Re: Loop approach: Loop as effect

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Yo Mark,

Mark Sottilaro wrote:
> The two major camps I broke it down to
> were those who used a looper very simply (such as myself), as in a 
>straight
> loop with some percentage of feedback with external effects and those who
> played with few or no effects, but used the looping device as an effect 
>in
> itself (as in Andre Lafosse).

Right, I can see what you mean.  I'd say there was lots of middle-ground
between those two "camps," too, such as:

-- Rick Walker changing speed on the DL4 mid-overdub to get wonderful
octave jumps,
-- Bill Walker using MIDI guitar data to warp the Repeater loops in
different ways,
-- Amy X using that warbly pitch mod on the "pot smoking" verse in "My
God" (I think that was the name of the tune, anyway)

> As my effects pallet became larger, my looping technique became more
> simple.

Yes, I've noticed the same thing with my own work, though in reverse -
as time goes on, I've used fewer and fewer effects, as I've tried to use
the EDP more deeply.

> I find there's rarely a time when I feel my
> sonic pallet is limited.  On the contrary, I feel it's often too much!  

Me too - I've spent many an hour staring at banks and banks of synth
patches, wondering where I should begin, and scrolling through all the
presets two or three times without hearing anything that grabs me very 
much.

On the other hand, I can always find something to play when I just pick
up a regular, un-effected, un-looped electric guitar.  So not using
effects, for me, is a way of trying to deal with looping on the terms of
my "regular" playing, rather than completely changing the way I play
because I'm suddenly looping (and am therefore "supposed" to play a 
certain way...)

> One of
> the things I do in my looping, is I set up large banks of effects and 
>synth
> sounds, and then kind of randomly choose them, not really knowing what 
>sound
> I'm going to get.  I then have to DEAL with it.  

Conceptually, that's what I do too - playing something into the EDP
and warping it, so that my playing is spit back at me in unexpected
ways.  Like you, it's a way of jump-starting my improvisation; it's
almost like having a seperate person to play with, because I rarely know
exactly what the stuff coming back is going to sound like until I hear
it.  And ideally, that can inspire me to play things I wouldn't have
thought of if I was just looping phrases in a straightforward manner.

This is where the "turntablist" concept comes into play for me: the idea
is that instead of using a looper (or a turntable/mixer) as a means of
playing back a phrase (or a record) verbatim, you can use it as a way of
scultping and generating sound on its own, using the apparatus as a
medium for doing so.

Pseudo-signifying Marshall McLuhan on a Friday night,

--Andre LaFosse
The Echoplex Analysis Pages:
http://www.altruistmusic.com/EDP