Re: Re: Looper that spits out separate click track

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Daniel Thomas wrote:
>> One thought would be to use a stereo looper and let one channel be the 
>"cue" track (routed as desired, maybe select channel for recording with 
>an A/B switch) and the other channel for the loops.
> For that matter, you could just use an outboard mixer to split the audio 
>mix off to the drummer.  But this does not get at Billy's desire to hear 
>the tempo before the first loop is created.

I don't mean to ignore Bill's specific request, but I have an approach 
that might
be more helpful and musical in the long run for he and his/her drummer:

from my experience in performances and studio work you have to live with
the loop you create whether a click track guides you initially or not.

This means the drummer has to live with that loop as well and play to 
all of it's timing
idiosyncracies and slight inaccuracies.

In fact, a really good drummer who is able to 'breathe' with a slightly 
innacurate loop
can make a loop sound VASTLY better.

This means for the music to be really good, the drummer has to play to 
the loop and NOT the click track.
I've been in many a recording session where the musicians struggled to 
play to a click track that wasn't perfectly
aligned with the initial rhythm tracks of a song.    Invariably, and 
usually after a lot of consternation
and hand wringing the click is jettisoned in favor of
everybody doing what should be done in the first place anyway:   playing 
to the timing idiosyncracies of
the initial loop and/or rerecording that loop.

To be the best musician one can be, I would advise that you practice 
your brains out to
click tracks when you are practicing without a drummer (to increase your 
own rhythmic accuracy)
but eschew them for the show itself and let your drummer hear the actual 
loop so
that he/she can play to it accurately and musically.

Towards that end,   I have a very low tech solution for your drummers' 
monitoring.

Buy yourself a high quality y-chord that has a mono 1/4" cable male on 
one side and
two mono 1/4" females on the other side and run your looper to your 
amplification
and to a little practise amp set up as high as the drummers hihat.

For myself, as an real time accompanist to a looping instrumentalist, 
the most important thing
is  to hear the loop loudly enough to play accurately (and relaxedly) to 
it.

In such a situation, my biggest problem is when  other loopers, 
especially guitarists,  layer
loops down in one timbral range and then to solo close to that range so 
that timbral masking
occurs.

That is just horribly difficult to hear in a gig.

So my last advice is to make sure that you are at least an octave away 
from your loop
when you play over it so that everyone can hear the timing of the loop.
Either that, or make sure that your processing on the loop is really 
very distinctive
from the playing on top (make one dry and one verbed,   or one telephone 
eq-d and
the other naturally eq-d, etc.)

Or............purchase a more sophisticated looper (software or 
hardware) that allows
you Alt outs so that you can send just the initial loop to the drummer.

I hope that's helpful.

rick walker