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I was just wondering if anyone had tried
using the Korg Zero 8 as a combination of mixer and controller……it
is a mixing surface with midi control too. I am enjoying the forum here, you are some
smart folks, I am new to this, but have a configuration that I think has huge
potential to be cool. I already put some info about it on here, but I just
wanted some input if you fellers have a minute…..(;>)>) We are three piece, me playing mandolin,
octave mandolin, mandocello, electric guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, mandola, dobro,
banjo, electric mandolin, fiddle, lap steel and pedal steel, my sixteen year
old son plays electric bass, upright bass, cello, acoustic guitar, electric
guitar, mandolin and octave mandolin, the third guy plays drums (electronic,
Roland…) keyboards, fiddle/violin, guitar, bass, sax, flute, penny
whistles, harmonica. Lots of instruments and potential. I have all my instruments with pickups and
settings on a Fishman Aura, then to a Digitech RP 250 and also a Boss RC20
looper on my pedal board. For now, since all I have is the RC20, I have a
mixer/splitter, an old Behringer that has eight channels and has a mix/split
switch on each channel that effectively acts like a mute switch, because each
channel can independently act as miz or split, so I am using it in mix and
panning to right and left to get the signal to either the mic or inst input on
the RC20, which gives me two input channels at least, even though it is a one
track looper with overdubs, but you can only undo the last loop you laid down, which
makes for needing to have a pretty good plan….. We have been rehearsing it, and it is
pretty easy to lay down a rhythm section, then have the guys go to other
instruments, and I have played around a lot with building loops by myself
playing all those instruments, but what I didn’t think about is…..EXIT
STRATEGY!!! Holy cow, that is a toughie, heck it’s easy to build some
cool loop live (we plan to do everything live….) but getting out of it is
a different story……but we are getting there, the actual audio level
mixing is tough to deal with, I guess you all know that…lol Here is an example of how we were just
playing around with a song the other night, like Working Man Blues, (MERLE!!!)
anyway, I could play a funky elec guitar rhythm, with bass and drums playing
along, and we would loop that on the first loop, then sing a verse and while I
am singing, switch to mandolin, and at the same time, loop piano chords, then
after that verse, the drummer can pick up his sax and play fills and such, and
my son switch to acoustic guitar to do some fills and leads, but not loop those…..as
we get to the end, that is more tricky, what we did finally was just have
everyone switch back to the instruments on the original loop track, bass, drums
and elec guitar, and start playing along, while this was going on I would undo
the piano chords, so it wouldn’t be an abrupt change, and then kill the
loops and we would be playing live bass drums and elec guitar and do a live
ending. What seems to be a little of a problem,
although it actually sounded pretty seemless even with the limited RC20, was
getting levels the same and such so that it wasn’t too noticeable with
changing back to live…..which made me think, based on my potential of
this config, maybe what I need is a killer sound person, who can mix us live
just like you would mix a record, like if one part of a song has a certain
thing that needs to go out in the arrangement at a certain time, then they
could just do that from the board…and that is one reason I thought the
Korg Zero might be cool, because if you could program the mixing board to also
control the loops, then the sound guy could also control the loops records and
undos and such too, which takes away some creative control from us, but I am
thinking that in most cases, for most songs, what we need is a pretty
structured arrangement, but with lots of room to jam in between. I don’t know, maybe I am rambling
here, but it is a little tough to get the audio levels right sometimes, it
seems, and in a 4 to 5 minute song, you don’t really have time to reloop
reloop reloop because of leveling issues…..it would be awful cool to have
that in the hands and ears of the soundman….. Any thoughts from you geniuses out there? rootpile From: todd reynolds
[mailto:toddreyn@gmail.com] hey Qua, I'm sitting next to Theo right now having breakfast, lol. We're playing
(and looping) together for the next three nights with the Albany Symphony here
in NY. Since you mention my dear friend, I'm trying to post right now a
clip of the two of us looping together a few years ago... up on myspace.
we'll see if it works... if not, I'll just post a link here. thank you for the good wishes and congratulations. Todd On 2/13/08, qua@oregon.com <qua@oregon.com> wrote: Congratulations!.
Noticed the reference to Theo Bleckmann on Todd's site
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