Using the Wind Synth to control the Repeater

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Elby wrote:

"I'd be interested in hearing about how you use your WX-5 to control your
Repeater, Rick.  Are you controlling pitch?  Using pitchbend?  I'm a
windsynth player as well, but have never even thought about hooking mine
(WX-7) up to the Repeater as a controller!!"

    I'm glad you asked because I'm really excited about doing this.

    People have triggered samples from midi sources (keys,guitars, wind,
percussion controllers, sequencers and drum machines) for a long time, of
course.

    Previously, however, people have had to record samples and then go home
and edit them so that they could either be multiply triggered or looped.

    With the advent of the Repeater, however, we have the first opportunity
to sample a sound source in real time in front of an audience.........the
audience 'getting' that you are playing an instrument or an object or
whatever (lfo pattern on a filter box?) and then seeing you 'play' that
'instrument' as a chromatic
instrument.  It is really cool to watch people be amazed as I sample a very
random sound that to their ears sounds like noise and then play it
melodically.
Audiences get really turned on by that, I've noticed.

    In previous gigs I would go home and work for hours on samples and then
play them on my little two octave
keyboard during concerts...............Yawn!!!!!  Nobody said a thing.
Then a good friend of mine would play the same kinds of things (or even
hackneyed stock, antiquated samples from old synth) on his wind synthesizer
and people would go nuts.  "What is that instrument you are playing".  
"Does
it 'make' those sounds?"   "Cool, can you show us how it works".....etc,
etc.......

    It occured to me that because he was standing up and playing an
instrument that looked, viscerally, like
a saxaphone that people treated it differently than
another keyboard.

    Long story short, I bought a wind synth and started learning saxaphone
fingering, for sheer theatricalities sake.

    Now, I play a lot of 'found' sounds (plastic, glass, metal, wooden,
wierd vocal techniques, etc.) and
discovered a very hip aspect of the Repeater:

    It treats the un-pitched initial loop as if it is midi note C60, which
means that I can play anywhere from two octaves down to one octave up.

    For me this meant I only had to learn all of my modes and relevant
scales (I play a lot of world ethnic scales in my performances because that
is my background and one of my great loves in life) in the key of C.

    The only drawback for playing with other instruments is that the 
'found'
tonal center (or actual pitch of the sampled instrument) may or probably
won't be middle C.

    A way I get around this is by playing fretless bass
(or oud or slide on any string instrument).  I can swoop down and discover
the tonal center and then contribute other instruments to the mix.

    Or, I can start with a tonal center from a traditional western (or
eastern) instrument and then
figure out the relative pitch of the instrument I'm using.  I'll frequently
do this with extended vocal techniques:   warble singing, trill singing,
hum-whistiling, noise production (shhhhhss,  ssssssisses, etc.).

    Or I will play my instrument through my litte boss intellishifter (that
goes right before my DL-4 floor looper) and quickly see if I can pitch the
the instrument so that it matches the tonal center of the key.

    On my current CD I have one piece (track three, I believe) where I put 
a
clitoral vibrator into a big pint glass  and sample a loop: where it 
clickes
and buzzes and whirs and occasionally jumps up and hits higher on the 
glass,
which produces a distinct pitched ringing sound:

    It is a beautiful sound..........very, very random and chaotic and yet,
as you can hear, I play a conventional melody on it about half way through
the pieces.

    I love blowing through a plastic battery powered dayglo green plastic
personal fan, producing a very synthesizer, 'bubble' type of rhythmic
pattern and then
half way through a piece start playing it as a melody.

    It's also phenomenal for things like triangle parts. You retain the
groove of the triangle rhythm but start playing the ringin as a melody.

    I think it's cool, but I haven't sorted out how to do it while I  use 
my
behringer midi pedals simulataneously.  It's looking like I have to get a
much more sophisticated midi mapper (which I'm saving my money for
currently).  I have more work to do before I have it wired but I'm bound 
and
determined to conquer it.

    I feel like I"m starting to surf a wave that hasn't been surfed yet and
it's really exciting.  I'd love it if some other 'surfers' would join me on
that crest.

Good luck with it,Elby

  yours,

Rick Walker (aka, loop.pool)