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Looper's Delight
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These discussions of laptop looping are fascinating to me...but still,
if I was a touring musician and had the $1200 to spend on a looper, I'd
save up just a bit more and get a Looperlative, which seems to cover an
awful lot of the possible looping bases. First consideration is that
I'd want to have a laptop with me for communication and everything else
associated with touring, but, I'd want to keep my looping machine off
the Net to avoid viruses (at all costs). So then I've got two very
expensive, desirable, not-very-roadworthy-or-handy-to-carry pieces of
gear to deal with, watch in restaurants, hope that the club has a
sturdy table to hold onstage, etc. Busking outdoors with a laptop? terrifying thought. And if something does go wrong, with something like the Looperlative I can get in touch with the developer and get assistance that will cover anything that has gone amiss. Worst case scenario, I can get another unit just like it, plug in, and be good to go. But with a laptop system, the question always is; what went wrong? Something in the hardware? The OS? The software, each of which comes from a different manufacturer? The interface? If I can narrow it down, if it's something with the computer itself then I have to find a model similiar to the one I already have, take the time to install all of my pieces of gear, hope it all works again, and of course forget about "borrowing" one to do all of this to. Then there's the latency. Any perceptible amount seems insurmountable to me. I wouldn't want to have to do a workaround if one day I decided to start singing into the thing, then realizing I need to "adjust" to compensate, as was discussed earlier this week. However... If I were ever convinced that a laptop were the way to go, I'd look into something like the OQO. It's a small palmtop (5" x 3.5") with full XP. The size means it would be no problem to carry on my person and to stabilize for performance. I'm not sure how much visual interaction is needed with the screen that couldn't be compensated for with the MIDI interface/ pedal, but one could carry a flatscreen monitor, which is cheaper and more universally replaceable than the full machine. randomly, Daryl Shawn www.swanwelder.com |