Yeah, but a “band” has “people” and frankly I’ve had it up to here with them. Horrible or no warrantees, unreliable, no good upgrade path. Who needs ‘em?
Kidding aside (I have great jams with friends) I’ve seen enough “one man (and woman) bands” to know that not only is it possible but pretty easy with today’s equipment. My pal Andrew (Andrew? Are you listening!?) aka Kid Beyond does amazing one man band shows using only his mouth, a midi controller, audio interface and a laptop running Live. Other great acts I’ve seen doing pop styled songs are Brian Kenny Fresno (Lexicon JamMan) and !LOOPSTATION!.. who I think use… a Loopstation!
I find that what Per said (Mobius inside of Ableton Live) will do everything you said you want except one thing and that’s what I mentioned earlier: tempo change. Change your tempo in Live is possible but Live won’t let you do overdubs and <100% feedback with your loops, so that’s where Mobius comes in and it won’t chase your tempo change. Only the Repeater will do this (and keep the pitch constant).
Frankly I say as much fun as that can be, ditch that function it and go with a laptop rig. Electrix is gone forever so getting any service or updates
from them is impossible.
Mark
From: phillip wilson
[mailto:phillwilson@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 12:15 PM
To: loopers-delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: RE: Looping Beginner Seeks Help
Hi spacemonkey
glad to have another member in our tribe!!
theres loads of good advice on paticualr setups in the archive so I will try and give you a more Philisophical take on advice.
To me...Looping is largely about being creative within a very specific and uniqie set of constraints.
For me this is a blessing, the more "constants" I can pin down the more I can consentrate on being creative with the remaining variables.
to that end, there is already a great method for creating music with many layers of multiple
instumentation involving traditional verse/prechorus/chorus/bridge formats using dynamic presentation methods such as variations in tempo.....I believe its called A BAND !!! ;)
I'm sorry if that sounds negative, its really really not...I have spent many years trying to find one man band looping solutions to all of the same ideas you are having.
some are solved relativly easy, some are darn near impossible....non can be done with just one piece of equipment that I know of.
I am not trying to rain on your parade and would LOVE to see you realise all of your aspirations (hell Id buy the same setup) I just want to give you an idea of how intrinsically difficult what you are aiming for will be.
as my looping has progressed i have been through MANY stages of evolution form delay to 5 seconds of hold to a boss looper with no multiply or etra functions, to a DL4 which adds in reverse and half speed to my first edp
(was happy for a while)
this then led to a second edp for vocals and then i still wanted to add multiple sond structures such as verses and chorus....edp 3.
I then added midi guitar to solve the narrow range of tones i had (only 16 regular guiat fx to bend by tone hehe) this left the rhythem section lagging to i broke away from guitar only into a handsonic for precussion and a micro korg synth....etc etc etc
I dare not even THINK how much all this has cost, i love every pennys worth but I still cant tempo change on the fly and the routing for my equipment looks like black-spaggatti-hell but its there!!
AND HERS THE RUB, my setup is so complex that if im very honest withmyself and you, i probably enjoy it a bit LESS then back in the simple Guitar>Zoom> DL4>amp days, even though I could do a lot less with it
these days many are going the software route and should imagine this would be a very
valid area for a new starter such as your self to invest as things WILL always get better.
anyways, thats enough from me, most of all have fun
Phill MyOneManBand
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 11:22:40 -0700
From: spacemonkeyx05@yahoo.com
Subject: Looping Beginner Seeks Help
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Hello,
I've been casually visiting loopersdelight.com for the past couple of years now, reading up on equipment, checking on past mailing archives, but I've finally decided to seek out some help for my own looping needs. A lot of my questions are
basic since I don't have any looping equipment yet, but I have a clear idea of what I hope to achieve.
I want to be able to play one-man-band performances of original songs - complete with verses, pre-choruses, choruses, bridges, etc. I hope to play and loop the drums (either electronic or acoustics mic'd), bass, piano, guitar, vocal harmonies, and any other wacky sounds... and sing over all that. My questions are:
1. What looping equipment (hardware/software) would be ideal to achieve this? I'm a beginner, but I'm looking to invest in a quality product to keep me going in the long run. Any suggestions for accessories (midi pedals, set-up suggestions) would also be helpful.
2. How can I have separate loops for the verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, etc.? Is there a way to switch from each of these segments of the song to the other on the fly, or is there a smarter way of performing entire songs?
My songs follow general pop structure for
the most part, but I like to have tempo changes, usually going into a bridge or chorus. I assume this may throw out the possibility of recording to a click, but please let me know if I'm wrong.
Any tips will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
