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RE: here and now / evolving loops



Hi Per, Bill, Fabio, All,

I haven’t contributed to these discussions in eons, so firstly let me wish you all a Happy Holiday/Solstice/New Year!

This is a valuable discussion which addresses one of the serious limitations/opportunities to looping as a musical approach, one which I like many others struggles with regularly. I hope that more of us can contribute to the thread and share approaches.

I will sometimes use the EDP multiply and loop windowing features to move through chord changes at varying rates and sometimes at random. What I do is set up a short (say 4 bar) loop of a non-tonal or vaguely tonal nature, multiply it out with a progression of tangy chordal or arpeggio stuff (say 4 chords, now a 16 bar loop), multiply it back down to 4 bars over one chord, then toggle and window between the 4 chord segments in memory at longer intervals or at random. It works most of the time, with enough random unpredictability to keep it fresh!

I also like to play around with modes. An example might be to set up a kind of Am pentatonic arpeggio “wash”, reduce feedback, add some F# stuff, now solo in A Dorian, reduce feedback, add some D stuff, now solo in D Mixolydian, etc. You can work this way between the related modes of your choice. I’ve done this with different pentatonic “modes” and some raga-type gapped scales as well to an interesting effect. The modes of the melodic minor scale are really wild, but I’m a little too much of a chump to be able to improvise with them effectively…

Another approach is to simply set up very long loops with harmonic progression built in. Yet another is to simply loop non-tonal stuff and then play live chord/melody or bass/melody over the top (if you are comfortable doing that). Those two approaches are pretty obvious though of course.

Or you can just say “screw it” and play live segments without looping (what a thought!).

Peace,

~Greg

www.myspace.com/gregwilliamsguitarist

 

 


From: Fabio_A [mailto:eterogenus@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 6:00 AM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Fwd: here and now / evolving loops

 

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Fabio_A <eterogenus@gmail.com>
Date: 2008/12/26
Subject: Re: here and now / evolving loops
To: billwalker@baymoon.com

Per, Bill, 

thanks for the...."feedback"  ;-)

 

About the "speed rate" technic (answering to Per) is something I dont' feel confortable with. 

It's true that changing the speed rate can give different solutions in rhythm, but it seems to me that it adds a bit of confusion about the "real" rhythm that's going on (i mean: the perceived rhythm).

 

Ther's always a difference between what we are playing (or conscious to play) and what the audience perceived...., but this is another discussion... 

 

I found interesting the technic explained by Bill about "variable feedback" and grouping tracks with different lenght loops.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this trick, Bill. I've definitively to test it !


What remains unsolved in my mind is: what do you mean about "changing direction" ?

 

Referring to tonality, it seems that a lot of people in this list play on a "tonal centre" (you know what i mean....: playing and looping in E minor, for example) This is no the case of Kris et alteri....I know, but most of people here (including myself) play mostly "on" or "around" the same chord.

 

It's rare to hear someone changing chords, when looping (i mean having and evolving an harmonic structure, like: A minor/D minor/G major/D major and back to the beginning ...just for example) and evolving that chords change into a new one while looping.

 

So, sometimes i feel like live looping miss something about "harmony". You can change rhythm, melodies, but it's difficult to build in short time chords structures that evolve "while" looping.

 

Maybe that's why in most cases looping appears like "painting" and not "telling a story" ?

 

Matthias ? 

I'm interested in what you think about my question.

 

2008/12/25 William Walker <billwalker@baymoon.com>

 

Thanks for the post Fabio,

More and more I am exploring the use of variable feedback to keep my loops evolving.  My cc pedal assigned to feedback gets more use than my track volume pedal,  as I'll use it to quickly remove a note or portion of the sample (dubbing by removal) , I love deconstructing a loop this way, and it seems to create smoother less stuttery results than when I use replace for the same purpose. Also, as I probably have mentioned before you can create dramatic tremolo effects by rocking the feedback pedal back and forth, including tremolo effects you can't get with an actual tremolo pedal. Expression pedals with the fastest response work best. I use Roland ev-5's, they seem to work ok and I like the range knob as you can quickly change the pedals response without recalibrating my midi foot controller.  I also use the feedback pedal to fade tracks out gradually as I'm recording new material to replace them to keep the loops from getting to static..   A strategy I've been using in this way, has been to build up a group of tracks and apply feedback to all of them anywhere from 40%-75% depending how quickly I want things to fade. Naturally the loops of fewer bars will fade away more quickly leaving the longer loops playing. I then start replacing the shorter tracks with new material as the longer tracks continue to fade.   Even if I'm staying in one tonal center and replacing tracks with similar content,  this use of feedback to morph tracks helps keep the loops from getting too static and create more ebb and flow to the music..  I'll use multiply when creating several tracks in such a way that I might have track 1 be 1bar in length, track 2 be 2 bars , track 3 be 4 bars, etc, , Using this technique to end a tune,  my last track before bringing the music to a conclusion, might be a solo or long melodic theme that might be several bars in length.  Finally I will apply feedback to all the tracks which I will vary starting at about 75% and gradually dropping to 0%. I love that all that remains as the tracks are fading away, is the long melody at the end that I can continue to play with and support as I soften the dynamics of my playing, and the tune finally fades.  The analogy comes to mind of everyone in the marching band continuing down the street and around the corner as the lone clarinetist stays behind to serenade the crowd.

It's a windy, partly cloudy, partly sunny, mostly rainy Christmas day so far.

 A fine day for looping, if you ask me.

Bill