Re: Static Loops, Quantized Sequences and Music that Breathes

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

>> Per wrote:
>> " Another  funny thing I noticed is that whenever he (the morphing  
>> reggae rhythm guitarist he played with)
>> smoked grass he completely  lost this his delicate sense of timing  
>> (although himself, he thought
>> he was playing great then ;-)

On 16 aug 2007, at 13.44, RICK WALKER wrote:
> Well this is certainly the topic of another fascinating off topic  
> thread (Drugs and Live Looping)
> but I have to say that I have played with really fantastic  
> musicians who were pot smokers all of my life.

My general experience is that most musicians get an awful lot of  
better when smoking (especially lead vocalists), but not this  
particular backing guitar guy. Maybe because his free flowing tempo  
sense was the anchor of that reggae band and even the drummer and  
bass player were as heavy on the beat as he, when sober.

> Per said,
>> "This thing with "elastic tempo", as in multiple drifting tempi, is
>> also the reason for my big crush on the OS X modular sequencing
>> application Numerology. I think I'll stop here before the Off Topic
>> Intelligence guys come to bring me in..."
>
> Oh, heck, Per,  we've already blown the off topic thing with this  
> thread already and all these tools can be used in conjunction
> with live looping techniques......................pray continue on  
> about why you like Numerology so well.


Well, imagine you have all these step sequencer modules that keep  
looping riffs, melodies, chords or whatever. Then you can assign  
knobs to adjust each sequencers number of steps. Imagine running  
three patterns in a cool complimentary three part groove. All three  
runs by 16 steps, smoothing in very well as 4/4 measure music. Now  
twist a knob to shorten one of them to 15 steps. This means for each  
loop one of the "instruments" will speed up on 16th note related to  
the other two instruments. To go havoc with this technique and still  
not loosing the downbeat feel you may set a "Hard Sync" value. If you  
set one sequencer module to "Hard Sync = 32" it means that this  
pattern will get retriggered at the original down-beat every 32d  
step. You may eventually assign a second button to "Tempo Division",  
which means that this particular sequencer will run faster or slower,  
compared to the others, according to the Tempo Division value (but  
always "brought home" by the eventual Hard Sync setting). Expand this  
into 128th note values and assign a fourth sequencer module (or an  
LFO) to modulate the instrument sequencer's Tempo Division value  
according to continuous sweeps, and you might take off into  
Squarepusher land.

While all the above mentioned goodies keep raining you may also  
adjust a Global Groove Clock that instantly affects all playing  
sequencer modules to morph a complex percussive texture in or out of  
"shuffle feel" or whatever. The Global Groove Clock can of course be  
tweaked in real-time like any other module; as in changing the length  
of the steps, from one bar up to four, messing it up on regular or  
irregular intervals and bringing it all home manually or by an  
eventual Hard Sync value.

Phiew... it's just so incredibly fun to sit down, tweak knobs and  
experience the ghosts of the machine parading.

> And , as always,  thanks to Kim Flint for providing this amazing  
> forum for all of us.

Raising my glass at Kim ;-)

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)