Re: FlyLoops and electronic instruments

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 4 nov 2007, at 05.37, Aaron Leese wrote:

>> Except that back then I called it "latching" ..... this is ideal  
>> for a
>> phrase that comes in on ... say ... the third beat of a 4/4  
>> measure ... but
>> repeats every 8 measures .... you only want it to cut in/out on  
>> the 3rd beat
>> ... but you want it to be as long as the master (or 2,3,4 .. times  
>> as long).
>>
>> For me this one is a big deal because a lot of jazz tunes have  
>> melodies
>> beginning on a downbeat other that the 1st ... and you want to be  
>> able to
>> move seamlessly from playing that melody to not .... but without  
>> trailing
>> notes .......
>>
>> Make sense?
>

Definitely! That's a very good functionality for splitting parts  
(that should sync musically but start at different points) over many  
parallel loops and using a "lead in" before the first downbeat of the  
master loop.

You can do this with Multiply on one track ( = one loop) in Mobius,  
and the EDP, by Cycle or SubCycle (Mobius only) as the quantize value  
for setting the point where you go in and out of Multiply Mode.

>
>>> GROUP LOOPING:
>>> Can mobius specify which audio stream to record by device ..  
>>> such  as, when receiving a certain command ... I record only the  
>>> left audio source  (which happens to be, say, the drums) ... I  
>>> sync it according to the sync  setting
>>
>> Yes. By scripting almost every command or function in Mobius can be
>> combined in any way. If running Mobius VST you just have to assign
>> the different inputs of the laptops audio interface to different
>> Mobius track inputs. Routings can be set to change on given MIDI
>> event inputs. Personally I do this in Plogue Bidule, which is my
>> preferred VST host application.
>>
>
> Hmmm .... surprising, then, that we haven't seen more true group  
> looping
> experiments .... and let me be very clear ... I do NOT mean two or  
> more
> people were one lays down a loop and others try to follow ..... I  
> mean an
> environment were more than one person lay down loops that are  
> synced with
> one another .... certainly mobius is capable of that ..... do you  
> have any
> examples of it ???

It's obvious what you mean by "Group Looping". I have not done that  
with Mobius myself, but another Swedish duo http://petfred.se/ is  
doing this with Mobius (i.e. two players manipulate their own  
dedicated tracks of one Mobius instance in a way similar to running  
one looper each in sync).

I did this kind of group looping in 2003 with Rick Walker and  
Matthias Grob when we were all three of us using Echoplexes and  
connecting them for "Brother Sync". EDP Brother Sync do not divide  
the players into Master vs Slave but rather simply creates a global  
time base as soon as one of the BrotherSynced players creates a first  
loop. Other players can then use different settings of "8ths Per  
Cycle" to decide on what syncing resolution they want to jam under.  
Each connected EDP may still be running at a unique BPM, although it  
has to relate in some way to the global time base. This means each  
individual user can run a MIDI Clock Sync output from his local EDP  
to give a tempo for his own local rig of slaved MIDI devices. It also  
means that one user may, at any point during the jam, multiply or  
divide the tempo for his local MIDI Clock synced devices by, for  
example, changing his EDP's setting from "8ths Per Cycle = 16" to  
"8ths Per Cycle = 12" (this particular example would produce a  
"slowing up"   three-based beat feel).

Personally I also like to play live looping together with people that  
are not syncing up with my rig at all. This calls for listening  
carefully to each other and also having access to "re-trigger all  
loops instantly" pedals and fast strategies to create a new loop of a  
different length on-the-fly. I kind of like when two, or three (but  
not more) loopers keep on going in and out of musical sync. It's  
sometimes nice hearing a poly rhythm that is not detectable according  
to musical theory.



> For example ..... say ..... rick walker lays down a quick 1 measure  
> drum
> lick ...
> Then per boysen lays down a 5 measure flute ostinato ....
> Then Arild lays down a 10 measure bass line ...
> Then they take turns jamming over it .......


What you are describing here is an EDP armed trio jamming with  
Brother Sync (also Matthias Grob's brain child).

>
>>> STACK:  Flyloops lets you stack on loops individually ... with
>>> whatever
>>> decay you wish ... I imagine mobius is the same.
>>
>> I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "stack on loops
>> individually"?
>>
>
> I'm not sure, but I think we are mis-communicating here ....
> Here is what I mean:  Three loops on different tracks .....
>
> Tracks:       1       2       3       4       5
> Loops:        A       A(s)    -       A       -
>
> So there are three recorded loops on three separate tracks, playing in
> parallel .. but one is stacking (overdubbing ... with a decay rate)  
> on just
> one of them (track 2, maybe ... hence the "s" above) ..... leaving  
> the other
> untouched.  So one and three play as usual .... 2 stacks with a  
> decay rate.
>
> If you are unclear on this ... please listen to that recording I  
> posted a
> few days ago .... I make heavy use of this technique.

Ok, I see what you mean now. Yes, I do that very much with Mobius (as  
I did in the past when I was using multiple synced hardware loopers).

Here's one quick example of how I use this in Mobius, combined with  
some other features:
I'm using three parallel loops (track 1, 2, 3). The three loops are  
of different lengths in a musically pleasant way (according to my  
tastes, others might disagree...) like for example 100%, 75% and  
125%. I have one track selected, which means every command I give  
affects this loop. The other two loops I have "Grouped" (or "Focus  
Locked" as it's also called in Mobius); with my preferred Mobius  
setup this means that only four commands will affect these two tracks:
- SUS Substitute (substituting old audio with new for a quantized  
slice of the loop).
- Next Loop, Previous Loop
- Go directly to any loop (I always use maximum 5 loops per track).
- Rate Shift (used to play "chord changes" melodies over loops)

So If I press the SUS Substitute button for a long time I will put  
new audio into all three loops. If I press the SUS Substitute button  
for just a "quick dot" I will replace a short slice of audio in all  
three loops; and since they are not of the same length this simple  
action will result in a rhythm as the three loops will play back that  
slice at different points in time. I can also use the Rate Shift  
buttons (set up as a Moog Bass Pedals) to play "chord changes" with  
the three loops; sometimes when I do that I need to realign them  
afterwards to get back into the preferred poly rhythmic interplay.  
The "Moog Bass Pedals" FCB1010 set-up is not quantized in Mobius, so  
sometimes I mess up the sync timing between the loops; to prevent  
"too lousy beats" I have added a "Realign All Loops" command to the  
command I use to bring the pitch back to the tonica (Rate Shift = 0)


>>> CONSOLIDATE: consolidate loops ... select three and make them one.
>>> I don’t know if mobius does this .... ?
>>
>> Yes it does. See "Bounce" in the manual. The Bounce function works
>> perfectly, except for the fact that it does change the global tempo
>> base for the looping session.
>
> Why would it change the global tempo for this ???  I think I don't
> understand ........

Because the tempo/timing base in Mobius is "8ths Per Cycle". One  
"Cycle" is the length of the first loops you record. Then you can  
make the loop longer by multiplying it, but the original cycle length  
is still the same. If you are using Cycle as the quantize setting for  
changing loop (as in "Next Loop") it's important that the original  
cycle length is kept the same all through the performance session.  
This is where the recent implementation of Bounce fails in Mobius.


>>> SAVING:
>>> it records to two files ... one which is live input (The solos
>>> being played)
>>> the other is flyloops output .. the loops (after volume, etc.
>>> adjustments).
>>
>> Whoops... what about if you want to record parallel loops as parallel
>> audio files? I mean, you may want to mix the session properly in a  
>> DAW.
>>
>
> Yes... it does that too ... I call that "save loops" instead of "save
> session".  Usually its good to do both ... then you end up with a  
> number of
> small loop wav files ..... plus a longer live recording of what the  
> looper
> itself was playing at any given time .... plus a recording of what the
> musician(s) was/were playing at any given time ....
>
> Make sense?  This way you have a lot of versatility when editing ....


Yes, this makes perfectly sense to me! I have actually plans to set  
that up with Bidule (with a "Record stream to audio file" Bidule  
object on each Mobius Track output), but my recent looping laptop is  
not powerful enough to handle it (1 core 2 GHz Intel Centrino). So at  
the moment I'm piping each track digitally over ADAT into Logic on  
another computer to record the session in real-time.

Greetings from Sweden

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