Opinions (was: questions for one and all)

[zenchi@juno.com (Robert L Williams)]

On Thu, 5 Jun 1997 18:15:28 -0400 (EDT) MiqSk8@aol.com writes:
>has anyone here on the list seen the david torn instructional videos? 
>i'm still pretty new at looping but have a fairly firm grasp on signal
>processing; would these be of worth ($69+) to me? what do they cover, 
>and are they more theory based or just the "look what cool sound i get
out of 
>this cool box" type thing?

Seen em, own em, dig em.  The first tape covers DTs guitar, pedal and amp
setup.  He spends a little time discussing the beauty of the TransTrem as
 a fairly concise overview of how to mutate amp tones.

Tape two is a cool intro to looping from both an improv/compositional
basis
as well as hardware.  Both tapes begin and end with loop performance, so 
there's kind of a bonus.  Well worth the investment.

>on to more real loopy stuff... has anyone here ever seen the Joni 
>Mitchell concert video Shadows and Light? Her band at the time was
michael 
>brecker, don elias, lyle mays, pat metheny, and the monster known as
jaco 
>pastorious. jaco's solo takes advantage of the lexicon(judging by the
blue on the 
>box) delay to build a quick loop to blow over. it's really cool, 
>grooving(of course), and jaco just has the technology dialed in.
warning:this solo 
>does not appear on the cd!

Seen it, own it, dig it.  Jaco was using an MXR Delay and Pitch
Transposer around
that time.  Yeah, the solo is cool because you can hear not only a
Hendrix tune, but
what was to become "Teen town".  Metheny was the one using Lexicon stuff.
   
 
(snip of zoom stuff. nothing to add)

>and now for the big kahuna- what is it that all of us are trying to 
>achieve by looping? i'm really interested in the sounds coming out of
this 
>group. Atmospheres? Textures? "Sound Carpets"? Precision Pointillism? 
>Industrial Indigestion? or more of the compositional types of multiple
loops 
>created on the fly and then swapped between? in other words a way to
build 
>traditional sections of composition to be arranged. i realize this
predates the 
>looper's cd, but i think it would be cool for us to get an idea of
what's going 
>on with all this equipment and talent and ...
 
Seeking, Doing, Digging.  Not having tried enough aspects, its hard to
know 
or say where I'm headed.  By the same token I don't think I'll want to 
narrow my focus, it seems too limiting.  Like when people ask what I
play, 
I don't say guitar or bass, etc., I tell them music. The genre
classification stuff 
is better done by journalists.  Just amuse yourself and let someone else
decide what is.

Robert Williams
DERISION