re:Hello and intro

["Bret Moreland" <Bret_Moreland@maxtor.com>]

Fellow loop minded people,

I just joined the mailing list this week.  I am so excited to find you 
folks that also have an interest in looping.  I am overwhelmed with the 
knowledge and backgrounds bundled here.  I'm not worthy :-)

I have been trying to resolve some problems with my echoplex with Mike 
Lyon at Oberheim (must I say a division of Gibson?), and he forwarded my 
Email to Kim Flint.  Kim told me about the list, and I joined immediately. 
 Thanks Kim!

I will fill out the form for personal info, but if you  don't mind I will 
tell you a little about my history and interests.

The first time I heard an echo device I was captivated.  It was in the 
60's, and was Chet Atkins playing with the Boston Pops on TV.  He used the 
original Echoplex while playing _Snowbird_, it was awesome to me.  As a 
pre teen I tried to modify my (toy) tape recorder to do loops and echo,  
with little success.  The sounds never left my head, though.

In the 70's I bought an analog delay line with about 1 second delay.  
Finally I could play what I heard, albeit only short loops.  I dreamed of 
having a few seconds to play with.  The analog delay could make some 
wonderful distortions as the regenerated signal dissolved and mutated.

When I heard about the Jamman, I ordered one.  A week or so later I found 
out about the Echoplex DP's features.  Before I received the Jamman, I 
realized I probably would prefer the Echoplex.  When I got the Jamman I 
knew I wanted the  Echoplex.  I took the Jamman on a business trip to 
Singapore, and decided to put more ram in it.  I know the city well, and 
shopped and shopped, but no Zip ram could be found.  I finally found some 
in Malaysia, but at some outrageous price like $350.  I traded in the 
Jamman for the echoplex upon returning to the states.

I play 6 string electric bass as my primary instrument.  I was a guitar 
player first, but prefer to do the bulk of my looping with electric bass 
both 4 and 6 string.  I have on occasion used small Moog analog synths 
(micro Moog, and prodigy) in loops.  I also do binaural Dat recordings of 
various sources, musical, mechanical, and environmental.  Traffic to 
Helicopters to people to frogs.  I enjoy sound and _noises_.  I'm not 
alone in this, among you, I suspect.

My first problem with the Echoplex was that static on the foot pedal would 
cause the loop contents to be deleted.  Kim has suggested some grounding 
approachs that I suspect will help this.

Lately, my problem has been the start point of the loops moving when I use 
next loop a lot.  After creating 2 loops, and enhancing them with multiply 
and overdub, I nextloop from one multiple in loop 1 to a single multiple 
in loop 2, and repeat.  Eventually the start point of these loops move, 
and I have to reset the start points manually.  

I have been waiting 1 week for a response from Mike Lyon about the 
hardware mods and new PLD's for my echoplex.  He said he would send them 
to me or do the work there, I said send them, but no response from him 
that he would or when. 

Kim, or anyone else, if you can help me know what the mods address, and if 
any of them will fix the loop start point shift problem I would be 
grateful.  My Echoplex was checked OK on 2 April 96 on the PCBA.

I have been reading the archives to catch up.  I too would like to 
participate in the loopers pool CD, if the ante is not too great.  I think 
I am the only 6 string bass looper here so far.

Forgive the long Email, I am just so thrilled to find you people.  

regards,
bret