Re: Funky looping drummers/MIDI question

[Tim Nelson <tcn62@ici.net>]

Paul's comments remind me of a question I've wanted to ask for a few months
now.

A while ago, I was playing with a drummer who'd never played with a looper
before (and yes, there were the usual monitoring issues which we remedied
by creative cabinet placement). I guess my enthusiasm must have been
contagious, 'cause he wanted to know a lot more about the possibility of
looping himself. Specifically, he wanted to know if it was possible to
connect MIDI drum pads to a looper to do WITH HIS STICKS what the rest of
us do with our feet. He wants to keep his feet on his hi-hat and kick drum
pedals and his sticks in his hands. He DOESN'T want to play one-handed or
have a bunch of non-drum pedals. (Using a mixer and miked acoustic drums;
the pads would only be used to punch in and out of the looper, and not as
an electronic sound source. I think he had some twisted idea involving the
MIDI outs on a cheap little Yamaha DD-5 that he had jammed into his
eccentric Bruford-meets-Evelyn Glennie-in-Fred Sanford's-junkyard setup
somewhere between the sawblades and the fire alarm bell. Yikes. I have no
idea what kind of looping device he'd set his evil mind on...) Since I
don't use MIDI, I was unable to satisfactorily answer his question; do any
of you have any experience with this sort of thing?

And if you do and live anywhere near Boston, give David Kirkdorffer a
shout! He needs looping percussionists!

And if you're north of there and want to jam, give ME a shout!

Tim


>Paul wrote:

Question - What other ways are there to trigger and
>maintain a loop 'note on' then trigger a 'note off' when
>a new note is triggered? 
>
>Basically I want to trigger a loop and play along on the
>drums without holding the key or a sustain pedal then
>trigger a new loop on a new downbeat or cancel the loop. 
>
>