Re: LaFosse about EDP in 2003 (was: Can two EDP's do this? How?)

[Matthias Grob <matilists@gmail.com>]

> folkstone57@tmo.blackberry.net wrote:
>> Hello All
>> Could someone give a overview of an EDP for those of us not  
>> familliar with this gadget?
>> Mark Showalter

On 1 Feb 2010, at 08:47, andy butler wrote:

> http://loopers-delight.com/tools/echoplex/echoplex.html
>
> http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Divisions/Gibson%20Pro%20Audio/Echoplex/
>
> interesting question though,
>
> how to sum up it's uniqueness.

yes, I felt I should say something. but I said so much already... I  
will try to sum it up eventually!

but now, looking for other stuff, I stumbled over a text written by  
our genius Andre and I hope he does not mind if I repost it.
the first part describes a EDP typical technique,
the second part is a more general impression:
***************************
11-01-2003 Andre LaFosse at Talkbass

Hello bass-playing people,

MKS said,

I'm a little unclear about what Andre refers to as "Remultiplying" and  
how he achieves "Loop Windowing".

Think of it this way:

1. If you multiply an initial loop, then each multiple of that loop is  
called a "cycle" in EDP-speak. Example: a two-second loop multiplied  
four times creates an 8-second loop, made up of four cycles (multiples  
of the original loop.)

2. "Remultiplying" is the process of altering the number of cycles in  
the loop, after multiplying them out initially. So, the four-cycle  
loop in the example above could be shortened, by remultiplying it back  
down to one, two, or three cycles.

(The loop length could also be increased, by remultiplying it out to a  
number of cycles greater than four. It could basically be any number  
of cycles you like - 16, 11, 39... so long as you have enough memory  
in your given loop.)

3. "Windowing" in its most basic form involves remultiplying a loop  
down to a smaller number of cycles, and then using the "undo" button  
to scroll through material which was contained in the other cycles  
which you got rid of (by remultiplying down).

Windowing might make more sense if you think of sheet music: say  
you've got a four-measure pattern, with a repeat sign at the end of  
the fourth bar (a loop!). Then say that you get rid of measures two  
through four, so that you're just repeating the first measure. That's  
remultiplying.

And by hitting undo on the EDP after you remultiply, you're  
effectively dropping fragments of those other three measures back into  
the loop - hence the name "windowing."


Remultiplying (my guess):
MoreLoops>1, Switchquant=ON
Press Nextloop then use Multiply to select how many cycles to take  
forward into the next loop in the "lame duck" period (their words!).


You're on the right basic track - when you copy a loop into another  
loop location, the EDP does treat it like you're multiplying. So as  
soon as loop copying begins, you can basically think of the process in  
the same way that I described remuliplying above.

(The one caveat is that windowing won't be quite as effective in the  
copied loop, because when you copy a loop you effectively "wipe the  
memory" clean in the new loop. In other words, you get the audio  
content, but you can't undo back beyond whatever is in the loop when  
you make the copy.)


It strikes me that the INSERT and MULTIPLY functions are the ones that  
need most study by an EDP newbie. They're very deep...

They are indeed deep, but whether or not they're priority functions  
depends on what you're interested in accomplishing, both in a  
technical sense and in an aesthetic one.

For instance, Matthias Grob (EDP inventor and Pillow Mountain  
recording artist!) uses feedback all the time - so much so that he  
dedicated 25% of the EDP's processing power just to regulating  
feedback, so that it'll sound smooth and musical. There are lots of  
ways to use feedback - fading an entire loop out is the most obvious  
and common way, but there's all sorts of more subtle ways to change  
the content or development in just one part of a loop, or to evolve  
the loop in different ways.

I hardly ever use feedback, and Matthias never uses the replace  
function (which I use all the time). They're sort of polar opposites  
in terms of the sound they produce, and the differences between what  
Matthias and I (for example) gravitate towards are based on what kind  
of sounds we like to hear, and how we use the EDP to get those musical  
results.

The best recommendation I can give for digging into the EDP is to work  
across the front panel function buttons from left to right. The  
interface isn't just an arbitrary collection of buttons - there's a  
very deep and carefully thought-out order to the controls, and each  
new function builds on concepts and principles that are introduced in  
previous ones, and which permeate the EDP as a whole. There's a load  
of stuff to be had with just record, overdub, and multiply that is  
utterly unique to the Echoplex...

Anyway, I hope this helps clarify things... (And hi to Steve, Michael,  
Max, and any other familiar folks who might be reading....)

--Andre LaFosse
http://www.altruistmusic.com