Re: Samples and looping

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Louigi Verona<louigi.verona@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> 1. Does "looping" mean only people who overdub during performances? 
>Because
> I, for instance, do no such thing, yet I also do work with loops. The
> Loopers Delight site seems to be talking mostly about this kind of 
>overdub
> looping.
> 2. How do you handle sampling? Do you sample a lot from TV shows, other
> people's music?


Hi Louigi,

Two interesting questions that I too have been thinking about from
time to time.

1) Personally I'm comfortable with with using the term "looping" for
any musical activity that includes manipulating loops. I don't think
you have to sample yourself in realtime for the loops you work, in
order to perform "looping".

2) I only sample myself, as part of the live looping performance.
Sometimes I may sample an ensemble buddy as well.

Related:
I think the point in "looping" is that it is something you are doing
in realtime. I wouldn't use the term "looping" to describe the process
of finding a drum loop and set it to repeat throughout the piece. But
I would regard it "looping" if I took the same drum loop, set it to
repeat and then assigned a couple of buttons to "play it" with tricks
as double-speed, reverse sample playback, slice 16th notes and play
only the short attack of each ("stutter"), a filter cutoff and
resonance control... etc etc.

The reason I only sample myself is that I happen to be able to play
instruments and find that very fun to do. So I try to use looping
equipment too as instruments. This is different from the other
approach where you rather look at looping equipment as "production
tools" in the process of creating a piece of recorded music.

I think this list is a bit biased towards the performing aspects
rather than the producing aspects of loopage. The "how do you handle
sampling" question you posted seems typically to sort into the
producing-recorded-music context. I personally use whatever sample
that works musically, mostly from libraries that guarantee I will not
violate any rights if the music should later on happen to be used
commercially or in public.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com