Re: Engineering Live Loopers

["Per Boysen" <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 7:16 PM, darren perry <darrencperry@live.com> wrote:
>
>  Basically, do most people rely on sending a stereo output to the front 
>of house sound desk? DO you mix your tracks live? Does anyone else send 
>multiple outputs to give the engineer something to work with?
>
>  I'm looking into this as another small part to my research paper on 
>Looping Technology and Live Looping.


Hi,

Yes, I'm always sending a stereo bus to the house PA. The reason is
that I work the master output quite extensively as an important part
of my performance. Below is the signal path in my looping laptop and
it should explain this well, I hope.

1. Inputs. Three audio inputs for three different acoustic instruments
and one MIDI input for a MIDI intstrument (Akai EWI4000s).

2. All audio inputs go through a first EQ stage that makes the signal
sharper and less bassy. Gives a distinct and clear shape to the
signal.

3. 20 alternative effect patch chains (15 for audio and 5 soft
synths). I only play through one patch at a time and as I chose one
certain patch by a foot pedal, the other 19 patches are muted (except
for reverb tail preservation that may sometimes keep one patch open
while I'm moving into playing through another one) and offloaded the
CPU. All these patches are carefully designed according to "reverse
mix engineering", meaning that one certain patch may not sound "full"
but when layered together into loops these treatments will make the
layers sound good together as a summed mix (by minimizing clashing
frequencies). Regarding the soft synths, that are played through MIDI,
this sound design is already taken care of within each synth sound.

4. The software looper. Sound is being layered into loops here to create 
music.

5. The summed Looper output is going through a steep cut off filter
that doesn't pass anything under 60 Hz. Such low frequencies would
destroy the dynamics of the next stage...

6. Master compressor. This compressor is balancing the summed looper
master output versus the live instrument playing input. The live input
also goes directly here, bypassing the looper, as the looper is set to
all wet and no dry signal. This last stage is what I mean by saying
that "I work the master output while playing", since the balance is
set up in a precise way that makes it possible for me to "juggle" the
looper output with my live input playing. This compression also makes
reverb grow nicely between recorded sounds and drop down in level to
make room in the mix for those recorded sound as they appear from the
loops. A "one night live engineer" wouldn't have a fair chance to
create this sound; which is the sound I like and want to perform with.

-- 
Greetings from Sweden

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