Re: Midi looping

[Neil Goldstein <ngold@imagina.com>]

>Do you think this would be useful to actually create, manipulate, and
>generally perform looping in a live context? (making the process the
>performance, rather than a final result) Are the realtime tools available
>compelling enough to make this interesting? Or is it more geared to
>composing and recording in the studio?   (same questions for the 
>previously
>mentioned MOTU Freestyle)

Personally, these tools are most beneficial for composing and recording in
more structured ways, and nurturing ideas which may later be performed, the
last being sort of a nice definition for "practicing".

OTOH, The combination of (in my case JamMan) a loop device and audio
sequencer provide the best of both worlds, enabling for example, syncing of
the loop device via midi (where midi sets the loop length simply through
defining a click or playing an instrumental groove; and/or capturing the
"acoustic" loop created in the device to the computer, for further audio
processing and adding midi tracks, or extracting a "groove" track from your
playing to be applied to other tracks. Effects, synth patches, sampling
CDs, acoustic instruments...the mind boggles at the vast colors at our
fingers for affordable prices.

The exciting thing about this stuff is the many possibilities opened up by
marrying midi, computers, and the evolving stand-alone devices we talk
about here. The vast alchemy of that which we create and that which we
discover.


>One thing I really like about the jamman/echoplex/boomerang style of 
>looper
>is the immediacy of it - they are very easy and intuitive for improvising
>and performing. Are any of the midi looping tools out there well geared to
>that sort of approach? I'd really like to experiment with this more.
>

I think the difference is whether one is using the computer sequencer vs a
stand-alone hardware sequencer. The computer stuff is more powerful and
easily visible, but has that layer of complexity and overhead introduced by
the computer, that is not performance friendly.


I've read of techno bands who use computer sequencers on stage and vary
their perfomances with these tools. It does take a lot of preparation and
having Plan B available. Sounds like too much computing, planning and not
enough playing for my taste. Which brings us full circle back to our
friendly real-time loop devices :-)






Neil
ngold@imagina.com
Portland, OR USA