Re: Hardware Loopers--Tools or Collector's items?

[Dan Soltzberg <d.ans@rcn.com>]

Title: Re: Hardware Loopers--Tools or Collector's items?

I was talking the other night with a friend about the issue of instruments vs. the unlimited capabilities of software, and we both agreed that a lot of times it’s the limitations of what you’re working with that forces you to do something different and find your own voice. I think there’s a lot to be said for pushing on strings (or whatever the physicality of your instrument is), stepping on pedals, and twisting knobs.

I love electronic music and I’ve heard great music come off of laptops at live shows, but it’s great in a different kind of way than music where the actual sounds are being physically created. There’s an element missing which I think comes down to the intensity of communing with your instrument/rig and physically/mentally/spiritually willing and seducing it to speak for you. I’m sure a lot of people out there feel like I do that their hardware loopers are really part of their instrument—that you play the whole setup, not just the piece of it that’s in your hands.

Plus, as anyone can attest to who’s ever been watching a performance where someone’s hard drive crashes and the music just vanishes, the bummer potential of relying on a computer is huge.




Dan
-- 
http://www.envelopeproductions.com
http://www.cdbaby.com/ghost7






Ity 
on 3/12/04 3:01 AM, Travis Hartnett at tiktok@sprintmail.com wrote:

> On Mar 11, 2004, at 11:01 PM, 
> Loopers-Delight-d-request@loopers-delight.com wrote:
>
> >> I've been thinking about this a lot, and I still think
> >> hardware loopers may be on the way out.
>
> Nah.   Like guitars are on the way out, replaced by synthesizers?  Or 
> like synthesizers are on the way out, replaced by samplers?  Or 
> samplers are on the way out, replaced by virtual analog synthesizers?
>
> Purpose built tools, those things stick around forever, if they're even 
> halfway useful.  Software tools get abandoned and systems dependent 
> upon them become difficult to maintain.  I knew a guy who was really 
> dependent on a Powerbook 140 running, I believe, Mastertrax.  It was 
> this great sequencing program that did everything he wanted it to and 
> very little of anything else, and he had his two-man band doing wacky 
> covers with all the other parts being handled by the computer.  His 
> program wouldn't  run on any version of the OS made after '95 or so, 
> the OS wouldn't run on any computer made after about '97, and now he's 
> got hundreds of files on floppy in Mastertrax song format.  Sure you 
> can find parts for ancient powerbooks on eBay cheap, but who the hell 
> wants to bother with piecing together vintage computers?  Or following 
> some never-ending upgrade path in both hardware and software?  We're 
> talking hundreds of songs that have to be converted and doublechecked 
> everytime you switch to some new freeware sequencing program.  And 
> we're talking about technology that's only a decade or so old.
>
> Other people have brought up the point that you're more likely to 
> develop a deep relationship with a tool that has a fixed feature set, 
> rather than some software-based thing that can be reconfigured and 
> extended and changed in a thousand different ways.  But it's worth 
> noting again: the ability to easily add features may be more of a 
> detriment than an advantage.  When it's difficult or expensive to 
> change something, you spend a lot more time considering how important 
> the feature really is.
>
>
> TravisH