SLOOP

SLOOP is the Felucca fork that changes the question: instead of “what does it have?”, “how does it play?”. It’s a 4-track live groovebox without a single factory pattern — everything you hear, you played yourself — where every button carries a performance layer: punch-in FX, erase as the playhead passes, note repeat, mutes, song sections.

And the trick that made it famous: the free take. You hit REC and record at your own tempo, no click; you hit REC again right on the “1” and the loop closes — its length becomes the project’s tempo. The machine follows you, not the other way around.

Workflow

Live groovebox jamming (house, techno, hip-hop, trap, DnB, amapiano, lo-fi), song sketching and direct recording to your phone over USB audio. A 64-step sequencer with 24 parameter locks per track, ±½-step nudges at 1/64 resolution, fills, quick chaining and MPC swing from 0 to 100; song mode is recorded by playing the song live. The CHOP browser samples and slices at a touch (on-beat slicing, fit-to-slot), with a piano roll and MIDI import/export.

Engines & what it emulates

Felucca’s 12 engines, including FM6 with DX7 SysEx import (27-patch bank + cartridge) and PHYS (DaisySP/Mutable Rings models: nylon and steel guitars, sitar, tanpura, tabla, steel pan). The star is the drums: 37 level-calibrated kits — 5 sampled acoustic and 32 synthesized in the style of the 808/909/606, trap, boom-bap, jungle, phonk and amapiano — plus sampled user kits (USR1–4) and synthesized ones (SYN1–4). 153 sounds in total.

What sets it apart

• 16 punch-in FX and a master with DUST/DUCK/DJ-filter/limiter.
• TRS MIDI in, MIDI clock/CC and the sequencer out over MIDI out.
• Full web editor and real manuals (GUIDE.md, SLOOP.md).
• r/synthesizers christened it “OP-1-like”; MATRIXSYNTH gave it a write-up.

Status & caveats

Very active (2.0 → 2.5 in five days). The hub has listed it as stable since 10-09, and v2.5 brought two new engines (among them PHYS, the physical models inherited from Felucca) — the README still carries the beta note. Heads-up: projects saved with 2.4+ (FUN5 format) won’t open in 2.3 or earlier. It’s the father of sloopDX, zp12 and Bubba — the most fertile branch of the family tree.