Re: Observations from playing experience

[matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias)]

This mail by Teed Rockwell accidentally stayed unseen in my IN box.
And nobody else answered it.
But these nice observations deserves a note:

>Other Random observations:
>
>Don't tread hard on the footswitch if you think that function isn't 
>working
>properly. You'll just break the footswitch in about six months. (I did
>this with
>the "Undo" button.)

In switzerland they had to put heavy metall bang proof buttons for
passengers trafic lights. Human mind fells that pressing harder makes the
light get green sooner...;-)
I understand why you hit Undo "desperately". Its really hard to "feel" what
its doing. The problem is, that for +Undo+, there *is* a loop start point,
even if we do not care because the loop is smoth. And for the machine it
does matter if you press it right before or after this moment.
I made a file that explaines it better, maybe we can include it in the
update manual or in the page.

>It seems to me that the Signal to Noise Ratio occasionally deteriorates 
>if you
>let the machine get too hot. This could just be an illusion created by the
>noise
>becoming harder to ignore once you notice it, but I don't think so.

Could that be true? Never noticed. Kim?

>The undo button is essentially useless without lots of extra memory, but
>terrific once you've got the memory. If you've built up to a certain 
>level of
>layering, play lots of chords while steping on the undo button alot and
>when the
>chords die away you get you're starting loop back, ready to be build up.

Yes I use it also for composing. I love to superpose 10 hot solo lines and
when its really thick, I +Undo+ back to the modest inicial bass line.

>Playing the same pattern over and over again with the overdub button on
>>creates a sound like a really cool digital delay.

>If you want to sound like an Ordinary delay unit, set the Feedback at 
>about
>twelve o'clock, and keep the Overdub button on.

Right! Thats why I never use the Delay Mode.

>I find it easier to work with the feedback knob than a feedback pedal. 
>You can
>position the knob in a variety of diffferent ways, and remember what those
>positions sound like, which is not easy to do with a pedal. Also, There's
>usually lots of time to reach over and tweak the knob once you get a good 
>loop
>going.

Yeah, but a quick "tweak" leaves a "step" in the loop afterwards.
It should be possible to get used to a feedback pedal.
I use a P+G fader, operated by foot. Its position is well defined and
visible and I can operate it really slow while playing. (And it brings me
some fame as the one that plays bare foot ;-) )

>The speed at which you move the feedback knob will effect the sound that
>>occcurs in the loop afterwards, but I'm not sure exactly how. Any Info on
>that >from anyone?

Just imagine that you are *mixing* the sound you hear from the running loop
with the one you are playing into the new loop you will hear next time
around, beeing that the feedback knob is the volume for the running loop.
So a quick move of the feedback will come back as quick fade from then on.
Is that understandable? I find it very hard to explain those things.

>One fun structure to work with. Create a loop, solo on it for a while 
>until you
>hear some thing you like, then turn on overdub and store it. Then solo
>some more
>until you create something else you like, then store that. When it get too
>full,
>you can either 1) push the undo button several times until you get it 
>down to
>size again (which removes the most recent loops.) Or 2) drop the feed back
>level
>(which fades out the earliest loops or 3) create a new loop and then jump 
>back
>and forth between the two.

Thats it! Some people do not understand this after a year and several
demonstrations of mine! (do I confuse them or dont they have the necessary
neurone connections ready?) :-(

>That's all I can think of for awhile. Happy looping

Hoopy lapping
Matthias