First Gig involving looping...

["Jason Spring" <j_sun23@hotmail.com>]

It's not exactly attention grabbing news to the list, I'm sure, but I 
thought I'd share anyway.  I'm a bassplayer at heart, but I've been 
playing 
drums in an improv group with some friends.  I also run sound for us from 
a 
little powered mixer I set up next to my hi hat. Well, we got invited to 
be 
the soundtrack for an art show at a local gallery, as well as do something 
we hadn't done before and back up a writer/professor friend of ours doing 
a 
sort of improvisational "reading".  Of course I took the oportunity to try 
incorporating a little looping into our jam with my DL4.  I set it up on 
an 
aux send, and was able to 'grab' snippets of other instruments as we 
played, 
looping and effecting them to create some great textures.  It also allowed 
me to loop a minimalist beat my friend played on his sampler during the 
"reading" sections, freeing him up to play other things.  When each 
reading 
section was done I could fade out the beat as the jam would pick up, and 
conversely, fade it back in as we'd reach the next reading section.  It 
really worked out well, and provided some coherance and continuity to the 
whole thing.  Another thing I got a kick out of was doing a quick little 
ambient/creepy texture bed before our set, and during our breaks.  Made a 
great atmosphere for an otherwise plain old art show.

The really great thing was, the show was a hit, the audience and patrons 
loved it, the artists loved it, the gallery owner loved it, our 
professor/writer friend loved it, and WE loved it.  It was a big step for 
us 
in that, we are all on instruments that we're fairly inexperienced with 
and 
we're NOT that good.  We were all wary of what we knew could have easily 
been a disaster.  Fortunately, it was a wonderful success.  And just to 
brag, we pulled it off despite the fact that I was in intense chest pain 
all 
night, eventually to the point of an Emergency room visit......I had REAL 
gas.....not the usual kind we musician's are familiar with ;-)

So, now I have the urge to start incorporating my repeater that I've been 
neglecting and really muck things up.......

Thanks to everyone for the information and inspiration.  This shit is fun.

Jason

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