AW: surround looping revisited

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Thanks four your feedback, Kris!

First, let me mention that this setup is more of an interactive
installation rather than "normal" music. What I currently do is let it
simply run and pick up street noises coming through the windows,
incoming phone calls, toilet flush, espresso machine... and see what
happens.

Now coming back to your questions, and I'll answer the last one first.
Check out the AcousModules web site acousmodules.free.fr (note that the
English version of the page is currently not really functional - hope
you speak some french ;-) Use the SpatDelays effect (its basically eight
delays in one unit), send your (monophonic) source singnal to inputs one
to four, turn on delays one to four with different delay times and send
the output of delays one to four to your four speakers.

My current setup in AudioMulch looks like this (a setup you can replace
in any of the modular audio thingies like Bidule or EnergyXT or even
Nuendo I'm sure):

Inputs 1-4 (from Microphones)
V
one Buzz Compressor per channel with huge threshold, long release and
strong limiting and lots of makeup gain
V
4x4 Matrix
V
two EllotronixXL in stereo mode with decay centered (these act only as
long delay lines)

The four independent delay outputs are used as inputs for several
effects (some of them with surround outputs or inputs and outputs),
several of them from the AcousModules website. The output of these is
fed into four 4-to-1 mixers which in turn feed the four independent
outputs.


The speakers are set up in a kinda-quadrophonic fashion in my bedroom,
the microphones are placed differently: one (AT4050 in figure-eight)
sits next to the computer at the back end of the room, one (Rode NT-1A)
is pointed at the window and picks up street noise as well as
reflections from the window. A SP C4 pair (cardioid) is set up in the
hallway, one mike pointing towards the living room.


Currently, I'm trying to fight the buildup of drones (hence my question
about feedback destroyer plugins). These do form a kind of strange
attractor for the system - meaning that independent of the input, after
a finite time the system lands in "boooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh" mode
:-(

        Rainer


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Hartung, Kris [mailto:kris.hartung@hp.com] 
Gesendet: Sonntag, 5. Juni 2005 22:03
An: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Betreff: RE: surround looping revisited


Pretty cool, Rainer. It would be fun to setup a surround sound, live
system one day. I would probably buy two wireless speakers and put them
in the back of the room. I too have the creative labs surround
capability on my soundcard. Can you explain what surround effect you are
using? Are you taking advantage of the other set of stereo images and
running different signals/effects to them, or just running a dual stereo
system?  For instance, how would you setup a four way ping pong delay?

Kris


-----Original Message-----
From: Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill [mailto:rs@moinlabs.de] 
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 1:52 PM
To: Looper's Delight Mailing List
Subject: surround looping revisited

It's done!

Today, I set up my first surround looping setup, based on some of the
valuable opinions in this forum. About the setup:

Hardware:
        PC w/ ADAT Interface
        Behringer ADA8000 ADAT I/O (8 Mic/Line Ins, 8 Outs)
        Creative Labs pseudo-surround speaker setup :-)
        various (4) mikes (AT, SP, Beyer)

Software:
        AudioMulch
        Ellotronix looper (2)
        various AcousModules
        BuzzComp (4) (as kind of automatic gain control)

And the following two axioms:

        (1) No feedback internal to the electronic setup (i.e. only
feedback speaker -> microphone)
        (2) No signals fed from inputs to outputs which aren't run
through the delay lines


Short description: a 21st century interactive Alvin Lucier setup! I'm
still fine-tuning as well as expanding this approach, so again here come
more questions:

  * Does anyone know of a (if possible free or cheap) feedback destroyer
as a VST plugin? I'm thinking of basically a software version of the
Sabine/Shure/Behringer hardware units used for live sound applications.

  * Is there a nice interface to send ASIO connections via a network
connection (without using Steinberg Nuendo that is)?


Thanks for your input!

        Rainer