Re: review of Looping Festival / much looping comment

[Matthias Grob <matthias@grob.org>]

Thank you for that nice report, Daryl!

>I had to think about the question posed earlier
>this week about the difference between an instrument and an effect or
>processor....and I came out of this event feeling that looping equipment
>isn't really an instrument.  An instrument is something that generates a
>tone, by definition.  And though the EDP can do insane things with any
>tone fed to it - you could probably snap your fingers once into a mic,
>then entertain a crowd all night with warpings of that initial tone - it
>doesn't actually generate a sound.  I think this is important, for me at
>least, because that initial tone is SO crucial, even after twisting it
>every which way.  The most interesting and musical things last night
>that happened with loops were interesting and musical because of the
>source; tweaking it made it exponentially more so.  But when a dry or
>flat sound was fed to a loop (which happened rarely, I have to say),
>processing didn't really take it anywhere, in my opinion.

lets say: it does take somewhere else, make the sound more surprising 
or so, but maybe not really better, whatever you understand as 
"better".

>I guess my point is that to make good loops with your instrument, you
>gotta be good on the instrument.  Even if that instrument is a piece of
>Tupperware (Rick!), you have to know how to get a good sound out of it.

this is a good point.
As everybody knows, I have been wondering about this for years.
Recently we more and more called the loop gear a "tool" since its not 
an effect and not an instrument.

>For those who feel that an EDP actually is an instrument, I'm curious
>whether a turntable would also fit the definition...?

Evan said:
>i also look at a studio as an instrument when in the hands of an artist.

ok, but then its the whole thing with the sound generator (string, 
skin, oscillator, turntable...) in it.
So we like to say that the EDP turns into a part of your instrument, 
but its not an instrument by itself.
-- 


          ---> http://Matthias.Grob.org