once?
looper uses tempo that’s already been set. (so no, no tempo detection)
other track lengths are not affected.
so yes, you can have different length tracks, and they will loop independently.(* by default )
the looper is really simple - does nothing more than just keep recording until you hit play again.
(the only ‘option’ it has is to round the loop to a given size, eg. 2 bars will mean it a loop of a multiple of 2 bars - this is really useful 
)
As I already wrote and remembered it is just the whole Seq-mode under exam now.
Seq mode is the only mode which is still underdeveloped very probably in purpose . It doesn’t even have its own screen or DISP button function like TheLoudest pointed out.
I think that a part from the missing bar tracker the TRACKmode is complete. Also STEP is well done a part of this "data thin"which some people likes to enlarge the midi events capacity; and a part of very very few points also LIVE mode is quite complete.
So let’s wait this next update with all its game changes! eh?
with all due respect @Fabulous , as far as Ive read, we have absolutely no idea what 3.0 will bring or not, nor any idea what is ‘under exam’ or not.
all we know is that Squarp have 100’s of request/wishes, and opinions on what users would like, but no idea what priority they have assigned to each, or which have been deemed (technically) feasible, desirable or not.
probably a time when we can wish/hope for the best, whilst keep out expectations in check to avoid disappointment.
or have I missed something ? has squarp said anything on what we might expect?
(outside of a couple of bug fixes?)
p.s. my experience in software dev says, by announcing a beta for January, 3.0 will already be close to ‘feature complete’ … probably with a test (alpha) version already with a few select users (who will be under NDA to not reveal details )
no problem @thetechnobear
it may take a time anyway to see what people still pushing for , but is understandable what you say. there was a memory issue. This may be the thing. It is a pitty, cus so far ideas are coming on and on within the noobies arrival.
I am using pyramid little, but already since july with first trials. I never asked nothing before this winter.
I never felt like pushing, but lately I am getting a little bit pretending, and scared about this memory limit is speaking of
I am hoping and expecting yes! I have to admit it
Let’s stop acting like headless chicken and wait what will be revealed with the imminent update and what not.
Hi all ,
I’m confused . Not sure to understand the difference
Between the looper function and the live mode function 
I’m using the pyramid since day one in live mode usually to play any synth and recording it directly .
Any further advantage in " looper " mode ?
Thanks
With the looper function, that is only accessible through the ‘Live Mode’ by the way, you can start recording without having set the length of the loop before recording.
You can just start recording until you finished your idea / loop, and then stop recording. From there on the loop will play back over again and you can overdub that loop or activate another track for a recording a new loop (with another length, if desired).
You can set the quantisation & count-in settings (beat / bar /…) in the settings menu.
Good luck and have fun looping with the pyramid!
make sure by the way you have one of the latest beta versions of PyraOS installed, as there is a big difference in behavior of the looper functionality. It was a bit awkward before on version 2.30…
Many thansn for the input 