Re: Engineering Live Loopers

["Byron Howell" <howell.byron@gmail.com>]

Hi loopers

 

To quote Per :

1. Inputs. Three audio inputs for three different acoustic instruments.

 

I am putting together a live looping setup to loop various percussion instruments. I dont have an in ear monitoring setup (which it seems would be the most optimum) and I wondering what are the ways to limit the amount of 'bleed' from the stage of previuosly recorded loops and still get a good monitor sound? Do all loopers who instruments such as drums, sax etc without a direct out tend towards in ear monitoring?

What microphones would be the best to use on percussion? the condensors that I have been experimenting (akg c1000's) with pick up to much peripheral sound but have been my trusted mics for non looping performances.

I would like to extend this setup to use in an ensemble format. so....

What are the ways an engineer would be able to give the solo (eventual ensemble) live looper percussionist a decent enough stage sound without feedback of prerecorded loops into new layers of loops without use of in ear monitoring?

 

Byron Howell

 

 

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 9:47 AM, andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

hi Darren,
I think most looping performers would have to use a stereo feed to FOH.
There's no doubt some exceptions to that, and hopefully they'll be able to give some details about their methods.



At the last Norwich Loopfest everyone played with a stereo feed to pa, and I was able to put the speakers behind the "stage", so that when the trio Darkroom played Os was able to mix the band perfectly while performing, and as he was hearing the exact mix that the audience did everyone got a perfect mix. With the other acts, all I had to do was keep an ear on the overall volume while they dealt with their own mixes in their own way.
For looping guitarists, it is possible for the sound engineer to do a bit of balancing of the various layers by using EQ, and sometimes this can do a lot to improve the sound.


For me, mixing live is generally a matter of playing the parts at the correct volume in the first place. Lately, though, I've been using a slightly more complex setup, in which case the mixing is just part of the post processing.

Another scenario is that the sound engineer can operate a looping device for someone on stage, I've looped vocals from Tim Bowness in this way (by prior agreement of course) and it worked really well.

andy butler

darren perry wrote:

I'm a front of house sound engineer as well as using live looping in my own music. I've engineered live loopers before and wondered how people set up their outputs to the sound engineer, if you're lucky enough to have one at your gigs. Trying to engineer a stereo feed from a computer or looping device can be quite frustrating. I went through a stage (as I was playing and looping multiple instruments) of sending each instrument separately to the engineer, easy as I use Ableton. I felt that I couldn't mix the sound well enough from the stage to give a good sound to the audience so left the engineer to do what he was there for and sort that out for me.

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.

Thanks

Darren
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