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Looper's Delight
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I have found two possible "avenues" to traverse in regards to amplification and looping: one being a farily "clean", almost studio-monitor kinda sound in which the signal applied to the speaker is what comes out of the speaker (with as little coloration as possible..or neccessary), and the other being a sound which is extremely "colored" by the sound (hmmm..should I being using a more PC reference here?;-) I usually run my basses into a Raven Labs MDB1 which is a 1/2 rack space, three channel mixer, extremely flat, audiophile type response, which has a sidechain/parallel aux loop in whch either my JamMan or Fx are plugged (depending on whether I want processing pre or post loopage....which is another thread altogether....) That is run to a Raven Labs instrument Preamp, which has basic tone tweaking (usually set flat) and another parallel aux send/return (for either loops or fx) and that is sent to an Avalon U5 and on to a SWR California Blonde amp (very clean response....and a second channel which takes a mic input for 'tween song banter with the audience..very handy indeed!). Usually I run into the fx return jack on one channel of the amp, thus avoiding the preamp section altogether. This gives a very clean signal; basically what goes in thru the Raven Labs stuff and such comes out the amp. Yet......after listening to some of Andre LaFosse's work, I became intrugued to how he actually was using the amp to augment the sound of his (siganture style) loopage. I began experimenting with other amps (notably an old Ampeg FlipTop B-12 who's all tube signal path certainly "changes" the quality of the loops..yet at 130 lbs is not really gig friendly!), as well as running my entire chain into a SansAmp Bass Driver. Since this is a footswitchable type device it is nice to "kick in" some amp "warmth" (girth? grit? drive? or any of the myriad subjective terms for this) to alter the personality and character of my loops. This CAn add some nice texture and changes to loops, yet can also be ticky to properly gain stage. All that being said, I have found it most important to have a very good personal monitor mix of your playing/looping. The Cali Blonde allows me to run an extension cab (usually a SWR 1x10 or Bag End 1x12) which bumps the output up a it, but gives me a nice little monitor for which to hear myself clearly (with the amp functioning as a PA), and also makes a dandy rack stand ;-) I have found this little monitor feed extremely important in keeping all the loops "together". Hearing onself clearly (and this is in addition to your "amp") really simplifies timing issues and such. The Cali Blonde can also be run with another, powered extension which I use to send a mix of my loops to other musicians (especailly drummers) when I work with ensembles. Max _________________________________________________________________ Check out MSN PC Safety & Security to help ensure your PC is protected and safe. http://specials.msn.com/msn/security.asp