Re: 2nd CD -- Themes and Costs

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 05:58 PM 12/3/97 -0500, David Kirkdorffer wrote:
>Just a few ideas on the idea of The Loopers-Delight CD Series.
>
>1. Why not try to loosely follow themes for each CD?   For example:    
>                       by nation or 
>                       by instrument or 
>                               by genre or 
>                               by season

my only reservation with this idea has to do with the sort of problems the
Looper's Delight list has run into as things have grown. Diversity does not
come easily anywhere, and we are not an exception. Since LD was initially
popularized in a narrow range of places, at first there were
disproportionate numbers of people from very particular stylistic
backgrounds. I was never very happy with this, since I was keenly aware 
from
my own experiences developing the tools that a much wider range of people
were interested and using these techniques in their music.

An unfortunate group dynamic tended to happen then, whereby looping tended
to be equated with those couple of styles that were heavily represented.
During those times, quite a few people from different backgrounds happened
upon us by chance, joined the list with excitement, did not feel very
comfortable or welcome, and quickly left. I think that was very 
unfortunate,
since some of them were quite interesting and could have shared with us 
much
more than we had on our own. 

As time has passed this has gradually changed. Maybe we've matured a bit 
and
are more accepting of the different sorts of loopers, or maybe it's just
entropy. But gradually our little microcosm has become a bit more
representative of the looping universe, and I for one have been enjoying
that a lot. I think we gain much from those with different experiences than
our own, and I hope we can continue to grow in that direction.

So with the CDs, I rather hope they are not too stylistically thematic at
first. I would rather not see us once again imparting the impression that
Looping is one particular type of music. First impressions matter, and I'm
afraid that if the first cd was all one sort of thing, we would once again
be biasing the definition of Looping towards that, and once again 
alienating
anyone else who should happen to come across our little community here.

So my feeling is, let's have some great music, and let it spread wide and
show some of our differences! Sure it might not be a perfectly consistent
thing, but so what? I *like* albums that go different places! We might even
get some of the people with more dj/remixing experience to help sequence
tracks in a nice way, and get them to flow together creatively. That could
be fun by itself.

In the long run, themes should be pursued, because that idea has a lot of
merit too. But showing off our diversity would be a great way to start, 
IMO.


>2. If multiple CD's are created (with themes or not) - maybe a common
>look/logo may be useful to tie them together??

Well, how about the Looper's Delight logo that Tom Attix brilliantly 
created
for us? I think that would look splendid on a CD cover!

This is going to be fun...I'm really looking forward to buying a stack 
o'cds
to give out to all sorts of people I know. keep the thing moving!

kim
________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                      408-752-9284
Mpact System Engineering       kflint@chromatic.com
Chromatic Research             http://www.chromatic.com