Looping with a keyboard

["T.W. Hartnett" <hartnett.t@apple.com>]

Pulled out my old Roland RD-250s this weekend and plugged into my guitar 
looping home rig (compressor, Whammy Pedal, volume pedal, Boogie Subway 
Rocket, ART SGE multi-fx, Rane mixer splitting the effected signal to an 
8 second delay and a 4 second delay in parallel, back into the Boogie's 
power section and out a 10" speaker). 

The RD-250 is a weighted-key MIDI controller with a few onboard 
sounds--three acoustic pianos, harpsichord, vibes, clavinova, two 
electric pianos.  This was my first time using it in a looping context, 
and it was an interesting experience.  Altering the eq on the effected 
signal, with the usual delay/reverb produced all sorts of spooky sounds.  
The less than perfect fidelity of the delays also helped transform 
acoustic piano sounds into something new.  I was pleased to find that 
most of my guitar tricks (volume pedal swells, heavy compression before 
the preamp, judicious use of the Whammy's octave-up harmonization) worked 
with the keyboard.  Turning on the distortion on the amp in conjunction 
with the Whammy brought up all sorts of cool analog synth sounds.

I don't have an external sound module, and you can't edit the sounds in 
the Roland, but I was really pleased with the "guitaristic" approach to 
signal processing--running it through low-fi pedals and effects.  The 
Whammy pedal in particular was great for adding all sorts of wobble and 
usable unpredicatablity in a way that I haven't encountered in synth 
patches.

I'll definitly be trying this out on some of my solo gigs.

Travis Hartnett