Re: Re: loops with a drummer?

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

> Dave Draper wrote:
> > I've never met a drummer who's /happy/ to be a slave to a loop! 
> > (/They/ set the rhythm, right?) 


This is an interesting topic that I"ve given considerable time to in my 
own life as a professional drummer
and a live looping artist.

I love playing to loops.  I consider it a unique timely challenge to be 
able to do so rather than being
a 'slave' to the loop.    It's difficult to do and not every drummer has 
the timing skills required to
play to a loop.

That said,  there are several things that have to happen for this to 
work in two distinctly different scenarios:

A) Where the drummer is supposed to play continuously to a an already 
established melodic loop

     1)  the drummer has to have really good monitoring of the loop.   
That's a bottom line.

     2) also,  frequently, an instrumentalist will lay a rhythm loop 
down and then proceed to overdub on the
     loop which causes timbral masking and makes it exceedingly 
difficult for a percussionist (or anyone)
     to hear the foundational rhythm loop clearly enough.

     3) towards this end, I think it's excellent for the drummer to 
have their own monitor whose volume they can control
     in the middle of the gig, themselves.   This monitor works best if 
it receives ONLY the loop that is foundational
     This can be tricky depending on who is sending them the loop,  but 
a loop selector pedal is really a great tool
     for directing a loop to the drummers monitor.

     4)  a drummer who has not experienced this kind of situation HAS 
to practice synchronizing in such a scenario.
      Don't expect an inexperienced drummer to be able to do this the 
first time.  It wont' happen and you'll get
      musical drift.

In the case of multi-tracking loop setups,  I recommend that the first 
loop (rhythm loop) be sent to one
channel and then sent on to the drummers' monitor.   In the LP-1, as an 
example, you can route a loop to an AUX channel out that only goes to 
the drummer/percussionist for audible loop synchronization.  I believe 
Ablteton's
Live and Mobius can also be routed similarly.

B)  Where the person who controlling the loop attempts to synchronize 
and re-synchronize to a live band in real time.

    1) frustrated by the Line 6 DL-4's inability to retrigger without 
the 'one shot' function engaged (necessitating
    three button presses to  to resync a loop to a live band/drummer 
(retrigger, stop- at the end of the loop in a
    musical place, play)  I actually put a brand new function into the 
LP-2 -  RETRIGGER CONTINUOUS for specifically
    this kind of re-triggering scenario.

    2) when I'm using this 'manual retrigger' approach to staying in 
sync with a live band (or, indeed, to another
    looper using non-synced rhythmic loops that I want to stay 
syncrhonized to)  and I'm the one
    controlling the loop, I find it efficacious to create longer 
lengthed loops  (4 bars instead of 1 bar, at least)
    so that the drift from the band (or alternate un-synced loop) will 
take a lot longer.

Rick Walker