Arcane Device

[David Myers <dmgraph@bway.net>]

>MIvanBerk@aol.com wrote:
>> By the way, if our David Myers is the one who's recorded lots of
>> "multiprocessor feedback" as Arcane Device, he produces some 
>interesting and
>> unsettling loop music of his own and has every right to comment without
>> possibility of damnation.
>>
>> -mike
>Mike - Hear! Hear! If this is the one and the same David Myers, it would
>be cool to hear more about his interesting approaches to creating loop
>music. David, if you're out there and it's really you, I'm a big fan and
>really love your very original soundscapes...

Okay, you guys (and a few others) have "outed" me.  About 1988 I did a 5 or
6 year project called Arcane Device-I think 7 CD's, buncha tapes, an LP and
one double 7-inch record, maybe 30 performances in NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh,
Cleveland, Hamburg, Copenhagen.

It may be of technical interest to some folks here.  For this material I
never used any sound "sources" for the loops-that is, it was "feedback
music", the looping delays generating their own sounds by being fed into
themselves.  I got four 7.6 sec Digitech Time Machines and fed them into a
custom mixer--basically, four channels with four effects sends on each.
This formed a kind of routing matrix in which any delay could feed any
delay, including itself.  I "played" the delays and mixer as an
instrument--very active use of the "sends".  Usually, very short delays got
the feedback cranking, then this sound would be handed off to a longer
delay for looping, etc.  Very hard to predict what might happen sometimes-I
always thought of performances as something akin to a chess game or boxing
match, where I was going one-on-one with whatever sounds came at me.  Alot
of risk involved, particularly when it was in public!

My favorite CD was a little different.  "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (may
still be available on Staalplaat Records) was done with a Lexicon LXP-5, an
MRC, and one pot.  Same thing, the LXP-5 fed itself, but the MRC was used
extensively to crank the parameters.  Given the setup, the variety of
sounds and structures is pretty amazing, even if I do say so myself.
(Admittedly, a pretty bombastic title, but besides being a longtime fan of
the book, I guess I thought "stickin in to" the classical establishment
wouldn't hurt, either.)

The last solo CD I did (had two collaborative releases with German composer
Asmus Tietchens) technically puzzles even me.  On "Envoi in Cumin" I again
used the 4X Time Machine setup.  Each delay was set for approx. 1 second.
But the routing was so strange (wish I could recount it exactly) that what
came out was a kind of "see-saw" base sound--yeah, a loop--which varied in
period somehow.  I called it a "soft loop", and it subtly changed in sound
as the loop time  wandered between 7 and 15 seconds!  In part, this was due
to these delays having LFO modulation available, which in this case I
applied sparingly--a good selling point (along with all those other knobs)
for the Digitechs.

Hope all this may be of interest or inspiration to you loopmaniacs....

David Myers
____________________________________

"Eternity is not limited by the conditions of time, and time is eternal in
virtue of its cyclic recurrence."
-Hermetica, Asclepius III