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Re: the death of the loop



Thank you to all of you... My answers in black...

@Kevin... They are good to take note of and use. I like this one the best.
20100304111658.5b5550dw0cgwck8w@mail.kevinkissinger.com" type="cite"> 5) Mangling -- take the loop and "mangle" it -- slow it down, speed it up, break it up, process and distort it -- there are many ways to "mangle" and, ultimately, kill a loop.
I can imagine myself squeezing the life out of the loop till the blood spurts out... lol!.. but maybe not all the time...

@Per
If you want to write songs, learn to write songs. Looping is
different. But in a quite beautiful way; looping doesn't demand *a
start* and *an ending*. It's more like the original idea of ambient
music; it is going on forever and you simply tune in or tune out of
the flow.

Yes, the idea does not need manifest itself continuously. That is how structure can come in.


I agree with you that when picking up an ambition to "write songs" out
of true live looping sessions a lot of the magic is lost. But thinking
closer about "composing", isn't it in fact a lame-ish workaround to
synthesize the true inspiration of a good improvisation? A way to
experience an adventure without exposing yourself to the risks. A
trick to repeat a blissful moment many times.

But some folks are good at composing. How do they manage? I'd say they
are very good at simulating the inspired "first encounter experience"
in music. In order to succeed with that you will have to distance
yourself from the nice feeling of being part of the music as "music
happens to you" in order to analyse and take notes of exactly what
happens so you can repeat it and bring over a fragment of that emotion
to listeners.

Yes I agree with Mark S on this one. It is possible and takes hard work and practicing.

@Mark Francombe

What I like is using more than one loop.. cant speak for other loopers, but with EDP i just got to a differnt loop.. and one day I go back to the original loop, often the loop has moved on by then and the original seems... wel original... If you switch between loops like this working on each all the time, REPLACING rather that overdyúbing.. then you get more variation.
EDP is great at this...
Repeater is terrible at this.. shouldnt be, it IS possible to change loops after all.. but just doent seem seamless... Of course Mobius, being based on EDP is also great at this.. and Im sure all the Songster type loopers ut must be a doddle..

Maybe the answer to "kill a loop" is not to kill it, just put it aside and come back later (in the song)???

I use Ableton. And I havent really got it down yet. But I suppose I can put two loop plugins in two different tracks. I just need two pedals for that. And practice...

@Rainer

1. Playing live over the loop, fade the loop and then vary what your playing...already mentioned, works fine for me. Especially if you use a kind of crossfader to gradually fade from loop to live instrument (which is playing the same thing...for the moment).

2. Reduce feedback. Now a lot of loopers don't allow you to do that, especially if you're not in overdub mode. There's a workaround: don't send your live signal into the looper and go into overdub, and the loop will fade (usually requires using a mixer).

3. The Beethoven Symphony Ending Routine: Gradually trim down your loop to increasingly smaller subsections. On the EDP (or Möbius) that would be Multiply->Record. That way, you can trim down e,g, a long chord progression to just the ending IV-V-I, then to V-I, then just to I.

4. Stop the loop.

Yeah... it is just so painful to stop the loop.

@Scott

I agree that looping is a philosophy, just as much as it's a method. I think however that certain concepts of convetional music playing can be combined with looping in an interesting manner. Sometimes what helps me is when I'm 10 minutes into a loop improv, listening to the loops I have going and truly deciding whether I would be enjoying that listening experience, if I weren't the one playing it. If I listen, and decide, I'd be kind of bored by this, I change it, or find a way to end it (fade, speed shift to simulate tape slowdown, stop with a nice delay on multiple channels, giving a nice fade, play out with a fading loop...those are a few of my ending tricks). If on the other hand I listen, and think, "Man I would be LOVING this right now!!" I play on, happily dismissing any instinct to "not play too long" as a minor slip in confidence, rather than any problem with the music I'm playing.
I personally use 5 looper plugins in Ableton Live. This lets me add, or change certain layers and retain others, so the piece moves, but is constant in a way too. I do a lot of improvisation live, but I also have a list of around 20-30 rehearsed songs(that often include an improv section or outro), many of which have a part a, and a part b. Generally I use two different loops for rhythms, and try to come up with two chord progressions that works over a single bassline . Using multiple loops I also get enough layers that I can play around with, mute, reverse beat slice etc. This gives the sense of arrangement, when really it's a lot of muting and fading and beatslicing of the same 5 loops. The result is the following:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/udzrhm  The Ones(original)

Yes thanks it is good to here how it works for others too. i listened to the "The Ones" I really liked it when you started rapping.


@Mark Showalter

This is called learning & practicing not performing. For myself once I have a piece under my fingers & voiced I can get completely lost in the music. 

I agree with this with all my heart. It just needs to become routine for my fingers and in this case ... for my feet too...

c u all


nadia






--
Nadia Salom
http://www.nirmala07.net
http://www.ubetoo.com/nirmala07