Re: Stupid Looping Questions

[Kim Flint <kflint@chromatic.com>]

At 03:18 PM 7/28/98 -0400, Mark Kata wrote:

>2.  How short can a loop be?

theoretically, it would be 50 microseconds. At that length, the loop's
repetition rate would be 20KHz, the edge of human hearing. Or some human's
hearing anyway. In my case you'd have to get it down to about 16khz.

I like making extremely short loops, where the repetition rate actually
becomes an audible frequency. Usually the loop time is between 1 and 10ms.
Feeding different source sounds into it has a cool effect. 

slightly longer loops are also fun, where the source sound is still
recognizable, but it is extremely short. gives a nice texture. The multiply
function on the echoplex is really handy here, since you can expand this
micro loop and add a longer element over the top of it. Replace is also
really useful, letting you keep the same rapid pulse of the short loop but
change the sound instantly.

>6.  Can looping be done with another effect instead of a digital delay, 
>tape
>delay or MIDI sequencer?

sampler? hard disk recorder? minidisk?

>7.  How does a DJ get tempos to match when using samples from various
>sources?

With turntables, it usually involves manipulating the speed knob and 
careful
needle placement. I get the impression that it is harder than it looks....

>8.  Will there ever be a "Triple Trio" with Primus joining King Crimson?

With Brain in Primus now, I'd more expect them to hook up with Laswell,
Bootsy, and the Invisibl Skratch Piklz. Of course, Les and Ler will 
probably
bring in Waylon Jennings..... 

>10. So far, looping uses the following for source material:  instruments,
>voices, noises and pre-recorded material.  What other source materials are
>there?

I like David Meyer's approach of using the loop device as it's own source,
by feeding it's output back to it's input. Lots 'o fun, especially when you
have eq's and distortions in the feedback path.

kim
_________________________________________________________
Kim Flint, MTS                     kflint@chromatic.com
Chromatic Research                 408-752-9284
http://www.chromatic.com