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Looper's Delight
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Hey gang, I'm glad there's so much going on here in loop land, and I'd like to add my coupla cents worth. OK, maybe a dollar. First, thanks Kim for clarifying the origins of the wallwart. I was fairly certain that it was Satan (not a bad guy, really. He's just misunderstood...) but now I have good authority on it. And, yes, JamMan and Vortex both use the beasts. The ultimate design is what's in the PCM 80, ie a switching transformer that simply needs the right plug. Works great, and apparently all future Lex products will use it. (Note that I said apparently...) Now, about this Vortex thingy: Thanks to Dave for the very kind review. A couple of notes about what it can do: It's basically a modulating delay. So you've got chorusing, flanging, tremolo, rotary speaker-ish stuff, and that sort of thing. (Gerneric useful stuff with odd names like Choir, Shimmer, Aerosol, Orbits) But the hook is, as Dave noted, they're dynamic--they respond to your playing. (or not, if you so choose) Then you have a whole host of ridiculously weird effectoids. Bleen, Fractal, et al. These things do ring modulaty or looping echoes with death flange that mutates into the oddest sorts of things. Useful on a daily basis? You decide. On my first record (Three if by Air) this kind of oddity is most clearly audible on the last cut where an e-bow driven guitar is sent through a very odd pitch shift thing on the LXP-15 (Evil 3rds in the V2 software, my program) then sent through this bizzaro Vortex thing that I created from Fractal and Bleen. The sound will rip your head off in headphones. Way twisted. The beauty of Vortex is how easily you make the sounds your own. The morphing thing is really happening, and some of the halfway points are really fun. There's a bunch of oddities on my next record (due in Fuebruary, will be mixed by Mr. Torn) from the Vortex beast. OK, now the Jamoisity: I'm now using two JamMen. One in front of effectoids, one in back of effectoids. Generally, the front Jamperson is used as long echo, wherin I'll play with the feedback control throughout the piece, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, depending on where I'm going. The second Jamperson is the looper, where I'll be able to loop the effected stuff, and go beserk on top of it. There are several pieces on the new record where this stuff will be in evidence. Mostly, though it allows quite a bit of freedom. My single biggest gripe with the JamMan is that you can't loop from within the Echo mode. A simple request, but it didn't get done. So, this allows me to do something like it. You can go to 100% feedback, but everything you play gets added in... One other thing about storage of loops and ideas: I ALWAYS have mics set up in front of my amps, which can go to a DAT or my DA 88. Anytime something happens that I like, I record a couple of minutes of it, then if I want it again, I can load it back in. Not perfect, but then again perfection isn't what I seek within my music. I'm looking for vibes and space, and this works (perfectly) for that. If nothing else, when you've got it recorded, you can listen to it, and you should be able to recreate it. Oh yeah, the memory on JamMan is PC Zip chips, and *don't* get 'em from Lexicon. They bought in on very unfavorable terms and are stuck with 'em. But if you call the marketing dept (as opposed to Customer Service who are in posession of the big ticket items), they'll give you some 800 #s where you can find it cheaper. Not cheap, unfortunately. (If they give you difficulty, let me know. I still have some influence. Not much, but some...) OK? Cool. Keep looping. Jon Durant (ex Lex, now Alchemist)