Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
It was written:
><<didn't he also have a variable potentiometer
> footpedal rigged to the erase head on one deck
>that he used to clear the loop?>>
>
>I have a bootleg tape of one of the original
>Frippertronic performances from 79, from Miami,
>and it does seem like, in places, he has control
>over the feedback, but I'm not sure how he does
>it. I came up with the idea that before the
>signal from the second tape deck was fed back
>into the first deck, it first went into a volume
>pedal. This would allow you to fade the loop out,
>and then you can overdub something new on top, so
>that the earlier part of the loop becomes just
>sort of a background noise as you add more
>prominent things on top. I dunno if this exactly
>how he had it set up or not, but that's kind of
>my impression of how it worked.
>
>Also, I'm wondering if anyone knows exactly how
>Fripp actually did these performances. Did he
>create the loops first, then rewind them and play
>them back and solo on top of them, or did he solo
>as the creation of the loop progressed. I'm
>thinking it would take a simple A/B box to do the
>latter, channel feeding the guitar into the lag
>accumulator (where did that phrase come from?
>Before a couple days ago, I had never heard it),
>channel B going into either an amp or a mixer of
>some sort. The Miami tape kinda suggests the
>latter, as you hear stuff where he builds the
>loop for quite some time before you finally hear
>him start soloing.
I heard/saw the Frippster perform around 79 at The Kitchen in NYC. He used
the two Revoxes with a quad system (!) placed in the four corners of the
room. The first note would appear front left, then move back left, then
back
right, then front right, etc. around and around. I found this remarkable!
Did no one else hear this in these early performances?
I don't recall specific soloing over the loops, but I don't recall NO
soloing, either. A simple a/b switch could implement soloing over loops.
BYpass the recorder input, go direct to the amp, nomsane? It would have
been
a simple matter to lean over and crank the record or playback level to
attain either near-infinite repeats or more rapid decay.
At the end of - what? twenty minutes? forty minutes? time became so
slippery during that music - Robert threaded a complete reel back on the
first machine, hit "play," and took a break while we listened to the
previous reel/set BACKWARDS! Way cool minimalist composition/process
technique.
During the second set, he broke a string and proceeded to change it
while maintaining the loop/jam he was in the middle of. I learned an
immense
amount about changing strings in that brief moment.
On th first League of Crafty Guitarists album, the Frippertronics piece
is built upon a two- or three-minute backing track heard first forward,
then
backward. He solos over the entire thing.
>
>Oh, and I agree that No Pussyfooting and Evening
>Star are both excellent albums to check out. I'm
>not as familiar with his more recent Soundscape
>recordings. I have a few of them, but I dunno
>that I could recommend one over the others.
>Personally, I prefered it when Fripp was doing
>the original Frippertronic performances with just
>his old Les Paul Custom and whatever effects
>pedals he was using (at least volume and
>distortion pedals). I have one Frippertronics
>recording from 83, I think it is, where he's
>using the Roland GR-300 guitar synth, and that,
>for some reason I don't like as much. Likewise, I
>don't quite like the Soundscape recordings as
>much either.