Re: Question about electronic drums and Mac looping

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

  andrea trabucco wrote:
>
> Abandoned the choice to live-looping several percussion instruments, 
> I've come to the decision to use some prerecorded stuff via a Mac 
> computer and also do some live-looping with and e-drum pad.

Dear Andrea,

    Maybe it's just because I'm a drummer/percussionist originally as a 
musician, but having seen literally
hundreds of live looping performances at the Y2K festival and in 15 
different countries I have
to say that people who use real sounds as percussion elements (be it 
recontextualizing their
instruments like guitarist, bassists or vocalists making drumset 
sounding grooves by banging on
their axes (or beatboxing) feel much more organic, visceral and funky to 
my ears than
people who use prerecorded loops or even interactive drum machine 
sequencing programs like
RMX (which I agree is probably one of the best).

It seems to me too, that audiences react more viscerally to people who 
do their own percussion
even when it is very, very simple (and sometimes specifically because it 
is very, very simple).

For one thing,  we are inundated in this electronic age with canned drum 
tracks.

It's so much more fun to see someone be creative even when it is very 
simplistic to create a rhythmic track
to play over (and on top of that, you can use techniques like double 
time/half time and reverse to
create sounds that are 'hyper' real.

Just my two cents, but I'm curious why you choose to eschew live 
percussion in your looping.

Some of my favorite drummers are actually not drummers.  I love, for 
example, how Gary Regina creatively
uses percussion in his multi-instrumental live looping tracks.

Is it just a matter of being able to mic such things well or is it the 
bother of learning how to play some things
or even just lugging more gear around?

I'm curious.

respectfully,   rick walker