Re: Strategies to Cover Onstage Equipment/User Failure

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

Erdem Helvacioglu wrote:
> LIMITER ıs your friend :)
>
> that brings us the question of how people use comporessors and limiters 
> in impro based experimental music. any tricks, ideas?

ok, just my personal take

never used 'em for safety and, partly for that reason,
I never need 'em.



One trick is to put a compressor into a feedback loop,
(which I reckon I've heard Erdem do ;-).

Whatever other processing is in the feedback loop
the sound stays under control without running away
to full blast distortion ever.

It's a bit counter-intuitive tho', it would seem that
a limiter would be the ideal choice for this job,
but a very gentle compression slope works even better.


For generating interesting acoustic feedback tones here's a trick...
replace the mouthpiece of a wind instrument with a microphone
that points into the instrument. Point the instrument at a speaker
connected to the microphone and off you go.
...but don't forget the (low ratio) compressor!
I call this a 'resophone'.

andy