Re: forefront etc...

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 10:24 AM 2/4/98 -0500, Reginald Hunt wrote:
>Kim,
>
>I for one would be interested if you would share some of the innovations 
>in
>looping that are occuring in the dance/techno field. One reason I started
>checking out this list was to see what ideas and approaches existed beyond
>what I had already encountered or come up with.

I would, although I'm really busy......so I'll leave the music to someone
else. As far as looping device innovations, you see things like tempo
matching, poyphony with lots of mixing and control options, lots of sync
features, much tighter integration to PC's, waveform editing, unique and
different effects, lots of triggering features.

Looping devices tend to come from two historical paths, delays and 
samplers.
Modern devices are starting to merge the two. The echoplex and jamman, for
example, have a number of features that are mostly common to samplers but
previously unknown in delays. On the sampler side, Akai and Roland samplers
have tap functions for quickly grabbing loops and using them immediately,
something previously only seen in delays. I would expect these trends to
continue.


>I've been looping since about 1983, and one thing I've seen consistently 
>is
>the short attention spans manufacturers have for the subject. They dabble 
>in
>long delay times, find it is not yet the market they want, then lose
>interest (Lexicon, Ibanez, Digitech, for example).

They dabbled in these products and nobody bought them.....

>If Oberhiem starts designing their delay units strictly for the
>sampling/dance market, then the rest of the Looper world will once again 
>be
>stranded. Of course, that's business.

I don't understand why you see these as mutually exclusive goals. Could you
elaborate on that? To me they merge together quite well, with features from
either side being attractive to the other. 

In paying heavy attention to these loopy things over the past few years, I
just see a wide continuum of loop oriented styles, with different musicians
located all over it. In many cases, people with very different sounding
music use very similar loop techniques, and similar devices and approaches
to it. I don't see some clear distinction between a "sampling/dance market"
and "the rest of the Looper world."  In fact, that's why I created Looper's
Delight in the first place, to bring all these various loopers together so
that we can all plainly see the things we share and trade the ideas we've
develop in our own little universes. Seems to be working pretty well so 
far.

To me, drawing such arbitrary distictions between ourselves usually has a
lot more to do with human arrogance and ego than anything else. We agonize
over subtle differences of detail, just to prove we are not one of "them."
We fear some association with the "wrong" crowd. My experience is that 
these
walls harmed me more than they ever helped. The fear just keeps me shrouded
in ignorance. The best things that ever happen to me come from finding the
common ground and learning to understand and love the differences. I like 
to
encourage that attitude here. The diversity on Looper's Delight will
regularly surprise you, so enjoy it! 

And it's certainly not good business to draw such boundaries and
distinctions; you sell far more product by finding commonalities and 
joining
markets together, not carving them up!

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