Re: How do YOU loop?

[Andreas Wetterberg <awetterberg@post.cybercity.dk>]

r i c k m o n d wrote:

 > so what/how does looping function for you?

I recently got into the whole cutting/dividing/replace thing, so getting 
stuck in the loop has been changed into a one-shot, thank g*d. My looper 
does adjustable fades when going into replace, so I can do evolving 
stuff a bit more intuitively than turning down the feedback - also, on 
longer lines replacing a smaller fragment of the soundscape doesn't mess 
with the overall structure of the piece, making it a lot less daunting - 
it basically turns replace into a smooth, dynamic "reduce feedback, then 
overdub, then increase feedback after going out of overdub"-function, 
which I really like. (As an aside, do you call it Insert or Replace? I'm 
not quite hip to the lingo these days :-s )

But the best part still has to be:
A: Degrading the loop and chopping into it with effects in the feedback 
chain - highpass filtering is especially good for me - and reversing 
stuff in there as well.
B: Changing the loop length in my looper causes divides, not 
pitch-changes, so I can do a quick 1/16th note stutter burst, jump back 
out to 1 bar, and the stutters are locked in the loop - all this is 
probably old news to hardcore EDP-users, but it's pretty new ground for 
me, so I am very happy with it!

All in all these methods provide some good tools for deconstruction and 
recontextualization of a soundscape, which are so fun that getting stuck 
  isn't happening all that often - the only times it does is when I get 
into a really good loop, with succesfull effect chops, good harmonies, 
really good timing etc in a neat little package. At that point I *need* 
to sample the loop before moving on, I'm not hardened enough to kill my 
darlings yet.

I've uploaded a quick mp3 highlighting some of the deconstruction 
methods I use - the track is an all-live recording, just voice and drum 
samples being triggered in real-time. I reckon it gets interesting at 1 
minutes 30 seconds into the song where I start breaking down the loop 
quite a bit, by going from a 1bar loop to 8bars and chopping away :)

http://thecovertoperators.groc.org/operator_a/Machinate_-_Glimmer.mp3
(NOTE: mp3-file may or may not contain horrible singing and sloppy 
hiphop-beats - please disregard! hehe)

Andreas