Re: RC-50: Multiply feature? (overdubbing w/ different lengths)

[Seth Elgart <selgart@earthlink.net>]

At 6:53 AM -0700 6/1/06, Buzap wrote:
>If I record a sample ("phrase") and go into overdub,
>does that mean I have to stick to the initial phrase
>length no matter what?
>I wanted to do this: record 1 bar, then overdub
>2-bar-pattern, then overdub 4-bar-pattern etc.
>Is there a reasonable way (like multiply) to do this?

Why not do it the old fashioned way, by playing it by hand? Play the 
first one bar pattern through four times, then play the second two 
bar pattern twice, then play the four bar pattern once. This way you 
have three different length phrases, except that as far as the 
looper's concerned they're all four bars. As long as you're not 
playing sevens against eights or something this will work fine. You 
could do that too if you're willing to play the patterns by hand 
eight times and seven times respectively, and if the looper can 
record a phrase of that length. On the other hand, if you want 11 
against 13, then you'll have to record 143 measures before they'll 
line up again.

In the late 80s/early 90s I was working on a "sound track" for a 
play. I had a piece that was about 3.5 minutes long, with a 
burbling-along arpeggio running throughout, but they wanted it to be 
twice that because that's how long the scene was. For the original, I 
simply played the four-note arpeggio eight times, then made that loop 
(I was using Performer, or maybe a hardware digital sequencer). Very 
simple. However, when we re-recorded that for the play, the studio 
had only the one tape machine and no computers or other looping 
devices. I had to sit there and play that dang arpeggio by hand for 
seven minutes. It took me an hour of trying before I managed to play 
it perfectly all the way through, and I had to throw everyone out of 
the room to do it. The Human Sequencer.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. The moral of this little story is 
to not worry about the possible lack of functionality of the hardware 
in question, but to simply play the different length patterns by 
hand. <g>

It'll work just fine.



          Seth