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Looper's Delight
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Hi Paul - (I'm on junk-music too) > That started me thinking *again* that I should ask on the group if there is > anyone here who is a looping percussionist. There seem to be lots of I'm looping live acoustic percussion. I've been stubbornly rooted in working with mic'd percussion (even though many people who see me recommend trying out an electronic drum set). I started with just a djembe and an EDP, and have progressed from there as I've learned more looping techniques. There is definitely a learning curve to working with mic'd instruments and looping. Like Rick mentioned, my akg C1000 mic is totally awesome for gain before feedback, and it sounds great with everything I use it with. I usually keep a volume pedal on this mic, so I can easily mute it when I'm not using it, and adjust it depending on what I'll play into it. I use an EDP, repeater, and a mackie 1402 board. I'm working on building a little jungle/drum-n-bass kit with 3 snares: 8",10",12" and a 16" kick. I'll use D112 on the kick, and a pair of SM57s to pick up the hihats and snares. I tried out parts of this kit at Loopstock, along with a little table off to my right with a C1000 + volume pedal. I've been finding that a medium level monitor mix works well, and if I need to really hear it better, I pop on my pair of headphones. The real key to my setup when I'm looping the drum kit, is my custom midi trigger pads. I have built 6 little piezo pads that trigger midi events to control my loopers. Its really just like a midi footboard, but I can use sticks on it. I use that to trigger record, overdub, multiply, insert, and undo on the EDP and many repeater functions. Before this I was doing the play with one hand, and use my left hand to control my loopers thing, which kind of worked - and as a side note always seemed to provide the crowd with a lot of entertainment watching me do three things at once and somehow be musical too... Creatively, I've found that it is very important to know and understand the sonic characteristics of the percussion you want to loop. I don't really plan out a piece before I play it, but I do know that I'll want to include at least three basic parts in the mix: Some sort of low/bass tones, a pad or stretched out sound, and a sharper attack rhythmic sound. So it could be bass drum, shaker, and doumbek. I try not to layer several sounds that are similar because rhythmically it starts to get very confusing. For example, once there's drum kit in the loop, I haven't found it effective to add more... This isn't really a rule, but just what I've tended towards after a few years of trying things. One of my personal favorite techniques is to set the feedback to 0 on my EDP and set up a 1-4 bar loop (overdub is on). Then anything I play, will play back exactly once. Then I try to use two different timbres on the same instrument and play something with timbre 1, then while that's playing back play something complimentary on timbre 2, and keep going. It ends up sounding like an improvised duet, but if you pay attention to what you're playing - it can sound like the two duet players have esp or something. Examples of multiple timbres are the "doum" and the "ta" sounds on the doumbek; or hihat/snare/bass versus open snare and rim clicks; or tabla versus bayan; or playing on the edge and middle of a frame drum; or or or or... One other thing Rick didn't mention (but he would have if I didn't I bet) to yet is a comment on one thing you said: "I only have a DL-4 but I have found it very workable as long as you're accurate on the initial recording pass" Rick is the prophet of "lumpy loops" I and because of him a whole new rhymic world has emerged for me. (something new after 20 years of drumming???) I urge you not to trash a loop that isn't accurate in the initial recording pass. Trust me there's charm in those loops, and its one thing that will set you apart as a live loopist, if you can take a lumpy loop and play along with it!!! Once it repeats a few times, it becomes totally "in" and groovy. Somehow this is the essence of looping for me - humans dig familiarity, and after a few times through a "totally out" loop, people start liking it, and expecting all the little things that are about to come around. Another thing - after being a part of several looping festivals and performances I have noticed one common theme. Many performers at some point make some mistake, and apologize to the audience for it - or even stop the song and start over. Nobody even knew they made a mistake, until the apology. If you assume you did it on purpose, so will everyone else. If you make a lumpy loop - you did it on purpose and let everyone marvel in this new odd-time signature they never knew existed -smile- Ok, I'm rambling. talk to you later Paul, and yes, there are plenty of looping percussionists around. If you have specific questions, just ask maybe someone will have some advise. Jon