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Looper's Delight
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Cummings wrote: > > Sounds like you are looping acoustically, which is what I do. How do you > handle live situations, in particular how do you avoid signals from > feeding back into a loop from a monitor? Yeah, this is a real problem. Currently, I try close micing with cardiod mics. I place my house speakers so that they don't "see" the stage mics. I use a small mic stand mounted monitor and keep the sound level down as low as possible. I play places that aren't very noisy so the PA isn't very loud. While all this helps, I still get sound degredation as I overdub loops. I'm trying other things: I've tried using a single wireless mic that I wear. I've tried noise-gates on my mics. For any given song, I can adjust the gate threshold for proper operation; however, the next song needs different settings. Consequently, I don't use noise-gates in performance. I've thought about building an elaborate system that would "intelligently" listen to the background level and automatically adjust the noise-gate thresholds. I tried adding switches to the mics (using that Switchcraft XLR connector with the in-line switch) and it's just another action that gets in the way of making music. For some compositions I pad down (on the mixer) the mics I'm not using. That is, as I construct loops, I unpad the particular mic I'm going to use next. I'm not satified with any of my solutions. What do you do? Any suggestions? > I remember reading a while back that you perform composed pieces. How > are you doing that with your EDP? Do you notate various loop actions as > well? My notations are mostly to help remind me of what to do. I don't (usually) "read" them when I play. While I seem to remember the short phrases that I play, I'm apt to forget the sequence of looper "keystrokes". So my notes don't include the "music", only the looper actions. I tried including the music early on and found it unnecessary and confusing. I call my notes a "song schema". For a given song schema, I have three sections. The first section lists the instruments used on the piece. Before starting the piece, I can gather the instruments in convenient locations. The second section lists the equipment set-up - EDP beats per 1/8, SPX-90 program settings, mixer channel panning, etc. The third section lists the sequence of looper actions. I've attached a Word document with an example of a traditional tune done "looper fashion". Hope you can read it OK. > Oh, and if you have time, tell me more about these: > - waterphone > - ocean drum > - batu-tu > - gopiyantra > - ting-sha I've been meaning to put together a web page with instrument descriptions. For now, here's what I have. The waterphone is the spookiest sounding instrument I have. See http://spacebeat.com/waterphone/ The ocean drum is made by Remo. It's a double-headed frame drum which contains small ball-bearings. When you hold the drum horizontal and tilt it from side to side, the ball-bearings roll across the bottom head and produce a "surf-like" sound. It's very peaceful. The Batu-tu from New Guinea is made from a length of bamboo with one end cut into two prongs or tines like a tuning fork. The other end, serving as the handle, is split from the tines part of the way towards the end. Striking the tines causes the split in the handle to buzz gently. The Batu-tu is also known as the Tugangay or "devil chaser" in the Philippines. I bought mine from Lark in the Morning. See http://www.larkinam.com/ The gopiyantra, a single stringed instrument from eastern India, is constructed from a short length of bamboo and a small single-headed drum. The bamboo, divided into a yoke, forms the neck of the instrument. The drum is fastened between the arms of the yoke with the open end pointing towards the top of the yoke. One end of the string is attached to the top of the yoke, where the arms join together; extends between the arms of the yoke into the open end of the drum; and attaches to the center of the head inside the drum. By squeezing the bamboo neck while plucking or striking the string, the string tension is varied hence changing the pitch of the instrument. According to Hindu tradition, the Gopiyantra was played by the milk-maid consorts of Krishna. Mine is a gift from a friend but Lark in the Morning also has them (called Gopi Chand in their catalog). Ting-sha chimes from Tibet looks like two very small, very thick cymbals. It produces quite a dissonant, penetrating sound intended to immediately focus your attention to the present and is used by Buddhist monks in meditation practices. Lark in the Morning also carries these, although I got mine elsewhere. Hope you found this interesting... - Dennis Leas -- dennis@mdbs.com