Re: what a loop has to say

[mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 10:28 PM -0700 3/16/06, Kris Hartung wrote:
>
>Speaking of which, does anyone find it easier to freely improvise 
>when you aren't using layers and layers of effects, tone mangling 
>devices, etc?  I've found this to be the case with me. I love all 
>the cool effects at my disposal - the Boss VF-1, hundreds of VST 
>effects, LXP5, etc - but they sometimes produce artificial 
>restrictions or boundaries on my creativity.

What a great question, and as an effects junky and self-confessed 
"gear whore", I can completely relate.

With that in mind, I'd ask a question to clarify the situation you're 
speaking of.  When you use effects, do you use them to augment the 
existing tonalities or to transform the instrument into something 
completely different?

I find that when I use effects as ornamentation -- to "dress up" the 
existing sound -- I can very often paint myself into a similar corner 
as you are describing.  It seems that past a certain point it becomes 
difficult to wrangle the burbling mess into something meaningful.  At 
that instant, I'm frequently left with the impression that I'm doing 
nothing more than trying to hide the original instrument; obscuring 
it rather than trying to cull some bit of truth from it.

On the other hand, I frequently use effects in a transformative 
manner -- where the effect is an indistinguishable and integral part 
of the sound.  Best example I can give is from the last improv 
session our group did a couple weeks ago.  On one cut, I had found a 
excellent slide guitar patch on my Yamaha VL70-m, which I happened to 
be playing with my WX-11 wind controller.  It sounded pretty good by 
itself (despite the fact that the tone module is monophonic) but then 
I ran it through an intelligent harmonizer and started playing a bit 
with chord voicings.  Suddenly, it dropped into a full-blown pedal 
steel, complete with Nashville-inspired slides and transpositions.

In that instance, the effect *became* the sound.  There were no 
problems of the sort you mention, because the effect was used to 
create a brand new instrument, rather than merely add more extra 
dimension to an existing one.

Similarly, I often "play" reverbs, setting the mix to a completely 
wet feed and using the original instrument as nothing more than an 
impulse generator.  In that case, the effect itself is once again the 
instrument.

Of course, there are other (and completely different) problems that 
can arise from building new instruments out of amalgamations of 
various boxes, but I find that they're more often related to 
orchestration and performance technique.

        --m.

-- 
_______
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike..."