Re: tools

["Per Boysen" <perboysen@gmail.com>]

> On Feb 3, 2008 4:16 PM, Raul Bonell <raul.bonell@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ... what functions do you use to prevent too much sound activity,
>
> From: "Per Boysen"
> Imagination and Silence. About half of each.

I regret posting "Koan style" like that and would like to explain better what I meant. I mean that you should loop as you play with a band; ie not creating any sounds that doesn't make sense together with the existing music. The method for being able to do so is to listen at the same time to the existing music and to your own playing.

Ok, what about if the above doesn't seem to work? Then it's probably because you are concentrating too hard on the music you want to create. So hard that your mental focus blocks out the natural musical instincts that should guide your playing to fit in with the sounding music. 

Next phase, when you master the above, is technical aspects. I'd say the methodology is the same in looping as in mixing, composing or arranging. As in not layering instruments/sounds that are prominent in the same frequency band, if they have different musical roles. Musical parts that are intended to accompany each other do that much better if they are also, sound-wise, are easy for the ear to keep apart. The more different two instruments sound, the better they work for playing the "questions and answers" game in music arranging. 

As the third level we have "sound design in looping". I'd say there are two major concepts; the mixing concept for looping and the "reverse engineered mixing" concept for looping. 

To loop according to the mixing concept you typically split up the looper/loopers output over many mixer channels and apply different effects to different loops. This way you have total control of the summed output. The more complex your music gets the more you will be mixing instead of playing. 

Reverse-engineered mixing style looping is when you tailor the input sound before looping. Typically a performer of this school puts most effects directly on the input to make sure the looped sounds will not have interfering frequencies. Down-side is of course that you can't change the way sounds were originally recorded. 

--
Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)