Re: a usable laptop set-up (audio clip)

[Per Boysen <per@boysen.se>]

On Feb 16, 2005, at 10:58, geoff smith wrote:

> Hi Per this is an interesting topic, to me as you know I would like to 
> be able to loop with just my laptop.

Yes, that's very handy. Now the FCB1010 foot pedal board is taking up 
the most space of my backpack ;-)

> 1st off love the demo clips, guess thats whats got me writing!

Thnx. Posted a third clip today. It's called "major_90bpm2_4_eva.mp3" 
and use very little "loop freezing". Most of what you hear are two 
Augustus Loopers running like tape delays  through two Pluggos.

> You are using Augutus loop in ableton live 4?

Yes. Same thing could be done with Numerology as the host, but I love 
the reverb plug-in of Live 4. Especially the Freeze Reverb when set to 
the lowest resolution. It's funny that the highest resolution doesn't 
sound better when playing live through the thing. I keep a midi pedal 
(normal synt sustain pedal) to freeze or unfreeze the reverb. The demo 
clips were all recorded with the reverb in freeze mode all the time. I 
like that sound. Sounds like fog over a lake :-)

> I see you used multiple example of augustus loop in live i.e. having a 
> 2 channel looper (2 augustus loops)
> How do you find controlling them with your fcb 1010? any limitations? 
> good working practices you have come accross? i.e. how are you 
> controlling the two different examples of augustus loop, different 
> midi channels....?

The two expression pedals control feedback for each of the two Augustus 
Loopers. Button 9 and 10 toggle the "Freeze Loop" function of the both 
loopers.

> I love the way you have assigned the pitch to footpedals sounds great.

The rest of the FCB buttons (8 buttons) toggle clips in Live 4 that 
send pitch control data to the loopers (midi notes on midi channel 2). 
That gives both loops are transposed equally on the next bar (globally 
quantizing Live 4 action to bar). So from one foot pedal bank I can 
instantly reach 8 different pitches, one of them being an octave. I 
have only set up one bank but my plan for upcoming gigs is to keep two 
or three banks, each of them only differing in the pitch transposition 
assigned to those 8 pedals. Always keeping the octave handy but the 
rest laid out for "minor", "major" or certain scales.

However the key, scales and chord changes available from the buttons 
are dependent on which one of the foot buttons you decide on for the 
root of the key. So it's actually rather flexible.

> I am assuming from your post that you are changing the pitch of the 
> loop in augustus loop is that correct and if so what are you using for 
> sync settings in augustus?

Host sync enabled in Augustus. I have also assigned the Tap Tempo 
button of my POD 1 amp simulator to Live's Tap Tempo function. This way 
I'm automatically setting POD effects to the same tempo as Live and the 
loopers. (but so far I have not found any use for the POD's effects, 
except for distortion when playing a guitar through it. For saxophone 
or voice I like a clean sound with just the speaker simulation.)

> have you got it sync'd to live and if so what happens when you start 
> changing the pitch of loops.

The timing of the loops get fucked up as soon as I transpose them. You 
can hear that in the audio clips. But I don't mind. If you play with it 
you will adapt to it and it becomes part of "the instrument". Some 
interesting poly rhythm effects can happen, like when going into a 
higher pitch the loops speed up. You might view this as a limitation, 
but I don't. When I'm looping with just the EDP I tend to go for more 
exact rhythmic relations both in my playing and instant composing. It's 
just different.

> Interesting hearing what you said about pluggo stuff I gave up with it 
> in os9

Well, I never had os9 so I can't compare. All I know is that I like 
some aspects of the Pluggo 3.5 very much.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen

the clips discussed are posted at www.looproom.com/powerbook