Re: Question on EDP: Non volatile memory?

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 10:04 AM 9/30/2001, Matthias Grob wrote:
>>At 7:28 PM -0700 9/29/01, Mark Landman wrote:
>>>The EDP has many great strengths, it remains the solo looper monster
>>>machine, however, off-loading loops isn't the EDP's strength. Midi 
>(think
>>>glacial speed, then cut in half) is the only supported off-loading
>>>mechanism. The RAM is indeed non-volatile.
>>
>>Mark, you probably meant to say volatile here? The EDP uses DRAM on 
>>old-school 30 pin SIMMS, so it forgets when it gets powered off.
>
>How important is this non volatiliy?

I often think about this, but reach a different conclusion.

With a performance oriented looper like the Echoplex, the whole feature 
set 
is based around the idea of being able to build, manipulate, and evolve 
loops freely while performing. If all you do with it in performance is 
make 
static, unchanging loops, you are almost missing the point.

So, if your loops are things that living and changing constantly, what 
exactly is it that you save when you "store a loop"? To me that is like 
taking a photograph instead of filming. It just gets a glimpse but not the 
whole experience. Looping to me starts with nothing and grows to something 
and changes to other things and eventually goes back to nothing again. 
"Storing the Loop" for me would just mean recording the whole evolving 
thing from beginning to end. There is no point in the middle where I 
think, 
"now the loop is done" and I could save it. Especially not in any kind of 
performance context, where I'm thinking about playing and not recording 
anyway.

Devices like the echoplex or jamman or boomerang or DL-4 I don't think of 
as recording devices at all, but as performance instruments. Having 
recording facility built into it makes about as much sense to me as having 
an automatic plucking device built onto a guitar. So you play something 
once and press save, then the from then on you don't have to play that 
riff 
again yourself, you just recall it and the plucker does it for you. I 
dunno 
about you, but I wake up each day and enjoy that I can play it again 
myself. I like that it comes out a little bit different every time. (or 
even totally diffeent.)  I like that I can adapt to my mood or other 
musicians or whatever. With a performance approach to looping it is the 
same to me. If I play some interesting loops and I like it, I remember 
things about what I did and have a confidence in myself that I can do that 
again tomorrow. If it is not exactly the same as yesterday, that is ok, 
maybe it will be better.

Maybe I think this because I am really more of a player and improviser, 
and 
not really interested in composing or even recording. But then I also 
really have an appreciation for tools well designed for their purpose, 
with 
a clear focus on that purpose, and I like to consider that purpose in 
choosing what I want for my own needs. I don't expect a tool designed 
around recording and studio needs to work well for improvisational and 
live 
playing. And I don't expect a tool designed to work well as a live 
performance instrument to serve as a recording studio. And a tool that 
doesn't seem to have a clear focus and tries to be everything, I expect 
will not do any of those things very well. I prefer a "best of breed" 
device, that knows what it's purpose is and does that very well. The 
hammer 
is for hammering and the saw is for sawing, and I don't want a hammersaw 
that sucks at both.

If having a lot of static loops stored that you can trigger at will is 
what 
you want to do, perhaps it is a sampler you want. Or if being able to save 
a lot of stuff so you can carefully edit it into a recorded composition is 
what you want to do, perhaps a pc based recording studio is what you want. 
Or maybe a more portable, self contained sort of recording studio that 
lets 
you easily transfer back to your pc is what you want. If playing and 
creating loops live and improvisationally is what you want to do, a 
performance looper is probably what you want. Don't expect to find one 
tool 
that does all of these things well, because you won't. Even if something 
tried, it would be a failure for being too overloaded with too many 
features and an impossibly cluttered user interface, and everywhere in the 
underlying design it would be making compromises on one type of feature 
set 
in order to make another type of feature work. You would hate it. If you 
want to do some mixture of things, get a mixture of tools to meet those 
needs.

I notice an interesting thing with a lot of people as they get more into 
looping. Usually they start off thinking that loop storage is really 
important. That is usually the stage where they stick to very static 
loops, 
where something is created with an overdub or two, and then left to repeat 
as is forever while they play along with it. So they think a lot about 
wanting to save that loop. (this is usually where the complain a lot that 
the EDP lacks that feature. :-)  Then as they get more into it, they 
discover more and more that there is so much creative possibilities in the 
*process* of creating loops, and manipulating them and evolving them on 
the 
fly. The loop at any given point along the way is less of the focus. As 
they follow that path, they gradually forget about the whole idea of 
storing loops, because in that context it doesn't really make sense 
anymore. Instead they think more about recording the whole process as 
storage.

I find this to be true about a lot of loop oriented music. I listen to 
electronic dance music all the time, even though I don't really do that as 
a musician. Mostly it is a very composed style, created by people sitting 
in front of computers, constructing very static loops that they mix 
together in different ways to make a composition. At the entry level, 
people don't really even create the loops, it is mostly using "loop 
libraries" or pre-existing sequences or obvious samples off other music. 
which is fine, that is really a point where people are learning mixing 
skills, recording techniques, and composition. Gradually they move on to 
making their own loops and do more of the creation themselves, and the 
music usually starts to get better as they do. They still work with static 
loops that they have created and stored away. And then I notice that the 
best dance music, or what I like the best anyway, moves beyond that. It 
doesn't stick to the same loop repeating endlessly, instead the loops are 
changing all the time. different elements coming in and out of the loops, 
things altering and evolving into something else. It's repetitive and 
grooving but it never truly repeats.

I imagine those guys are thinking the same things about evolving loops 
that 
I think about. I also know from interacting with some of them that the 
frustrations they find with the tools tend to be in the lack of immediacy 
of that PC-based approach. It takes too long to meticulously construct 
everything, and it is too hard to "feel" it as you create. they want it 
more direct, like a performance type looper can give. I'm really 
interested 
to see where all of this is going....

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com