Re: Loop approach: Loop as effect

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

From: "Mark Sottilaro" <sine@zerocrossing.net>
> I'm not sure how you can say this.  It's generally accepted that "delay"
> is an effect, no?  I've got a ton of gear that lists the type of effects
> and "delay" is usually one of them.  Is a loop not essentially a long
> delay with a 100% feedback?

I think we call them "effects" because we've learned to do so.  If I have a
trombone player in a room, and the room's structured in such a way as to 
get
great depth to the sound the trombone player makes, is he also playing the
room as well as his instrument?  Would baffles on the ceiling be "effects"?
Perhaps, if we bought the baffles in boxes marked "effects".  We've learned
that a loop can be produced by having a delay unit - or a pair of revoxes
for that matter - with a several-second length; but is the loop ultimately
the FX unit, or is it the sound that's produced.

> Don't think that I don't agree that we're on some slippery ground.  I
> think the minute you take the acoustic phenomena of a string vibration,
> and apply a transformer and an amplifier on it, you've got an effect.
> You've *changed* the sound in a way.  Again, it allows you to use
> technique in a different way than without it.

Thankfully it's still in the realm of inference, style, magic, whatever
intangible bit one wishes to hang on it.  I prefer not to define what I'm
doing in terms of the effects I use - they're after all only a means to an
end result for me.  Loop as technical construct, within which I place
sounds; Loop as composition tool; Loop as something perhaps the audience
doesn't completely understand, but they like it.  It's late and I'm full of
Day-Night cold medicine.  Whee!

> I also don't understand where you draw the line between effect and
> music.  To me it seems like one long continuum, starting with the effect
> of the string vibrating (insert favorite oscillation here) when struck
> in some way.  So there, you've manipulated reality.  Then you put a
> magnet on it and get it to change the way electrons are behaving, then
> you....  It really becomes one big mess.  A fun mess!

I agree - it's a continuum in which we all work, at different places.  Some
time ago I came to understand that putting extraordinary objects onto a
piano's wires made a "piano" into a "modified piano".  I thought this 
pretty
funny-sounding, and wondered what it would sound like if, instead of forks
and other objects, I put a plugged-in Osterizer, running on high.  What the
heck would it sound like then?  I dunno, but it'd be interesting at least.
I wouldn't want to do that to my piano (if I had one).

Stephen P. Goodman
EarthLight Productions
*
http://www.earthlight.net/Studios - The Free Loop of the Week!


> is both effect has effect and is music. no? i think so.
>
> Mark Sottilaro
>
>
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> Hedewa7@aol.com wrote:
>
> > i have heared many time.
> > probably before did you.
> > is good!
> > has effect!
> > but is not effect. is music.
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