RE: Using a Looper with a mixer

["M. Steven Ginn" <sginn@airmail.net>]

Sure sounds like the best way to accomplish something like this for a
live musician is to use something like the Switchblade that someone else
mentioned.  I guess for testing purposes, I could use a patchbay to
change routings around.

As far as looping and effects go and what I am trying to personally
create ...

I am a wind player (Sax, EWI, WX5).  One type of musical structure that
I am trying to create is to lay down what I have seen mentioned (or read
in the archives) called a sound carpet and then play another instrument
over the top.  For example, there is a Celtic group called IONA who
creates songs that contain fairly complex washes of sound where and then
other instruments such as Uilean pipes, whistles, etc. play the melody
over the top.  For my contribution to a group, I would like to create
these types of sounds and it appears to me that looping is the best way
to do it (except maybe to cue everything up with a sequencer and play it
at the proper times).  I think with looping, I will be able to create
these things on the fly (I hope).

Thanks,
Steve

> 
> 
> At 3:54 PM -0500 9/4/01, M. Steven Ginn wrote:
> 
> >How should I analyze how I want to manipulate my sounds?  How do I 
> >learn so I can better understand the musical implications of 
> >series/parallel and pre/post faders?
> 
> This is an important question with many possible answers. There are 
> two points to my suggestion ( "You need to analyze how you want to 
> manipulate your sounds and you need to understand the musical 
> implications of series/parallel and pre/post"):
> 
> The first point is that it can be helpful to examine the music you 
> are making and the music you admire, and try to understand what it is 
> about these musics that you like and that you want to do more of. 
> Looping is not just one thing; there are many different musical 
> styles and many different technical approaches. Which is/are yours? 
> Are you interested in creating a sense of several musicians playing 
> together by layering recognizable musical parts, or are you 
> interested in creating a more disembodies wash of sound with subtly 
> evolving timbral changes. Each of these approaches (and others one 
> might describe) may best be served by a different setup.
> 
> This brings us to the second point, achieving a technical 
> understanding of the tools at your disposal. Experience is always the 
> best teacher, and one thing you can do is to maximize the number and 
> variety of your experiences. One way to do this is to forget for a 
> moment the idea of hooking everything up together and to explore 
> single devices and single techniques. For instance, you can take two 
> effects processors and hook them up in different ways, exploring the 
> implications of the different configurations. You might do this 
> without a mixer at first, just by using patch cords. After a while 
> you can add more elements to the system and explore the mixer's 
> possibilities.
> 
> One thing I like to do is to split signals and to bring them in on 
> two or more channels of the mixer. This is especially effective if 
> the mixer has bus assignment buttons. For instance, you could bring 
> your source mix in on two channels. The first would assign the dry 
> signal to the output mix; the second would feed the effects via aux 
> sends but wouldn't feed any of the input to the mix. That way you'd 
> have independent control over the level of your dry sound and of the 
> effects send, on two faders side by side. Similarly, you can bring 
> the outputs of the effects devices into the mixer on regular input 
> channels (as opposed to effects returns). For instance, you could 
> split the delay output and send one leg to the reverb while the other 
> comes into the mixer. Then you could bring the reverb output into 
> another input. This would give you the ability to mix the proportion 
> of "dry" delayed signal and reverberant signal.
> 
> >I have Craig Anderton's book
> 
> Craig has been working with musical electronics since the 1960s. He 
> knows his stuff and writes well about it.
> 
> >I understand at a basic level things like delay should come before 
> >reverb and compression should usually be first in the signal 
> chain as 
> >well.
> 
> Most of the time those are good rules of thumb, but sometimes you can 
> achieve interesting things by defying convention. What if you put the 
> compressor after the reverb and then send the reverb through a 
> multitap delay with ping-pong pan effects?
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________
> Richard Zvonar, PhD
> (818) 788-2202
> http://www.zvonar.com
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>