Re: performance looping ?

[Tony Hughes <hughes.tony@gmail.com>]

I am using the looper as a theatrical device, that allows me to record
ambient/musical sounds as well as spoken word.  Only having a
little over three minutes of record time, would be really
limiting.  Imagine an hour long performance in which I slowly add
to a 5/10/15 minute loop of sound.  Starting with a bass tone, and
building up percussion, words, sounds until towards the end of the
show, the sound has become an integral part of the performance...It has
been layered in front of the audience, and then, I unbuild the layers
until returning to the original bass tone.  It is the sole musical
instrument (other than my voice that I'm planning to use).  

The performance ready aspect of the jamman (pedal based / ready to use
with some simple connections) really makes in appealing to me.  

Oh, in terms of timing, I plan to learn how to press the pedals at the
correct time in order (this will take some practice) to sync between
the two...which shouldn't be that hard, because each time I am
recording between the two jammans, I am recording a fresh sample -
which in the end means that each time I'm pushing pedals I'm pushing
them at the same time (being able to drive a stick shift should leave
me fairly well prepared).  Meaning that, I am really only using
the second jamman to keep the sound running, while I stop jamman one,
save into a loop and then resave into a second loop (so that I can
unbuild at the end).  This is getting kind of long so my
apologies.  But, here is how I see it working.  Push left
pedal on jamman 1 (JM1).  Record sample.  When finished
recording push left pedal on JM1 and JM2 - thereby starting to loop
sample on JM1 and record into JM2.  When sample is finished
playing once, push right pedal on JM1 and left pedal on JM2, thereby
stopping playback on JM1 and starting on JM2.  These are all
concurrent pedal pushes, so it should be any harder than looping in at
the current time in a song or measure...at this point, I can save and
resave on JM1 into different loop slots.  To repeat, all I have to
do is push the left pedal on JM1 (starting the sample in a fresh loop)
while pushing the right pedal on JM2 (stopping the loop from playing)
to record on top of the original sound.  Then all I have to do is
hold down the right pedal on JM2 to erase that loop (or using the
footpedal switch between two tracks to clear the loop).  Then I'm
all set to go again.  I guess it does sound a little complicated,
but for 600 dollars, I get unlimited loop time and the ability to undo
hours worth of sound.  Also - I'm not working in a musical
environment in which I need exact timing.  I'll need good timing,
but it won't matter if I come in a little off here or there.  

I really appreciate all the replies, because I am becoming more and
more convinced that I am on the right track (for what I want to
do).  Note* the jamman will also allow me to save recorded
performances into my computer.  (Great for archiving a
show).  

Tony

On 12/11/05, Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote:

At 07:54 PM 12/11/2005, hughes.tony@gmail.com wrote:
> > I keep running into this magic number: 198 seconds.  Is it true that
> the EDP
> > only allows for 198 seconds of recorded information?  That's the main
> reason
> > I keep going back to the jamman.

what is it you are planning to do that 198 seconds of loop time would not
be enough? I'm just curious what application would need so much. I don't
think I've seen anyone running into that as a limitation in any practical
context, but maybe you maybe your pieces are really, really long...


> >> > Thanks for the replies.  I think I may be able to do what I want
> with two
> >> > jammans.  Record sample A onto jamman 1, record same sample onto jamman
> >> > two (from jamman one).

How would you get the loop time in jamman 2 to equal the time on jamman 1,
and do it in real time? The Digitech JamMan doesn't have any sync features,
so I don't see how this would be possible.

> >> > Oh, another question, does anyone have any ideas about timing looptracks
> >> > while using the boss/digitech pedal loopers.  Stopwatch?  Computer. It
> >> > seems essential in some cases to know where I am in the loop to overdub
> >> > correctly.

Like others suggested, this sounds like another reason why you might want
to look at a higher-end looper. Those usually have much more display
features. You can't really expect the low end products to do everything.

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com