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Looper's Delight
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I rather enjoyed the irony of Bob H's comment about life not revolving around a computer being expressed via an online mailing list... :) Personally, I do agree with what a lot of you have said about looping devices being better suited for live performance than are computers, although I know there are many, many others who would have good reason to disagree; I'm seeing more and more laptops onstage in peoples' setups, and they seem to be working pretty well for them. Maybe some of you could share some pointers/anecdotes/horror stories gleaned from your experiences (good or bad) using computers in live performance, letting those of us with less live cyber-looping experience in on your secrets (hardware/software recommendations or caveats, technique, et cetera). In a lot of ways the difference between devices and computers is becoming increasingly moot as rackmount stuff makes greater use of more powerful microprocessors (and more memory) and computers feature more dependable (and portable) hardware and more user-friendly software. MIDI has done much to narrow the gap, especially in the area of user interface, but the dichotomy still exists nonetheless, both technologically and philosophically. Maybe it's just that we as users are loyal to that with which we're familiar, and are enthusiastic in sharing what's worked for us. The thread comparing classic car restoration to building a computer from scratch reminds me of a rhetorical question posed on NPR's Car Talk: If a car has ALL of its parts replaced one at a time over a period of years, is it still the same car? Now apply your answer to looping, factoring in sample entropy, noise buildup and signal processing... Repetition with the gradual introduction of extremely subtle change, kind of like a mantra; at what point does the original signal become something else? How long does it retain its essence? And does it matter whether these results are derived from a pair of Revoxes, an EDP, or a road-cased Pentium? Tim