Re: pedal idea for ambient sounds (not necessarily looping related)

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

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 2:56 PM, Marco Coblenz <maracox@hotmail.de> wrote:
>
>
> I love the sound of volume swells into high feedback delay / massive 100%
> wet reverbs. It's great for those ambient drone sounds. A problem to me 
>is,
> if You want to follow a chord progression it easily just turns into a big
> tonal wash.
>
> So I came up with the following idea for a custom pedal:
>
> - one input, one output, 2 always-on parallel loops (loopA, loop B)
>
> - loop A and B can be seamlessly blended/mixed via an extern expression
> pedal (Roland EV5) into an expression jack (I don't want a rocker style
> pedal, prefer external expression control)
>
> - the blending works in 2 ways at the same time, at the send AND the 
>return
> side of each loop but in opposite direction. Example: When Loop A return 
>is
> 100%, then is LoopA send 0%, LoopB return 0% and LoopB send 100%
>
> In each loop will be an verbzilla with 100% wet, max decay cave setting. 
>The
> operation would be like this:
> 1) play a chord (swelled in via an autovolume pedal) to feed Loop A 
>(which
> send is 100% open)
> 2) move the exp pedal in the opposite direction. The loop A return is now
> 100% open, so that You can hear the first chord now.
> 3) While the first chord is still ringing You play the next one which now
> feeds loop B but cannot be heard as Loop B's return is closed
> 4) move the exp pedal in the opposite direction. You blend in the second
> chord while the first one disappears.
> 5) go on with 3) and 4) for each new chord
>
> If You just want the sound be let through as normal You park the exp 
>pedal
> in the middle, so both loops get 50% and put out 50% all the time.
>
> What Do You guys think?


I think this is a very good idea! Would be perfect if using a guitar
to accompany a soloist with washy sound.

I use a related technique with only one loop where I put an Envelop
Follower on the input signal of the loop and set up the looper's
feedback to follow the input level negatively (via the Envelop
Follower). This means that when there is a sound input the looper's
feedback goes down to zero (i.e. new audio gets into the loop to
replace old audio) but when there is no sound input the looper's
feedback is kept at 100 percent (i.e. loop keeps droning). This makes
it also possible to change a short section of a longer loop only by
playing something for the actual duration.

-- 
Greetings from Sweden

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