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RE: the death of the loop



I’m with Mark on this one. Thematic continuity is crucial.

I’m sure this will sound sort of amateur to many of you who are computer and sequencer savvy but it’s new to me so here goes.

I use a turntable and scratch mixer rather than a sampler to insert rhythms into my EDP loops (I’m a little old school).  I’m not a drummer by training so I like to take old jazz records with great drummers and manipulate the rhythms on them to get what I need. The percussion tones sound much better this way to me than anything I could generate with my clumsy wielding of sticks.

Because of this admittedly primitive technique,  I discovered I am able to also send output from my board (the control room mix) back into the scratch mixer and this allows me to scratch chop and dice “against” my own complete loop if that makes sense. In other words, I am introducing silences, beats and scratch sounds where there previously were none.

Recently I have been using this technique almost exclusively to create a rhythmic basis for the next loop on the EDP’s and I think it makes for very interesting transitions because it changes the “feel” almost entirely but retains some musical elements of the original loop.  I end up with several loops that are rhythmically different but musically similar that I can switch between on the EDP’s and this actually works well for chorus/verse type compositions.

The different rhythms force me to play really different types of guitar lines on top of each loop but on similar musical scales. The only thing I try to be mindful of is occasionally going back to the original loops and adding some layers so that things don’t get too uneven. This solves the problem of the original loops sounding “original” as mark puts it.

It has taken me a lot of practice to learn to do this smoothly but it is well worth it IMHO.  Anyone else on here use a similar technique? I would love to exchange some tips.

Ace

From: markfrancombe@gmail.com [mailto:markfrancombe@gmail.com] On Behalf Of mark francombe
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 12:29 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: the death of the loop

 

What I like is using more than one loop.. cant speak for other loopers, but with EDP i just got to a differnt loop.. and one day I go back to the original loop, often the loop has moved on by then and the original seems... wel original... If you switch between loops like this working on each all the time, REPLACING rather that overdyúbing.. then you get more variation.
EDP is great at this...
Repeater is terrible at this.. shouldnt be, it IS possible to change loops after all.. but just doent seem seamless... Of course Mobius, being based on EDP is also great at this.. and Im sure all the Songster type loopers ut must be a doddle..

Maybe the answer to "kill a loop" is not to kill it, just put it aside and come back later (in the song)???

Mark

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Nadia Salom <nadia.salom@gmx.de> wrote:
> How does one go about killing a loop?

Fora a change, try changing the loop's audio content while it is
playing. Use a continuous pedal assigned to feedback for soft changes
and slicing to violently replace chunks of audio in the loop.

If you want to write songs, learn to write songs. Looping is
different. But in a quite beautiful way; looping doesn't demand *a
start* and *an ending*. It's more like the original idea of ambient
music; it is going on forever and you simply tune in or tune out of
the flow.

I agree with you that when picking up an ambition to "write songs" out
of true live looping sessions a lot of the magic is lost. But thinking
closer about "composing", isn't it in fact a lame-ish workaround to
synthesize the true inspiration of a good improvisation? A way to
experience an adventure without exposing yourself to the risks. A
trick to repeat a blissful moment many times.

But some folks are good at composing. How do they manage? I'd say they
are very good at simulating the inspired "first encounter experience"
in music. In order to succeed with that you will have to distance
yourself from the nice feeling of being part of the music as "music
happens to you" in order to analyse and take notes of exactly what
happens so you can repeat it and bring over a fragment of that emotion
to listeners.

Oops... this turned out a bit theoretical - I fully support the
hands-on hints Kevin just posted as well.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com




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