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> Hey All, am wondering what the > current rogues' > gallery of loopers is like these days?... Just look here... http://www.y2k6loopfest.com/images.html > Am actually wondering what the current equip scene is? It's all laptop these days, or at least dominated by them. The laptop users themselves are split into two main camps: MAX/MSP and Mobius. Apart from that, there's of course still the old crowd using their Repeaters, EDPs, Looperlatives and whatnot. I found this article I wrote (but never finished) about the gear scene at the loopfest - enjoy! Rainer This article is about the gear setup people use when playing something like.well, the Y2K6 International Live Looping Festival Santa Cruz/CA (www.y2k6loopfest.com, in case somebody hasn't noticed). This article does not claim to have any statistical relevance - mainly because I was out cold during one day of the main festival and attended the kyberjam on the second. But here we go: 1. Nice Rack: These are the people with a big 19'' equipment rack, which is usually complemented by a choice of foot controllers. Lots of carrying, relatively long setup time, great fun! This may be combined with one or several instrument (guitar) amplifiers (combos or really big ones), and even with some foot pedals. Great examples include Ted Killian, Bill Walker and Mir-O. 2. Pedal Board Rider: Lots of pedals (and sometimes not-pedal stuff, like handheld devices) are mounted on a big board. One cable goes from the guitar, bass or similar instrument into this board, another one (or a pair) goes out to FOH or to an instrument amp. These are usually slightly lighter than the big racks and much quicker to setup, simply because there are so few connections to make. Great examples: Ryussei Hattori, Mando-Man (seems to be a Japanese phenomenon). 3. Laptop Nerd: A laptop, and some other stuff. It makes sense to sub-divide that group into two different sub-groups: For one, there are the pure setups. There is the laptop, there are some MMI elements (foot controller, faderbox), and there is an audio/MIDI interface. But there are no external effect boxes and no external electronic instruments. More often however you'll find group two: hybrid setup where the laptop+MMI is complemented with one or several "outlaptop" devices. A guitar floorboard, an effects processor or something similar. The nerd crew had shown some tremendous growth in the last year. While in the past only dedicated laptopitians would use a laptop-based setup, nowadays more and more former users of other setups (mostly rack-users indeed) have switched to laptops. The range of laptops in use ranges from an old 500MHz G3 up to a maxxed out DuoCore. Great examples: Warren Sirrota, Per Boysen.and, well, myself. 4. Distributed Stuff: Lots of (mostly small) electronic components (like stompboxes, table-top devices and perhaps a compact mixer) are brought along in a bag and then set up on top of a table. This kind of a setup suffers mostly from the rather big amount of cabling necessary when setting up in relation to the number of devices used. Great examples: Matt Davignon 5. Small Stuff: Most of the time one or two integrated stompboxes, sometimes enhanced by an additional expression pedal etc. Small geometrical size and minimum weight count here and thus great portability rating. Often it is possible to entirely battery-power those setups (a property which they share with most pedal boards). Great examples: Genie (a distortion stompbox and a DL4), Pushing Air (a beauty case (?) in mint green).