FIRST REPORTS BACK FROM NAMM

["Rick Walker \(loop.pool\)" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Hi gang,

    Back from NAMM..........too wasted by 48 hours of non-stop noise and 
bad
convention food to write much but.....

    It was really, really exciting for me to meet and put names to so many
of the faces that are regular contributors here at Loopers Delight.....what
a thrill:
I feel that we have a really great creative, intelligent, stimulating and
above all things, supportive community here at Loopers Delight.   We owe so
much to our fearless leader Kim  (who was there sporting his very hip multi
colored kung fu pony tail on a chrome dome haircut.........most stylish
haircut at the whole NAMM convention if you ask me..........but none of 
your
did).   Kim, you must feel proud of this wonderful and idiosyncratic bunch
of creative loonies!!!!
Loopers Delight t-shirts abounded and I even took a little bit of time to
create fake NAMM badges that said LOOPING ARTIST.....it was rad.

    Secondly, I saw a software demo that really ups the ante in the pc/mac
looping world.   It is called LIVE!    I watched the damn demo three times 
I
was so excited.
In a nutshell,  it allows you to run loops (ala ACID) while being able to
timestretch
and tempo shift in real time, while you rearrange on the fly, record audio
from synths via midi, change effects (including rerouting) while recording
live audio.............all in REALTIME without any glitches.   It is the
first piece of software that allows someone to take a laptop to a gig and
improvise with loops and realtime playing......very fucking hip!!!!

    You can dowload a demo at www.ableton.com and, no,  I have no
endorsement deal with this company (I can't even afford it at the moment
;-).  I just was impressed.

>From the website, the venerable electronic music guru Craig Anderton had
this to
say about LIVE!:

"Every now and then, a program redefines what music software is all about,
like Sound Designer, Acid, or Reason. Live is that kind of program. Its
ability to record your performance for later editing successfully bridges
the gap between stage and studio."

The hip thing is that everything you do is then recorded and you can go 
back
in and
fully edit it (as if it were a midi sequencer- which it is not).

O.K.  I've gushed enough.....check it out.............very cool.

Also, I saw another cool program that made me wish I was a Mackie (all
except for the price of peripherals.........Apple are you listening) called
MELODYNE (www.celemony.com).  Another German company (boy the Germans seem
to be kicking major bootay in the software world these days), this program
allows for manipulation of mono audio files that is almost like midi.  To
complex to go into in great detail here, but it's ability to transpose 
audio
files over 5 octaves with no apparent
artifacts whatsoever and, like LIVE!, the ability to do it on the fly left
the
avante garde side of my electronica muse drooling.

On the American side of things, the people who brought you PEAK and DECK 
for
the Mac have a new $99 program out (don't you love affordable software) 
that
acts as a separate app that you can run which allows you to run several VST
plugins at once, changing there patching and then piggy backing it into an
existing program like
ACID, REASON or whatever.  I got a 30 second demo so I hope I'm getting 
this
alright, but it looked very hip for realtime and more sophisticated
processing with the ability to repatch that is faster than in the hardware
world...........available for
both Mac and Windows.

O.K., that's it, except to say I bought a dayglo translucent green recorder
and a dayglo green pvc clarinet (!) and am in hog heaven!!!   My next CD
"Translucent Dayglo Green Plastic" which is an entirely live CD of my more
abstract and found sound experiments of the last two years (including 
tracks
from the Bass Looping Tour this last summer) is being mixed and sorted
through as we speak and I'm hoping for a mid to late spring release date.

Also, I've been listening to a preview copy of Loop lister Max Valentino's
solo Bass looping CD:   Great work Max!!!  I love the piece JAM KARET,
played with prepared bass!  Can't wait to hear the whole thing.

Steve Lawson and Andre LeFosse both handed me new CDs as well and I'll let
you all know my impressions as soon as I get a chance to set down and give
them the well earned attention they deserve.

It was such a blast playing with Steve for a couple of dates last week in
Santa Cruz and San Jose............it's truly a blessing when someone you
feel is a close friend is also a brilliant artist:  Steve's ideas on time
stretching, out of meter phrasing and using loops to teach yourself how to
think this way have really changed my thinking about a lot of things in the
looping world this year.  All kudos to this
brilliant artist.............buy his friggin' CDs!!!!


I've blathered enough,

yours, Rick Walker (aka.............ah screw it ;-)