FRIZZ 1.0: loop it, then mangle it live

FRIZZ turns your CHOMPI into a stereo looper and performance effects box. Catch a loop, hold a white key to throw one of 13 effects over it, and change the whole sound in time with scenes that morph, crossfade or drop on the bar line, locked to your drum machine or DAW. FRIZZ is free and open source, and 1.0 is the version to start with: from here on, the controls, the MIDI map and your saved scenes stay as they are.

FRIZZ.bin · md5 22529c552373492bd2a64841c07c29f2 · built from v1.0.0 with GCC 10.3 (the same build as v1.0.0-beta.4)

Try it without giving anything up

• Next to TAPE and TEMPO. With the multi-firmware launcher, FRIZZ sits on a key of its own beside TAPE, TEMPO and WAVE, and you pick one at power-on. The CHOMPI setup page installs it from the browser.
• Or on its own. Copy FRIZZ.bin to the card. It doesn't touch the bootloader, and you go back to the stock firmware the same way.
• Your samples stay. FRIZZ keeps its scenes and settings in a FRIZZ folder of its own and leaves everything else on the card alone.

Step by step: Install. The quick start gets you playing in a few minutes.

What you can do with it

Play effects like an instrument.

• Thirteen effects sit on the white keys, from the freezer and pitch shifter to the tape stop, delay and reverb. Each one is on for as long as you hold its key, or latched with SHIFT.
• Four knobs shape the effect you touched last, and a press turns them to a second page with Mix, Band and Level.
• The chaos key drops your effects out and back in on random steps of the beat, and jumps around the loop. Chance decides when, never how it sounds.

Change the whole sound in time.

• Four scenes hold every effect's knobs and latches.
• Recall one at once, morph to it over a few bars, crossfade to it by hand on the transport knob (the Octatrack's crossfader, on your CHOMPI), or drop it hard on the next bar line, after a build-up if you like.

Bend the loop. The transport knob plays the loop in semitones from double speed down to a standstill and on into reverse, so the loop turns into a melody or a tape dying.

Lock it to the rest of your setup.

• FRIZZ follows a MIDI clock over TRS or USB, or sends its own, with Start and Stop so a drum machine follows your loop.
• In a DAW, every effect has its own MIDI channel with the same CCs.
• AUX can play dry past the effects while you mangle its loop, and the built-in mic works as an input.

Starts in a second. FRIZZ is ready to play about a second after you switch it on.

Coming from v0.11

1.0 moves some controls for good, so they won't move again.

• Keys:
  • The scene keys are two dark keys further right, with save, copy and delete on the upper F#, G# and A#.
  • The resonator, slicer, wow & flutter and tape stop moved one white key right for the new phaser.
• Settings page: it's grouped by topic. The lower octave is MIDI in, the upper MIDI out and the input: F# the source, G# its monitoring, A# through the effects or past them.
• Knobs: stereo moved to page 2, and so did the delay's and reverb's level.
• Levels:
  • The master compressor no longer adds makeup gain, so set Makeup on its page 2 if yours sounds quieter.
  • The folder and crusher may come back louder.
• MIDI: the MIDI map is new. The CHANGELOG has a table from old to new.
• Your scenes: they carry over. v0.11 doesn't know 1.0's scene layout, so copy the FRIZZ folder first if you might go back.

Everything that changed since v0.11, entry by entry: CHANGELOG.md.