RE: looping with other musicians

["Alen Cileli" <Cilelia@BioTek.com>]

We came up with an interesting way of using the EDP in a quartet a couple 
of weeks ago. We used a drum machine to send a MIDI pulse to my EDP...then 
we sent the pulse to the drummer who could listen to it in the form of a 
click using headphones. But the bass player and keyboard couldnt hear the 
click, so they just play to the drummer. So the EDP and the drummer are 
married using the MIDI pulse, but no one else in the band knows the 
difference, since we all just play to the drummer. This resulted in a 
great gig of completely improvised loop based jamming. The result was loop 
accuracy combined with the human element of the band members still playing 
off each other and not to the machine... 

-----Original Message-----
From: jondrums [mailto:jondrums@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 3:04 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: looping with other musicians


> EDP is the most "playable" looper I've come across so far. One EDP, foot 
> controller and instrument is my dream set-up for ensemble looping.

My favorite trick with the EDP (when playing with other musicians) is to 
use 
the mute/insert combination to retrigger the loop.   This will start the 
loop over at the start-point and play it once through.  If you use 
mute/undo 
combo, then it retriggers it and keeps it playing.  I actually have my 
fcb1010 set up with three very crucial buttons: set-start-point, 
retrigger-once, and retrigger-continue.  These are direct-midi commands in 
loop IV.

I typically will set up a 1 bar loop, and use the retrigger-continue 
button 
on beat 1 whenever the other players start to wander, and that usually 
locks 
them right back onto it.   If they're following the 1 bar loop well, then 
I'll multiply it out and be fairly certain that the'll be able to keep 
following it.  If things speed up or slow down I have to use 
multiply/record 
to redefine the length of the loop, or just record-record to start a brand 
new identical loop at the slightly faster tempo or whatever.

Want to know the secret to playing loops with groups?   I contend that its 
all in your state of mind!  To many times I hear people ask how they can 
get 
the bass player or drummer to follow their guitar loops.   WRONG.  If you 
want to make loops while playing with other musicians, you have to find a 
way to be able to **follow the other musicians**.  There is a subtle 
balance 
between musicians when everyone is "in the groove."  No one person is 
determining it, and everyone is working together to create it.  IMHO, Its 
just plain selfish to interupt that balance with your forced mechanized 
looped groove and ask the other musicians to blindly follow you.

I would be interested to hear how other people are using looping 
techniques 
to **follow** other musicians tempo and groove.   Is anyone using realtime 
tempo adjustments (ie. repeater) with success (much like an expert DJ can 
beat match) to play with live musicians or records?  This is something 
I've 
tried but not had much success with just yet.

Jon