LOOPER AS SOUND ENGINEER was distortion,overdrive,fuzz,crunch,specialsauce,secret goo (goo especially)

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

SJAACK wrote:
"Also true, but only to a certain part to blame on the artist, simply 
because
you as an artist usually do lack detailed info on the properties of the 
room and the pa system. "

Actually Sjaack,   I don't completely agree with you about this one 
statement (and with me and you
that means a disagreement on about 1% of all things we have in common 
<smile>)

Because we can make entire loops and let them play,  we are some of the 
few artists in the world
who have the ability to let the loops run and then go out into the room 
or venue and listen to what
the PA sounds like.

Additionally,  we are mixing ourselves, live in realtime with whatever 
DSP processing we will be using
on the individual elements so this means that we can send the monitors 
EXACTLY what the final
mix will be and listen ourselves while onstage.   There may need to be 
some compensation because
monitors (or in ears) will have a different sound than the house PA with 
the room factored in, but this
is what Sound Engineers (if they are good) have to do on a continual basis.

Another thing is that we now live in the age of very inexpensive digital 
parametric EQs that have the ability
to set presets for every room we encounter.

This makes it possible to walk into a room,  do your soundcheck like 
normal,  then walk out into the room
and make adjustments for all the standing waves that amplify certain 
annoying frequencies and compensate
for all the timbral masking and phase cancellation that the room adds to 
the sound.

Then,  voila,  make a preset so that every time we come back to this 
acoustic space,  we can compensate
for the room's sound immediately.

It makes it tougher as this forces us to be professional sound engineers 
along with all the other hats that we
wear looping live in front of an audience.

If we are good,  we do have to become  instrumentalists, arrangers, 
composers, producers and sound engineers if we are going to
carry all of this off live.

This fact, however, actually makes me have the opinion that we are 
possibly able to
evolve at a potentially much faster rate than musicians who only play in 
band settings.

*********
all of this makes me want to start this separate thread and talk about 
our experiences with being
sound engineers for ourselves.

What gear helps us with this.   What problems can occur.  What are some 
of the physical principles
of acoustics and psycho acoustics that can help us to be better listeners.

I just proposed a Master class for the  2009 PASIC convention, called
TIME and TIMING:  cultivating deep listening utilizing live looping 
devices and laptop computers

I'm really into this concept of deep listening.        I think a lot of 
musicians mentally project what it is that they want to
sound like on live performance rather than actually listening to what is 
happening.
This happens really frequently in rhythmic looping but I think it's also 
very apropos for mixing ourselves as well.

I realize in my last live gig a couple of nights ago, that I was too 
frazzled by equipment failures and a consequently
too rushed sound check to really listen deeply to my sound.     I was 
able to listen pretty attentively to what I was actually
looping but I didn't really check in nearly enough with my sound.

Arrrrrggggghhh,  I also misplaced a specialty cable and couldn't hook up 
my subwoofer either.................that one hurt as
I was counting on it to give a couple of frisbees the sub frequencies 
necessary to really sound like a kick drum.

Okay,   I digress:

LOOPERS as SOUND ENGINEERS:    How do we cultivate deep listening and 
better sound by ourselves?


In the