Re: real time groove loops

[Leonardo Cavallo <LEO@DINONET.IT>]

Really interesting topic, guys...

Just tonight I've seen a live performance by an italian rapper with his
band. There was a D.J. in the group too, and his solo moment was, in my
opinion, the highlight of the show.

With his turntable and scratching techniques he could play this enormous
"rhythm machine", altering drum loops in real time like I've never seen on
stage. He was really a turntable virtuoso, changing records and playing 
them
with incredible speed and fluency. 

Altough I don't see myself beynd a turntable handling old vinyls in the 
near
future, that use of rhythms is what I'd like to do with my samples. This 
guy
could begin with a drum loop, mixing over another percussion pattern,
creating interesting textures. Then he could alter the pitch and velocity 
of
any loop creating various effects. But the most important aspect was the
interactive side of his playing. He could react and improvise with its
setup, creating a wide array of rhythmic patterns with a strong musical
(rhythmic) sense. He was able to stop and repeat a single drum sound too.
For example, from the first kick beat of a bar he could create infinite
variations and improvisations over the other drum loop going. 


(I imagine what a guy with those skills could be in a non strictly hiphop
situation. It's a sin that often people in music are not really interested
in other music forms. I'd like to play with this guy in another setting,
rock, funk, strictly jazz, prog, ambient..., out from the hip hop, "scratch
because you have to" stereotype).   



Clearly, this kind of approach we're talking lends beyond the acustic drum
kit and the human drummer. It's more, and d&b is the perfect example, lika
rhythmic orchestra playing. It's "hyperdrums", and imagining of a real
drummer playing that shit is nearly impossible. An interesting approach to
live playin is combining breakbeats and real playin. If the drummer is well
tuned in the idiom, the result it's a thrill (I've got some experience on
this).  
  
And altough this rhythmic exasperation is strictly technologic dependant, I
agree with Kim seeing it like a weird evolution of jazz rhytmic intricacy.
If you listen to d&b you notice that in most cases the hyperdrum tracks are
the only "instrument" in the piece costantly evolving and improvising.
Improvising, it's the key word. Often the rest is strictly pattern based,
but the drums are changing all over the place. 
Not being a drummer, not being a jungle producer, I'd like to be able to
manipulate and improvise with these rhythms live, not just writing all 
those
variations in some seq.


>A good instrument, in an abstracted sense of it, would allow those ideas 
>to
>flow without interference. (With some practice and dedication of course, 
>as
>any good instrument should require.) It would also allow me to intuitively
>create the music I like, without requiring that I sit in front of 
>computers
>like I do all the other times in my life. 
>

Maybe some strange union between a turntable, a tape looper, a digital
looper, a sampler, a mixer and a multi FX?
What's about the new roland stuff?

It seems to me that the answer to all this could came from the software 
too,
not just the hardware. Computers applications in real time music are 
quickly
evolving and offering interesting alternatives. In its semplicity, an with
all its limitations, think to rebirth as example. Or the software based
samplers and soft emulation synths. At a certain point you'll have the
chance to connect all these progs together in a organic and functioning way
to external modules and be able to create some real music. I know it's not
as fancy as real funky knobs to operate on stage but could be the nearest
solution in the next future. Consider that producing a software is a lot
cheaper. 
What you think about it?      


ciao
leo

PS off topic (???). What are the chances to order an Echoplex here in 
Europe?