Re: Early bird loopers with Live?

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 12:01 PM, David Hayes <stringfling@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you so much for your time. The main thing I was looking for was a 
>way
> to Loop with Stylus RMX as the basic drum part, taking the drum parts in 
>and
> out with my footswitch and always being in time. All with the same basic
> work flow as an EDP. Ability to set loop tempo with first phrase would 
>be a
> nice extra but not so important.

Ah... now we're talking! RMX is awesome, but I would guess that any
host slaving to MIDI Clock is not rhythmically stable enough for RMX
(please note this is a guess - if you are interested you should really
try it out to see if it works). RMX has always been stable for me when
the host is the sync master.

Slave syncing Loopers: I've been jamming with other musicians when we
were all using EDP's and the only down side is that you may have to
wait for the on-beat when laying down your first loop (I sometimes
created a silent first loop, in the Brother Sync network, and then
filled it up with my playing, just to avoid bumps). It's just that for
the solo concerts I do it makes for a way better performance if never
having to watch the scrreen or wait for a cue... just get up there and
start playing, sort of. And I never use "drums" live if there is not a
drummer (laptopper or skin basher) on stage to play with me ;-))
(but I really love RMX for studio work!!!! Especially 1.7 for odd
measures)

About MIDI Clock: After all it is a subversive catch-up game. The sync
slave never really realizes that it is too fast or too slow until it
has already crossed the line and has to start adjusting to compensate
for its mistake. And then it makes the same mistake from the other
direction... and vice versa... for eternity. TAlk about a "miserable
loop"! Good thing machines and software don't have feelings - they
would instantly implode into depression  ;-)

I use the host application for synced delays, reverb, synced tremolo
or filter sweeps. For effect add-ons like those I the rubber band
timing of a MIDI Clock sync is good enough. But for hard on-the-beat
sequencing of loop mangling I go for scripting in Mobius. The reason
is that this will then be done in a rock solid timing

Per