AudioDamage Enso

Enso, Audio Damage’s daring new looper, might be inspired by existing modern looper pedals and vintage tape-based setups, but there’s way more to it than that.

It’s a creative tool for both studio hounds and live performers, and runs on PC/Mac and iOS. Start it running and, when you hit record, you can capture up to ten minutes (five on iOS) of whatever you fancy, before overdubbing further layers without having to stop playback.

So far, so familiar, but Enso goes further than other loops by offering

two distinct overdubbing modes. You can have it work in a conventional way or go for a Frippertronics-style ‘dual tape deck’ arrangement, with the feedback parameter opening up all kinds of creative layering options. You can also define up to four distinct sectors, each with its own start and end points, for on-the-fly loop rearranging.

Speed and direction are handled independently for both playback and recording, so you can go further and mess with time and motion. The Bipolar Speed lets you transition smoothly between forwards and backwards (and vice versa), and you can record forwards while playing a buffered loop backwards (for example), both at different speeds.

Once you’ve got your head around all that, you should also consider that there are tape-style saturation, filtering and chorus effects, and that everything can be set up to respond to MIDI control. Visually, you can marvel at what’s going on by looking at the looping waveform display.

Enso is available now for PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats priced at $79, and on iOS for $7.99.