| Hi Ricky,
I use either filters to help focus the sound or pitch shift the material. Often time pitch shifting musical material downwards sounds better than going up. There is something about the chipmunk effect that is just too comical and not pleasing. But I have found that if you pitch shift material up say 3 octaves or more you remove the sound from chipmunk territory and into some nice tinkly sounds that work great if you want to fill the higher frequencies.
My music is in the more experimental realm so I am not worried about timing and in fact love the phasing that happens between using the same loop at multiple pitches.
The granular syth section of Kenaxis also allows for transforming a captured loop into all kinds of different pitch clouds. Playing with the delay between the grains you can create sparser textures that have space in them for other things to happen.
I also have a negative crossfade option on the loopers. This adds space between the loops also helping create more space and avoid the mush.
Of course the mush can be fun too - but its nice to have options.
Stefan
On Dec 18, 2008, at 3:29 AM, Ricky Graham wrote: Hi Stefan, I must check out your software. If you don't mind me asking, how did you manipulate loops into frequency ranges? It is something that I find interesting at the moment, especially if only one member of an ensemble is looping, and like you said it can lead to 'mush.' I find this is a common trait when you are 'limited' by the range of your instrument. As a guitar player, I find myself striving to voice motifs differently before tweaking post fade to try and give each loop it's own space in the mix. Cheers, Ricky Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 8:21 PM Subject: Re: Live Looping in an ensemble context.....what gear do u use?
I almost always loop with others. Although to be fair often I am just controlling the loops and not playing my viola at the same time.
You can hear some of my duet work with vocalist Viviane Houle at these two sites.
As for tools - I use Kenaxis which is the software I've developed. One of the main new features I added to version 3 was the ability to choose from any of up to 8 inputs that I can have going into Kenaxis. This allows me to decided to loop and manipulate any player I want in a group once I setup enough looping mics. It is hard not to get into a mush when you have more than 3 or 4 players. Done a couple of large ensemble gigs with 12+ players and just had to find ways of manipulating the loops into frequency ranges that most normal instruments can't get to.
As for evolving loops - there is so much that can be done with a loop which is why I am more than happy just capturing and manipulating the loops while another player creates fresh material. It is great fun to see a players reaction who usually does not play with loops once their material starts coming back at them.
Stefan
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