Re: "Instrument" vs "Effect" (was: laptop-loopers (guitar)

["Krispen Hartung" <khartung@cableone.net>]

I think most of us do that (put our effects before our looping devices), 
though, right? I play "with" effects too, all before Mobius. But, 
technically, we are not really playing with effects, because the effect 
signal is added to your original guitar signal. So you are adding the 
effects to your singal, but the addition is so blasted fast that it feels 
like you are playing with effects.   But I think we are all stating the 
same 
thing here.  If you put your Fireworx after your looper, and used it to do 
interesting things after you had already played and looped several layers 
and even set your sax or guitar down, then we come back to the orginal, 
fundamental question of whether your Fireworx is an instrument or an 
effects 
box....I want to accept that the Fireworx is an instrument in this case, 
but 
I won't say that it feels right. My brain says yes because it is in the 
realm of possibilities, yet my gut feeling says no.  If I were really 
compulsive with my gut feeling and just let it all out I'd say: "It's just 
a 
box for crying out loud...just because a person tweaks nobs, pushes 
buttons 
and changes parameters doesn't make the box an instrument, nor even make 
him 
a musician."   But that would be a bit strong for me to state explicity as 
a 
strong opinion, because there is a lot of fuzziness and semantics going on 
here. We can define terms easy enough so that an effects unit is not an 
instrument...that's just linguistic gymnastics; but whether an effects box 
is an instrument in the same way as a guitar is a different matter. We are 
getting into categories of instrumnetation of varying degrees. Okay, it's 
half an instrument, and I'm half a musician by playing it. Heh heh....

Kris

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Per Boysen" <perboysen@gmail.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 2:23 PM
Subject: Re: "Instrument" vs "Effect" (was: laptop-loopers (guitar)


> On 25 aug 2006, at 22.13, Daryl Shawn wrote:
>
>> On the effects tip, I like Krispen's analogy of the palette,  because 
>it 
>> also implies the difficulty of having to try to become  familiar with a 
>> huge number of possibilities, and then, having to  choose among those 
>> possibilities. More colors, but more judicious  decision-making and 
>> experience are required to master the canvas.
>
>
> That's exactly why I don't like "adding effects" but rather "playing  
>with 
> effects". I always put effects before the loopers, so eventual  effect 
> sound will be part of the foundation of the building I'm  construction 
> (fancy wording for "looping" ;-) as opposed to being  paper wrappings on 
> the outer walls. Less is more fun ;-)
>
> Greetings from Sweden
>
> Per Boysen
> www.boysen.se (Swedish)
> www.looproom.com (international)
> http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
> http://www.myspace.com/looproom
>
>
>
>