Re: Loopinh Ensembler

["Rev. Doubt-Goat" <dgoat@rocketmail.com>]

93

---Jamie Lack <jlack@auran.com> wrote:

> My idea along these lines was that loopers
would eventually have to face
> the challenge of playing integrated loops
"together" (If there aren't
> any already out there, that is!)
> It is a necessarily more complicated thing
than playing a conventional
> instrument, although I don't think it will be
this way in the future.
> It is a similar idea to playing samples of
music, perhaps over quite a
> long length, and "arranging them on the fly".
> If you had a number of people doing this (for
example, DJ's), then they
> would be a "sampling ensemble".
> This is why forefront electronic performance
music, like drum 'n bass,
> offers positives for these ideas. 
> 
> I think that it is already possible to do a
looping ensemble already,
> syncing echoplexes, say..
> However I can see that the tools have a lot of
room for improved design
> in the future, as technology improves, not to
mention the application.


I've been giving this some thought, and what I
beleive is the main obstacle to fully
integrating looping into a band context is the
same problem that sequencers face, i.e. once
it's in, it's in. 
A sequence, or for that matter a loop, doesn't
"groove" the way that two musicians can.  The
reason for this is that musicians can shift the
time slightly as they go to keep in sync, and to
add dynamic interest.  You can program a
sequence or a loop to have a fluid time for one
repetition, but then it's locked into playing it
the *exact* same way everytime afterwards. Also,
the fact is, it's easier to keep time with a
machine source if it's providing the beat than
it is the other way around.

When large soundscapes are built, you can have a
monsterous amount of layers, or "tracks", which
can make it difficult to pick out the "beat" so
you can manipulate it.  It's like trying to
direct the pitch content of a huge reverb, once
it's been triggered, you just have to wait till
it's done.

Now, if you could design something that could
track the "feel" of, say, the drummer, and have
that as the "master click", you might be getting
somewhere.  What you want is something that can
utilize "feel", perhaps something that listens
to the overall inputs from all of the
insturments and, say, samples it every half beat
to determine what the tempo is, not unlike a
real person does, then outputs that to the loop
devices, utilizing time stretching or some such.

93

Rev. DOubt-GOat (King of the run-on sentence!)
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com