RETRIGGERING and SYNCING LOOPS was Re Need help with RC-50

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Sjaak wrote:

*"I have tried many different things in bands regarding syncing midi 
equipment such as delays, samplers, sequencers and loopers 
with the rest of the band. If you want to use the live looping techniques, 
retriggering loops or using tempo sync is not an option."

*Well,  again,  that depends on the musician.   When Bill and I played 
Y2K8 my midi footpedals had not been reprogrammed correctly 
by another artist and I was unable to sync my looperlative to his.    I 
used my LINE 6 for the whole performance and kept retriggering 
to stay in sync with Bill.   How I did this was a made as long a loop as I 
could so that the natural 'drift' would take 
a much longer time (that gave me more freedom to concentrate on other 
things than retriggering.

I talked to several people afterwards who were convinced that we were 
synced with our loops and we were not.* 
*

*Although most drummers don't like following a click track, imo it's still 
the best option. Make sure everyone can hear the loops well on stage, 
especially the drummer and bassist. I would also recommend to use a 
distinctive sound synced to the loops as a click track." 

*Again,  I agree with you, Sjaak depending on who the drummer is and what 
timing skills they have.   Frequently I've been in situations where I 
wasn't the drummer and I used a combination of retriggering and trying to 
get the drummer to play with the loop.

It's really difficult to contend with human timing when there isn't what's 
called 'entrainment' (the natural ability 
of people to play in sync, rhythmically with one another).

I've always said, giving master classes on looping and rhythm at the PASIC 
convention (annualy world wide drummer/percussion convention), that I've 
learned more about time and timing from live looping than all the click 
track, sequence accompanying 
studio work,  all the different "ahead and behind the beat" playing of 
regional rock and soul players and all the different 
ethnic 'molays' (or consistent variations from metronomic time) of all the 
different world musicians that I've played and recorded with.

One of the things that has actually helped has been having to use several 
different kinds of hardware and software looping solutions.   Each pedal 
has a different physical feel and each machine has a slightly different 
latency.

But I am absolutely convinced that I can teach anyone how to have good 
enough sense of time (through a whole series of exercises that I'll be 
teaching in a master class on "Time and Timing" at next year's PASIC) to 
be able to be a 
re-triggering live looper in a band setting (assuming that they are 
working with musicians who are also working on 
being able to make this work).     I've been able to even teach beginning 
beginner students these skills in relatively short 
order.  I've even been able to teach <gasp!>  rhythmically impaired solo 
guitarists how to do this.

For what it's worth,  I'm close to have a real time video teaching studio 
set up in my home so that I can give lessons like 
these over the internet using interactive webcams and mics.

If anyone is interested in that (including my course called the 'Rhythm 
Intensive') please email me off list at 
looppool (at sign) cruzio (dot sign) com


*Sjaack also wrote:*
*"Another option is to find a new drummer  ;) "

*Well, in this horridly financially challenged economy here in Nor Cal 
(and everywhere, I know),
I AM for hire........<chuckle>