Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
Hi,
I like the way the Belew approaches his looping in general, he's
done this sort of thing with King Crimson for a while. Fripp is certainly
a
master of that evolving-revolving loop thing that Below describes below.
Have you seen the 2 tape series by David Torn? The second tape
gets into lots of techniques like Belew describes below, but better since
you can watch the whole process and have it described in gory depth by
David. It's an excellent series for looping and guitar!
Tom
At 06:02 PM 2/3/01 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi list...found this on the web...lots of interesting ideas...surely
>loopers
>here can do even much better! ;-)
> regards.........italoop
>
>Adrian Belew
>Creating stellar compositions with guitar loops
>
>by Emile Menasché
>
>Adrian Belew's sonic sense of adventure is all encompassing. Most
>guitarists
>spend their entire careers paying homage to the familiar sound of rock 'n'
>roll that was born in decades long gone, but Belew has always pushed the
>sonic envelope. In his hands, an electric guitar is not merely a loud and
>more fluid-sounding incarnation of its acoustic counterpart; it's a bridge
>into uncharted sonic territory -- part synthesizer, part voice, part
>percussion instrument. What's more, Belew doesn't restrict himself to any
>single musical environment. He'll follow up a King Crimson project with an
>acoustic album, or a stint in the studio with Nine Inch Nails, or a pop
>record with his long-time band the Bears, or a tour pounding the V-drums
>with ProjeKct 2.
>
>His most recent release, Salad Days (Thirsty Ear) showcased many of
>Belew's
>best known compositions stripped down to their most basic form. In the
>meantime, the man himself has been moving in a new direction. Working out
>of
>his Nashville home studio, Belew has re-examined his sound and approach to
>composition, a process he goes through every couple of years. "I am
>developing a new vocabulary of guitar sounds with the onboard effects in
>my
>new Johnson Millennium amplifier," he says. "A recent discovery that I
>made - which is really helping me a lot - is ways to use loops, which I
>comically call 'Belewps.'"
>
>Belew has long used electronic gear to manipulate sounds in real time. One
>classic example is the way he sometimes mounts a flanger (or other
>stompbox)
>to his mic stand and operates the box's knobs while playing. When dealing
>with more advanced hardware, Belew often uses a MIDI expression pedal to
>manipulate various parameters, such as delay time, in real time. The
>latter
>technique led to one of Belew's more famous unauthorized uses for the
>guitar.
>
>"The way I had it set up," he explains, "you were only hearing the delay -
>you weren't hearing the original signal. So if I moved my foot, the delay
>changed, and you could hear the sweep of it - it sounded very much like
>humpback whales."
>
>With "Belewps," Belew has taken the real-time concept even further,
>actually
>using loops generated by the digital delays as a compositional tool. He
>starts by setting up a delay and improvising. When he finds a passage he
>likes, he records it by capturing it with the Johnson's built in
>pedalboard.
>He then plays along with the captured loop to build something new. Belew
>is
>quick to point out that these are not merely repeating figures
>regurgitated
>by a digital delay. "The loops systems I've been doing have been ones that
>are not static," he says. "Normally, you think of a loop like this: You
>play
>something into [a delay unit] and [the unit] plays it back internally,
>verbatim. I've been trying to work with loops you can interact with - add
>to, interrupt and constantly change while you're playing. Every time you
>bring the expression pedal in, you're tapping into the loop, turning it on
>or off, or adding to it. You can be playing anything.
>
>"Let's just say that I'm just jamming and improvising, and [the Johnson]
>is
>actually recording everything that I'm playing into a two-second delay,"
>he
>continues. "Now, I don't hear that delay until I turn the expression pedal
>on. So when I push the expression pedal on, I'm going to hear what I just
>played for the last two seconds. After that, I can continue to play, and
>that loop will continue play along with whatever new I'm playing. I can
>take
>the loop in or out of the mix at any juncture."
>
>Once a loop is set, Belew can improvise against it, playing a counterpoint
>or harmony without altering the original loop. Often, however, he will
>change the loop as he is playing against it. By carefully choosing his in
>and out points, Belew uses the expression pedal to replace parts of the
>loop, thereby changing keys or altering the nature of the rhythm. "If I
>just
>briefly touch the pedal for a second - and maybe I'll just play one note -
>I'm adding that note into the loop," he says. "Whereas if I just briefly
>touch the pedal and play nothing, it will interrupt the loop and put a
>little pause in it. So I can be playing along and every so often I can
>completely change this loop."
>
>The one thing Belew does not change in real time is the length of the loop
>itself. Interestingly, he says he can tune the Johnson's delay time to fit
>his natural body clock. "I had been working with a maximum delay time of
>two
>seconds, and in fact I've found that my natural body rhythm fits a 1.84
>seconds better," he says. "So within 1.84 seconds, I can change as often
>as
>I want."
>
>Belew often likes to enhance the "one-man-guitar-orchestra" vibe by
>running
>his rig in stereo and employing different tones and effects to the music
>that is looping versus the notes he is playing against those loops. "I've
>found that it helps to separate the sounds," he says. "I usually have
>something like another delay - usually an analog-type sound set for a
>500ms
>ambience so that it doesn't get too confusing sounding - plus distortion
>and
>perhaps a very interesting sounding chorus, which I can bring in and out
>with the Johnson's pedalboard."
>
>Belew says he sometimes chooses two widely different sounds. For example,
>he'll solo with a distorted tone against a repeating clean-toned figure to
>create the illusion of "two completely independent guitar players. I've
>even
>done something where the delay goes to the left set of speakers, and what
>I'm currently playing stays on the right. When there's no loop, everything
>moves to the middle. So the dimensions shift. The sound is shifting from
>side to side as you change the pedal. It's really fascinating stuff. It's
>going to allow me to go out on stage and play in front of an audience
>sounding like two or three guitarists."
>
>Belew also uses physical techniques to distinguish between the loops and
>his
>live playing. "Once you have a loop you want to play something to, you can
>either sound like you're doubling it, or you can play against it, almost
>like Robert Fripp and I play sometimes-the same lines a little out of
>synch
>with each other."
>
>Interestingly, Belew tends to shy away from other somewhat similar tools,
>such as sampling, preferring to keep the creative flow he gets from
>interacting with the loops in real time. "I'm fond of finding little
>things
>you can sample into Pro Tools, and then doing all the things you can do to
>it: slow it down, speed it up, turn it around backwards, cut it into
>little
>bits, etc.," he says. "But with Belewps, you really have to just jump in
>and
>go."
>
>While he admits that his quest to explore new sonic frontiers does
>require a
>fair amount of intellectual energy, Belew points out that finding the
>promised land is really just a matter of letting the music flow naturally.
>"The pieces that I've done so far sound like they took forever to put
>together, but they're really only one or two passes of guitar." he says.
>"But the beauty of it is that it's simpler than it appears. I'm hoping to
>develop an entirely new sound for myself. I have the components of what
>I'm
>trying to do, and then it's just a matter of experimentation and the
>scientific research of developing it into more than just improvising. The
>trick is to figure out how to control what you're doing."
>
>
>
>
>
>