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my band, as I have previously
mentioned, has a good collection of looping devices-
I have two repeaters & a
lexicon 32s jam-man, + a 2880, a headrush, a DL4, an echo-pro & a lot
of older analogue & digital delay devices that can be used as loopers or
"freeze boxes" as I prefer to call them.
the guitarist uses another 32s
jam-man, a DL4, an echo-pro, a boss DD-20, an ancient boss DD3, & this
RC-2 he bought in a moment of gearlustmadness & has never
used.
the drummer uses one of the new EH-16 second boxes.
nowhere near his kit or his keyboard, but somewhere on the floor with a load of
percussion "toys" & a microphone.
so we're preparing a live set based
on a really rather complex sequence of pieces that were months in
post-production, with all manner of layered transitions. the quick way to smooth
over these changes is to have bits of the tracks isolated from the
multitrack & load them into the repeater.
(an alternative is to have the
drummer take the mic & tell stories to the audience.... :-)
)
so that's easy, & the best part
is that I can force the repeater to "remember" the right tempo for the piece we
are going into after the transition, irrespective of the BPM of the actual loop.
thus it serves to patch up an
otherwise awkward moment on stage (where there's a segue or crossfade on the
actual album), while we all adjust ourselves & our settings, reach for
towels & try to remember how the next bit goes.
so I get these bits of musical
band-aid loaded up into the repeater, we rehearse the set & everything works
fine. then the drummer has to go & say:
"we're sort of relying on the
repeater not to go wrong now, aren't we? what if it breaks?" (the other repeater
being hundreds of miles away in my studio, in case you
wondered.)
instant drummer-curse. of course,
the repeater is fine, but now I'm not.
& this is where the RC-2 comes
in. I have loaded the same loops into it as mono backups, with the added
benefits that I can start & stop these loops without buggering up the
sequencers or the guitarist's jam-man (which uses the same master clock
from my repeater), & have a load of humorous one-shot stuff in there
too, & I get the repeater back.
I actually like the little thing,
even though there aren't enough knobs for what it can do & there should be
some more knobs for stuff that it definitely can't do (like pitch changing,
reverse & so on). 16 minutes/11 memory locations is a bit odd too, though
not quite as odd as the 2880's "you can only make one loop but it can be three
days long if you like" approach, which is just not any use to
me.
in fact, if anyone's after a 2880
(c/w footpedal controller) &/or an E2 headrush, let me know. they be
dust-magnets right now.
oh, & a third echo-pro. all
boxed.
d.
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