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Looper's Delight
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Dave wrote about the fear of unacceptable latency with the new Gibson digital guitar (or any guitar) and it got me to thinking about my philosophy about 'acceptable' latency in any instrument. Because I started out playing drumset, I have had the pleasure of playing an instrument that has virtually no latency whatsoever. Hit a snare with a drumstick and , voila! Immediate transience. I say this because when I started playing bass guitar it became obvious that the low bass notes develop over a few milliseconds after you pluck. If you use your thumb far away from the bridge and turn the treble down on your bass (dub stylee or subsonics) the 'latency' is really visceral compared to hitting a hi hat with a stick. Anyone who has gone from a trumpet to a tuba knows this one really well. Or from playing sticks to 'stirring the soup' playing jazz with brushes. What we do, if we switch instruments is that we compensate until we learn how to play 'in the pocket' with another instrument (or another loop). I really noticed this when I went from using the Jamman to using the Line 6 to using the Repeater to using the EDP. Everyone of them has slightly different inherent latencies (most probably resulting only from the style of footswitch used. One by one, because I am a freak about micro-timing (and playing 'on top of' or 'behind' the beat for different kinds of expression), I learned how to have good timing with each of these new 'latency' challenges. I'll soon be using the Behringer FCB 1010 with Ableton's live and Cycling 74 Max/MSP and I know it will be back to the drawing board on learning each systems inherent latency. So I hear what Dave says about unacceptable latency, but I would contend that a more latent phenomenae (I think of the earliest Peavey Bass Synth I ever tried out.....................wow, talk about large latency) just provides us with an even greater challenge to improve our abilities to teach ourselves how to consistently play ahead or behind the beat with rhytmic impunity. LOL, with great respect, Dave, I say 'bring on the latentcy'!!!!!! It's a great teacher and it's doable, if awkward as hell at first. Rick ps A long time ago, I believe I posted an exercise designed to teach anyone in one hour how to play behind the beat, ahead of the beat or right on the money. If you aren't sure how to do this, you might search for that thread or if people can't find it, I'll repost if anyone wants me to. It is the almost always the culprit when people have a hard time playing with each other for rhythmic reasons. The other night as an example I played with a killer guitarist and a killer bassist (who was subbing the gig for the first time). The bassist and I are both really used to 'laying back' on the beat as is done in a lot of soul and r&b but it was the guitarists gig and we weren't jiving at all!!!!! It took me half of the first set to realize that the guitarist was actually playing hard funk (with a discernable swing to every thing he played) on top of the beat and he was really uncomfortable where we were laying it down. At the set break we all three discussed it and came to the conclusion that I should play 'up' and with the guitarist and just let the bass player follow me. Well, I'm so used to locking it in with the bassist (and what a good bassist this guy was) that it was a definite challenge and I definitely spent the first half of the next set a bit in my head but locking it up to the best of my ability. Luckily, I have trained my self to play on any side of the beat, so although it was uncomfortable, we fucking rocked the house in the second set! The audience went nuts to..........It was just palpable how much better we sounded from set two to set one. 15 years ago I would have left the gig bewildered, thinking, "I just don't click , stylistically, with this guy" and never played with him or her again. The good news is this guy is stoked to hire me again the next time he needs a sub and he is a fantastic funk player, so I"m stoked to have met him.