Re: Question about multiple looping setup

[Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Siobahn Hotaling schrieb:
> I am looking for some advice on a looping setup -
>
> We obviously would need something that each of us could individually cue 
>for our parts (i.e. a pedal or something that would be easy to use); 
>additionally, a single pedal with multiple inputs (even like the Boss 50) 
>wouldn't work, as we would need to have separate signals into the 
>soundboard for proper mixing, and that would consolidate our feed into 
>one output...
>   
I don't exactly get what you need, so I'll try:
1. you need to create loops coming from four different microphone feeds
2. every musician should be able to work on (record, stop etc.) his own 
loop individually
3. the signal from the live mics need to be individually treated at the 
soundboard
4. the separate loops need to be individually treated at the soundboard

I also assume that the following holds true:
5. all of the individual loops need to be synced to each other

For that, you either need a) four loopers which allow to be synced (e.g. 
via MIDI) (the "which allow to be synced" part only applying is (5) 
above is the case), or b) a looper which allows for completely 
independent treatment of four loops (including individual in/outs).

Furthermore, there are three ways to do that signal-routing-wise:
i) mic goes into looper, mic and looper signal go from looper to 
soundboard.
ii) mic goes into some kind of preamp with splitter, then to looper and 
to soundboard, looper goes to soundboard.
iii) mic goes to soundboard, then (with e.g. direct out) from there to 
looper, looper goes to soundboard.

I don't know any hardware solution that does b), but as Per mentioned, 
Mobius will do that. Note however that to fulfill (2), you'd need four 
MIDI remote pedals (and thus four MIDI inputs), and an audio interface 
that has at least four ins and four (or eight for i) outs.

To work with a), any (MIDI-syncable) looper will do, but those usually 
only allow for wirings ii and iii to fulfil 3 and 4.

As for cost-efficiency: I would assume that Per's suggestion of a 
computer running Mobius would work best. If the computer runs XP 32bit, 
you might check to get a cheap Marian UCON CX interface, which has four 
micpres and 8 analogue outs. For the MIDI remote pedals: see the 
archives ;).

One tricky thing might be about that sync thing: syncing is a 
"unidirectional thing", that means it may get tricky if you record 
several loops at once as the first loops in the arrangement.

          Rainer

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