No Synths Involved--Unless You Include Processing

[<relayonemanband@earthlink.net>]

Mark Hamburg explained his concern:

<There was a story a while back in Guitar Player concerning someone (Leni
<Stern?) who saw David Torn play and wondered what guitar synth he was
using.
<The happy ending is that she asked and he told her that no synths were
<involved and it was loops plus other processing. How many people don't
<bother to ask?

This happened to me at a gig documented on the list (search archives for
Baptism of Fire), where an audience member (who was also a musician of
sorts) thought the Boss GT-3 processing was guitar synth--and I'm not sure
he noticed the looping!
Even though all of us on this list know better, I am sure most audience
members think of looping as just one more way of processing--of course, 
they
aren't involved in the real time control, so they can't appreciate the
difference in interactivity.  And they DO observe the loss of focus on
them--so looping is just not the best show-biz tool (as opposed to, say, a
light show).
The more I think about it, modern processing of audio is synthesis of a
sort.  Isn't it?
Gary