1) what aspects of looping do you enjoy the most?
Making a bigger noise than I could before.. I mean making a full complete piece of music with all elements. As a solo performer with very little friends, its important to me that I dont become a solo guitarist. I have never had the skills for that, and looping helps me cheat. However I dont think of it as cheating as my favorite types of music could be played by monkeys. Thats the Ape type not the sixties combo.
2) what aspects of looping do you enjoy the least?
Technical problems...
3) what looping tools (including controllers) do you currently
use/have used in the past?
I have never been able to "upgrade" to software, as I have fallen in love with all my loopers over the years and still use them all. Lack of cash has stopped me from getting a decent sound card to fully explore the software route, and the LP1 is still hanging there like a apple to me.
I have used and still use. 2 EDP´s a repeater and a vortex. I recently snagged a Kaos pad, but its not quite working out for me.
I amd consdering losing one EDP, selling a synth and getting an LP1.
I have alos worked with Mobius withing Abelton Live and Audio Mulch and would go that way if I had more time and money to totally re wrok my rig.
4) what are the strengths of these tools?
All said before. But
EDP - loop windowing
Repeater, the pitch shift
The Vortex, the "cloud looping" techniques.. (small loops, grabbed and manipulated...) and the morphing...
Mobius, to many strengths to mention... I just dont have time to spend fiddling with computers in my time off...
5) what are the weaknesses of these tools?
EDP, hissy and occasionally probelmatic.. (right now I have a problem with one where the volume of the feedback comes back unfeasably loud... I think its a setting Ive accidentaly set by sending weird midi...)
Repeater - also hissy (mines un-modified) not wide enough midi synch speed
Vortex, sometimes hissy, no bypass . Could be wilder presets.. a waste of un saveable memory locations. But no real crits, it is what it is...
Mobius, Well see above, computers, beginning to hate them...
6) do you modify a loop once it's been created? if so, how?
YEs, apart from "in looper" modifications that I dont consider modifications. I routinely run loops through:
Roland EX303 , a few stomp pitch shifters, ring modulation, a modular synth,
7) how much planning do you do for a particular performance?
None in the studio, good ideas are remembered and used in performance, usually turning out totally different, but I used many different sounds, not just "guitar with reverb" So I have to plan what synth patches to use or effect patches I use in case I select Pan Pipes by accident...
8) what form does this planning take? (do you write it down, keep it
in your head, etc)
Head.. plus I write on stickers, that adorn the item that its a memo for... mostely good patch numbers
9) at what level of detail do you plan? (melody, harmony, timbres,
dynamics, instrumental techniques, etc.)
Nope, none of the above, but I do plan a process. Varies so wildly it not worth mentioning. But a for instance might be. Ill decide to play a minimal timpani aprpegio from my GR30 guitar synth into one edp. then I play the same thing into the other but with a longer loop, Then sit back and watch them "polyrythemselves".. Cut same size bits out of both loops, and then start a drum loop on the repeater, that is in time but not heard, the audio may be used as a audio carrier on the Vocodor patch of the EX303, and then Ill morph into that slowly, so the edps are producing the music, and the drum loop is producing the rythym.
10) describe your general approach to loop performance.
Have a start, and middle and an end planned... The performance is a struggle to get from one to the next!!!
11) what would the ideal looping system look like? describe it in as
much detail as you can (and don't worry about practical concerns).
A small black box with wires to my brain...
12) any additional comments?
If for some reason you don't want your answers to be public, you can
send them directly to me.
Thanks!
Jon
