making the most of cheap equipment

["Peter Shindler" <shindler@mediaone.net>]

Hey gang.  The recent OT thread of "finding new ways of using your current
equipment instead of giving in to the 'I'll be great when I can afford a
VG-8/EDP/Kyma/etc'-neurosis" inspired me to get busy with my 2 DOD DFX4
pedals instead of staring at my calendar waiting for the Repeater to go 
into
production.  Not surprisingly, I found a few new tricks!  If you've got 2
cheap samplers, try these:

- set one sampler to a short loop length and the other to a longer length.
Then play something into 'em and set them up to repeat.  Then slow the 
short
one down so it's an octave below the longer one.  It should sound very
different then it did at the original length, and hopefully super-cool.  
For
extra kicks, try messing with the length of the other loop too.  For
instance, try getting them a major second or sixth apart for some
interestingly-consonant sounds.  Obviously this only works if you've got a
sampler that changes the loop's pitch when you adjust its length.

- open the loop, play a note into it and sustain the note while twisting 
and
turning the knob that controls the delay length, then close the loop.  You
should end up with some multi-octave whammy dives that would make Adrian
Belew jealous (though I'm pretty sure he did the same trick back in the 80s
on some King Crimson or Talking Heads tune).

- try stringing 2 samplers together.  On my Boss GT3 (get one!), I set up a
patch with a 1-second delay with infinite layering.  I like to build up a
densely-packed loop, then dump it over to the DFX all at once.  Then clear
out the 1-second delay and do it all over again.  Since the DFX can only
hold a few layers at a time, this is sort of a cheating way to stuff it 
with
much more than it could normally handle.

- set the 2 samplers for sample times that are close, but not quite the
same, say 4 seconds vs 3.25 seconds.  Then play some ambient volume-swell
stuff into both of them at the same time.  The slight difference in the
delay times will cause the two loops to go in and out of sync in a very 
nice
manner.


Sorry if these ideas might be too specific to devices that work like the
ever-wonderful DOD DFX4, but hopefully someone might get inspired.  
Besides,
we haven't talked much about looping lately!


Peter