Re: Damon, Why CF ?

[Alex Stahl <alex@pixar.com>]

At 12:32 AM -0700 8/9/00, Kim Flint wrote:
>At 2:06 PM -0700 8/8/00, Alex Stahl wrote:
>  >
>  >Kim's right about the interface potentially exploding, but I'm
>  >working on some easy-to-remember ways to control multiple loop sends
>  >from a single pedal and some other ways to mix their outputs without
>  >getting lost in knobs. At this level of complexity it is handy to
>  >have a bit-mapped display and soft buttons.
>
>I think the real trick is to stop trying to force recording studio
>interfaces into real-time, performance oriented looping. It's a dead end.
>you need to think of the problem in new ways.

Sure, it is easy to imagine a "performance gesture" which involves 
simultaneous manipulation of several dozen parameters in a 
multichannel, multiloop, multieffect device. For example, you might 
want to crossfade from recording into loop 1 while loop 2 plays back 
at half speed with reverb, to, cross-connecting the feedback from 
loops 3 & 4 while fading out loop 2 and re-ordering the bars in 
loop1, etc etc etc.

I don't know about others on this list, but I don't have enough 
appendages to simultaneously adjust 12 pedals or faders.

But I do find that the familiarity of a "recording studio interface" 
is fine for tweaking presets, or dialing in a layering of loops. But 
in performance I am not very excited by clicking through presets. I'd 
rather move around continuously between various interesting and 
complicated settings, zooming in and out between macro and micro 
gestures.

So one interesting avenue of exploration, for me at least, is to work 
with placing presets in a spatial arrangement, then using some kind 
of multiaxis controller (like a joystick or my "joypedal") to move 
around in the sound space defined by the placement of these presets, 
interpolating between them.

I've used this a lot for effects control (simple example: lower left 
corner= dry, lower right= thick delay/reverb/wash, upper left= 
grungy, upper right = the whole nine yards). I've been recently 
extending the idea to loop control, and find it pretty intriguing.

To be fair, I must add that the usual interfaces for real-time 
performance oriented electronics are easily as much a dead end as any 
studio paradigm.

-Alex