Re: real time groove loops

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 02:37 PM 2/6/98 -0500, John Price wrote:
>Here goes again:
>
>There has to be a more hands on way to build non rhythmic samples and
>static-non-pre - looped preset tones into full blown grooves that are 
>triggered all live and in real time with perfect synchronization 
>from scratch. 
>
>I know Roland has a Drum set which gives you access to this type of 
>Rhythm setup. Unfortunately, I'm a pathetic drummer with no patience 
>or desire to learn how to be a decent real time skin banger.
>
>I'm convinced that there's gotta be a way to make MIDI and groove 
>based music through clever looping live. It would put a little more 
>of chaos and real time interaction with the technology into the 
>picture and possibly add more color and diversity to clubland.
>
>Though Sequencing is cool for a lot of clever musical applications, 
>I'm trying to approach this from say a traditional musicians 
>perspective or better yet a jazz musicians perspective but one 
>that shoots squarely at the dance floor.
>

I've been thinking about this concept a lot lately, too. You're definitely
not alone in wanting something like this, I see it in a lot of people. Even
more, I see a lot of people on the verge of making this realization, but 
not
quite there yet. Even just for the dance floor, there is a need for the
music to respond and work with the energy of the crowd, which lends itself
well to a live approach.  Much of this music has a background of
non-realtime, studio based composition, so I think it doesn't naturally 
dawn
on people to do otherwise. But they're starting to...

A lot of electronic music has exciting, complex, danceable grooves, and
creating it by carefully entering things into a sequencer program on a
computer just feels totally wrong. You should be able to jump around and be
physically active and involved in creating it, in real time. With something
like drum and bass, which really lends itself to a jazz perspective of
improvisation and rhythmic complexity, this seems to become even more true.
It just wants you to be involved and feeling it, yet the only way to really
produce it is through insanely anal computer efforts. 

So how? There doesn't seem to be any good instruments for this. Trends are
emerging, very much in the infancy. There's more real time access and
control to sequencers, more knobs appearing on things. But nothing
satisfying in the way an actual "instrument" is.

I've been playing around with ideas like pre-composing rhythm fragments, 
and
using them in real time. it's ok, sort of like having to communicate with
predefined sentence fragments rather than being able to construct them on
the fly. I don't have any gear that does this well, but the akai MPC boxes
would work ok if you had the multiple output option. The roland sp808 might
work, since it has some onboard mixing and  effects. I've started
experimenting with loopers for this, actually, and I think that approach is
pretty interesting. Capturing bits of a groove from the sequencer, and
mixing it back into the pattern in different ways, or mixing it into a
different pattern. Very helpful to have multiple outputs from the sequencer
for that, so that you can capture just a part of it, like the bass drum or
something. I've also got drum triggers set up so I can play samples live,
which I usually loop on the echoplex and sync to other patterns. I like
having the actual audio looping, since there's more opportunity to muck 
with
it and record the result, without needing numerous effects processors for
every single sound source. This way I can record a loop with some effect
box, then have the effect box free to patch into another signal and use a
different effect.  

This is all in a very rudimentary, experimental stage so far, but I've had
some fun with it. 

Since I've been getting more into percussion, and have acquired a variety 
of
drums lately, I'll probably next want to be looping my live drum playing
along with other stuff. Like you, I'm a crappy percussionist, but I can
usually manage a cool rhythm once or twice without screwing it up. Looping
is great for that, since the loop keeps it correct and in tempo. So that's
another opportunity, I think, for mixing live and electronic sounds. 

Still, the tools just ain't happening yet, at least in the "instrument"
sense. room for innovation.....


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