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Looper's Delight
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Well after a week of two to four am nights, I finally got everything working right on my rig!!! Man now what? Isn’t it funny how easy it is to dodge actually the hard part, making music, by falling in the hole of wiring and programming and such!!!! Now I have no excuse, bummer. The cm86 is the best looping mixer imho because the channel strip; which on the FRONT, gives you, top to bottom:::)> Mic/line switch, so you can, essentially, with one button, turn off the channel, or switch from a line send or mic send in that one channel. Next, two pot eq section, high and low, again with in/out switch. Next two aux sends with pre/post switch, which not sure why, but essentially acts as an on/off for the aux send as in pre you can barely hear it. Next it has a dual pot for two sends to the true stereo a/b outs, so a goes to my cue, b goes to the looper, great control over incoming loop signal on each channel of the mixer. Also a three way switch a/ab/b for the mains outs per channel, so if you don’t want that channel in the looper, or only want it in the looper, not hearing it in the cue (looper set wet only), or a/b in both the looper and the cue, so an AWESOME way to flexibly route the output of each channel. So the main out b goes to the looper, then I route the looper output back thru a mixer channel that is output selected only to a, cue, so no feedback, and I have an easy way to control the mix levels of the looper and the other channels. Other of the seven channels remaining are, vdrums, yamaha tg55 as keys and simple synth, old hammond xm-1 organ module, two vocal mics (58's with switches on a double mic adaptor, one mic stand, so I can turn mic off at mic for less bleed buildup), extra channel for guest input or bass or whatever. Aux send A goes to one of two matching TC m300s with live realtime control of all functions through a Novation Remote SL. Each channel also has a dedicated insert loop, so for example on the organ channel I insert an audio volume pedal for the organ, or on each channel you could have a completely different fx unit or chain. The main A and B outs also have an insert loop too, pretty awesome mixer, also it has two main outs, so you can route the main outs and control the output of the two main outs from the front. All these are also switchable from mono to stereo. On the midi, looping, recording side; LP1 as looper, of course eight channels of looper, controlled heavily and easily with the Novation and a midibuddy foot pedal, the Novation mmc controls set to treat the LP1 like a tape machine, eight pots for pan on each track, eight pots for feedback on each track, eight sliders for track vol, 24 buttons for all kinds of fun for control or audio mangling and eight drum pads that can be perc or program change sends and the two octave keyboard on the Novation, good enuf for a fake keyboardist like me. The LP1 sends midi start/stop to the Roland Vdrums for starting and stopping new loops and starting and stopping percussion if you are recording the percussion, and the vdrums send midi clock to the LP1 so you can sync the perc and save a track or for whatever reason you would want clock sync between the LP1 and Vdrums. If you don’t record the perc track then you don’t have level control on the Novation, but of course you would on the mixer. The second TC m300 I set up for post loop effects by routing the output of one of the aux outs on the LP1 straight to the M300 then back through tape in on the mixer, so then if I want to add m300 effects to an already recorded loop I can do that by just changing the output on the lp1 with with a midi command. The aux out or main out of each channel on the lp1 is selected by sending program change to the LP1, as of now it is only one or the other, hoping someday to have the ability to have the audio go out of mains and aux x simultaneously, but for effects on existing loop this is ok. Wondering where aux b went? Its dead on my cm86, gotta send it to Rane, but when its fixed and with enough rack space I would send to another fx unit and could have another fx unit for the other aux out on the lp1. Actually you could have even more fx options using the the mains out and two aux outs on the lps, as you can pan hard and actually have six analog signal out paths. All this controlled my midi of course. Let’s see, on the floor I have the Digitech Control 2 footswitch for the digitech 1101, kind of big but nice big screen, I can change presets here or on the 1101 template on the Novation. Then I have one midibuddy pedal, the vol pedal for organ and a wah pedal. On a keyboard stand I have my lap steel mounted, then on a frame mounted above that I have a “play standing up” set of vdrums, hh, two cymbals, two toms, then on the floor a kick pedal and hh controller. The lp1 and such are all mounted in one six space rack, the style with mixer rails on top, where I have the Novation, cm86 and lp1 mounted so I can see them easier. Then I have a Shure wireless monitor unit so I can go completely silent if I want. The rack is TOO HEAVY and I need one more rack space for the two half rack units for wireless transmit and wireless monitoring, so am gonna have to go with even a bigger rack case, this one http://www.vocopro.com/products/product_info.php?ID=525 but look at it, so cool!!! Hoping to have mixer and LP1 in the top section, Novation on the mixer rails and other rack stuff down below. Of course this is a big rack, but remember this is my live playing rig too, and at a minimum I usually take 6 to 8 instruments on a gig, hardly matters to be small, in a laptop or whatever, and even if I went to the dark side of software, it wouldn’t change the size of my rig that much, so it has to cover all bases, so Europe is out!!!! (unless I ride over on a cruise ship lol!!) In my world and mind, having all my stuff in one rack case, just unload, wheel it out, take off the covers, where I have the foot stuff corralled, is pretty cool. Not sure about space yet, but thinking that if there is space, I might make this rack case my monitor unit too, maybe a small power amp and two twelves, then I am truly in one box. I can lift it now, with superhuman effort, but if it is a bit taller and on wheels this other rack will be much easier to handle. Also the inside of the rack is a total rats nest of wires, to find or fix anything in a hurry is almost impossible, when I get the new rack with more space gonna redo all that, solder my own exact length needed audio cables and get the wall wart situation better in control, add a really nice power conditioner, etc. When I look at what most of my buddies are carrying on the road as far as guitar racks, it’s about the same size of space. Funny to be looking at new vehicles though and take your rack with you shopping to make sure it fits!!! Well that’s about it, I am using a nice California Blonde amp as monitor or the in the ear, but in the ear kind of a pain for hours of rehearsing. I am not sure it would be possible to be any further away from the dark side of software looping!!!!! Of course I could use a laptop for fx in one of the fx loops!!! Well that’s it, two years of work, yikes!!!! Andy of the crazy O’s PS Caveat on the Rane CM86. Very hard to find for some reason, and they don’t make them anymore. They are also very prone to blowing the output chips if you hot wire them (plug stuff in while it is powered up) I think this is why you don’t see many on the used market, people probably blow those and assume they cant sell it because not all the routing functions work when that happens. I talked to Rane about it at NAMM and they said those chips were a bad design and they have new ones now, so I am gonna send my TWO spares in, get them going, then pull this one and send it too. Still an awesome unit for three rack spaces. |