Backing tracks: A confession

[Mark Hamburg <mark@grubmah.com>]

Okay. I don't use pre-recorded loops. But I think I am coming to 
appreciate why most of the loop pedals out there (the LP2 soon to be an 
exception) are so feature limited.

Once upon a time, I made have use of my EDP and played with feedback and 
next loop and all the rest. Hey, it was there, it was easy to grab, it was 
my first real looper in a long time. Fripp's Let the Power Fall had given 
me a taste for the 5-10 second loop with the feedback control at less than 
100%. Etc.

Then the EDPs drifted out of my rack. First to try to make room for an LP1 
and then because I was trying to go rackless and ended up using the looper 
on the M13.

Now I find myself fairly routinely recording a loop, closing it in overdub 
mode purely to avoid cutting off the sound, maybe overdubbing a bit more, 
and then showing a tendency to just let it play while I 
improvise/noodle/whack-off (choose your description). And you know what? I 
like working this way. The loop fills the sonic landscape in, but it lets 
me concentrate on the guitar rather than on the loop.

So, I've got the LP1 and it does all sorts of wonderful things and under 
pressure from Bill I've even jury rigged myself a MIDI foot controller (I 
now have a very confused EDP). What do I do? I record static loops and let 
them play. Maybe I throw them into reverse of half-speed. Maybe I turn on 
scramble. And I generally set up multiple loops often of different 
lengths. But after getting a few loops going and mixed, it all just 
becomes backing tracks.

When does my Looper's Delight membership card get pulled? When do I stop 
getting invited to Santa Cruz to perform? ;-)

Or in the quest for a rackless system, maybe what I need is a simple 
looper or two to do the backing tracks thing and a long delay line with 
feedback and a way to mute the input to do the Frippertronics-style thing. 
The only issue is that I'd like the latter to be syncable to the former so 
that it doesn't all just become a mish-mash of unsynced loops -- though 
that can be fun in its own right. The LP2 might actually be a great choice 
here given support for things like quantized replace, but last I knew it 
wasn't stereo friendly the way even the DL4 is (although it's a mono 
looper) which means I'm back to worrying about needing mixing/routine 
support and the benefits of shedding the rack may start to fade.

So, it's probably stick with the rack, look for a real MIDI foot 
controller solution, and try to better exploit the LP1.

I've got visions of an LP1 and my Korg AM8000R shoved inside something 
like the M13 with a really tuned performance model and control set, but 
that isn't going to happen and given the confession above, I have to ask 
whether I would really exploit it. But I'd certainly plunk down the money 
for it within reason...

Mark