JM Memory update-'rang ergonomics-Braxton

[Jeff Schwartz <jeffs@bgnet.bgsu.edu>]

So, my JamMan RAM came today from visionsoft-which appears to specialize 
in Amiga 
computer stuff. It was no problem installing them and I am now digging the 
loong 
loopage. It was under $50-very cool. Any of you mad scientist types want 
the old chips? 
I'll trade 'em for a a tape or something.
Oddly, the first effect of having 32 seconds of looping instead of 8 has 
been to make 
me more conservative-instead of building ambient textures etc, my instinct 
is to lay 
down a 8 or 12 bar chord pattern and play leads in a pretty traditional 
way. I'm sure this 
is just because I couldn't lay down these kinds of patterns before so 
it's, like, new.
So now a question. Since I got the additional memory, I was excited to do 
the multiple 
loop thing, so I hooked up the second JM footswitch for Function/Select, 
and it ain't 
working right. When the second footswitch is connected, the first one 
(Reset/Byp/Tap) 
doesn't work. What's the deal? The first footswitch is the one that came 
with the unit; 
the second is a generic one that came shrinkwrapped to a piece of 
cardboard hanging 
on a pegboard at the music store (as is the 2nd stereo cord). I'm thinking 
maybe I got 
the wrong kind of 1/4" stereo cord.
Now, I'm not a loopdoctor or anything, but the one time I tried the 
Boomerang, I 
couldn't get it to work. Granted, I was at Guitar Center in Hollywood and 
the clerk dude 
had no idea what the 'rang was (this was about a year ago-I don't know if 
it's useful for 
Motley to send 'em hate mail, this cat was just on a trip where he wanted 
to sell Grunge 
(TM) distortions and CryBabies to teen boys), andhe wouldn't get the 
manual. 
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the interface arguement is really 
complicated. I 
think it would be really arrogant for me to say that, since it wasn't 
immediately visually 
obvious how the thing worked that it was a bad design-no gear is that 
intuitive 
(example-a guitarist I played with bought an overdrive, a yellow box with 
level and gain 
knobs  and a footswitch. He never figured out that he should set the level 
knob in 
relation to the level of his clean sound). I don't really know what I'm 
saying-yes I do-I 
don't think the folks at DOD made a poorly designed overdrive; I think 
this guitarist was 
not very clever. 
I love the design of my Digitech PDS 1002 2 second delay (which I used as 
my only 
looper for 5 years before buying the JM). There's a switch for delay range 
(125ms, 
500ms, 2sec), knobs for time, regeneration, mix, output, and input. There 
are two 
footswitcheswith LEDs-one marked "repeat hold" and the other "bypass." 
When the 
bypass light is off, the delayed sound is not heard. When the repeat hold 
light is on, the 
sound in the delay continues playing and any new input is passed through, 
not delayed.
The first time I tried this box it made sense and I understood how to use 
it as a looper. 
Granted, it's wrong to have the bypass switch light off when the effect is 
bypassed-they 
really should have labeled that switch something like "engage."  
Still, this little dude is a really flexable looping too-better than any 
of the rack delays of 
similar vintage collecting dust at the local music store. 
At the same time, it's pretty useless if you want to play loops in time 
with other 
musicians, unless they follow me. Tap tempo rules for that. I tried the 8 
second version 
of the Digitech double-wide and it was impossible. Exactly the same 
layout, but I think 
the delay ranges were 500ms, 2sec, and 8sec-trying to match a tempo in the 
2-8 second 
range using a knob with no display was just not humanly possible. 
I guess what I'm trying to get to is my feeling that a lot of the things I 
want gear to do 
are not things that can be presented in something like a DOD overdrive or 
a Fender 
Princeton amp, which can be operated without reading the directions by 
anyone who's 
not a complete pinhead. If the JM didn't come with directions I'm pretty 
sure I'd have 
no idea what to do with it (the same way I felt trying to use the 'rang at 
McGuitar 
Center relying only on my experience of other delay devices and a vague 
recollection of 
a Guitar Player review. 
So, there's stuff which is intuitive (fuzzbox) and stuff which is not 
(JamMan), and then 
there's stuff which, once somebody tells you how it works, is logical to 
operate (most 
looping devices) and stuff that is not (bassoon).
I dunno where all this is going. Probably everything I said is totally 
obvious to people 
who actually design stuff, but it seemed useful to me to work it out aloud.
Here's a bonus non-gear point. Check out Anthony Braxton if you haven't 
already. He 
does a lot of different compositional stuff involving repetition and 
juxtaposition and 
has a very involved logical system including a catalog of different kinds 
of repetition. I 
particularly dig his Composition 23C (his pieces have complicated graphic 
titles and are 
usually know by number instead) on the Arista LP New York, Fall 1974. It's 
a series of 12 
phrases, repeated, adding a phrase each time, so it's played: 1, 
1+2,1+2+3, 1+2+3+4, etc. 
Flute, muted trumpet, and upright bass play the melody in unision while 
the drummer 
improvises. It's a kind of repetition I've never heard used before, and 
it's cool because 
familiar material keeps reoccuring, so it seems song-like, but the length 
of the song 
form keeps changing. You could play a tune like this like an accordion 
too-in 23c the 
form just gets longer, but there's not reason not to shrink it back down 
again or slide it 
up and down, maybe using hand signals to cue the band to add or subtract a 
phrase like 
in one of John Zorn's game pieces. Why not use this as a game, like one of 
those 
drinking games where the idea is to force your opponent to take off the 
last phrase? I 
have no idea how we can do this kind of thing with looping delays, but 
it's probably 
pretty easy in CSound or other compositional software. Anyway, check out 
Braxton. 
Graham Lock's book Forces in Motion does a pretty good job of translating 
Braxton's 
ideas into regular English, and I'm a big fan of his 70s quartet with Dave 
Holland, Barry 
Altschul, and either Kenny Wheeler or George Lewis. You can find a 
leadsheet for 23c in 
Ronald Radano's dissertation on Braxton (but not in the published book 
version) if you 
have a good music library handy.  
-- 
Jeff Schwartz
jeffs@bgnet.bgsu.edu
http://www.bgsu.edu/~jeffs/main.html