RE: Loop approach: Loop as effect

["Rainer Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Steve,

> ...but this can also be a limitation. The instrument I play
> is cursed by
> being called a 'bass guitar', due to the perception people
> have of it. It's
> possible to undermine that with my usual response to 'you
> can't do that on a
> bass' which is 'then don't call it a bass, call it a baritone banjo' -
> labels can help to define things but also be very limiting
> when they ascribe
> specific function to a non-specific entity. A bass just makes
> a noise, what
> noise is up to you. It has no inherent sound, leave it alone
> it won't make a
> sound (back to the initial discussion)

Actually, the point you're stretching differs from what I think you address
by the term "initial discussion". You're talking about the perception
"people" have, and specifically the people who are your audience. And the
median audient (ok, not of the people who listen to you) regards the "bass
guitar" as something with four (and sometimes more) strings with frets on
which people play the lowest voice of any given rock /pop arrangement (this
already being a rather technical definition...). So to emphasise that what
people will get to hear from me if I do play bass (strange tunings, lots of
effects, synth and guitar parts, triggering vocoders et al.), I 
experimented
with different names for this instrument in combination with the player and
the "effects", the most successful being "weirdbass"...

Getting back to your Lexicon labelling example, I think I read somewhere
that the first line of "cheap" effects by Lexicon (Alex, Reflex, Vortex and
Jamman) were marketed as guitarist's devices (in comparison to their 480L
and similair stuff for studio use), while everybody knows the best use of
the Vortex is in combination with a drum machine...:-)

        Rainer

Rainer Straschill
Moinlabs GFX and Soundworks - www.moinlabs.de
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