re death of a loop

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

   Scott wrote: about this previous paragraph:

"Mangling -- take the loop and "mangle" it -- slow it down, speed it  
up, break it up, process and distort it -- there are many ways to  
"mangle" and, ultimately, kill a loop."

"ok, HOW IN THE F*** do you do this w/ a boss rc20?" 


Well, this is the rub about all equipment.  The cheaper Boss pedals (and 
the digitech 
Jamman as well) aren't really oriented towards internally mangling with a 
loop.
It doesn't make them bad:  it just isn't what they were designed for.

This is why it's important to consider which looper one purchases (in 
hardware or software) 
and what kinds of techniques one wants to use before purchasing a product.

Of course,  we all evolve and I have bought loopers in the past and then 
realized that I needed 
to upgrade to more expensive and more sophisticated loopers.

It is efficacious, however, when one does this to hang on to older less 
sophisticated loopers 
because re-sampling a loop is a very powerful way to morph a piece of 
music (freeing up the original 
looper to add new content once the content has been re-sampled and erased).

A fantastically powerful piece of gear that I've fallen in love with is 
the 
KAOSS PAD 3 which allows one to not only resample an already existing loop 
but also to resample 
and combine several samples recorded into the machine into a new loop.
The KAOSS PAD 3 allows for 4 different loops and it's powerful X-Y pad of 
applying effecst like 
delays, modulations, distortions, etc. in real time (all of whose X-Y 
movements are recorded as 
you record from your first loop to your second loop)

This brings us to the distinction between loopers who are constantly 
playing their instruments 
as they play and loopers who not only play their instruments but take time 
to then 
'produce' the material they are playing in real time by ceasing to play 
the instrument and 
then 'play' the effects of real time resampling,  effects processing, 
dynamics etc.

I find that frequently,  I will play for the first 1/3 or so of a piece of 
music and then 
'produce' using these manipulations through the middle 1/3 of the piece 
and then finish 
with 1/3 playing a secondary (or primary instrument) again.

I just find that to keep from appearing visually boring, that it's good to 
incorporate instruments 
and controllers that are more interesting to watch then merely pushing 
knobs on a computer or 
piece of hardware gear or mixer.    I'd play heavily crafter samples on a 
keyboard and my audiences 
didn't even react, whereas Gary Regina would use a WX-7 Wind Controller to 
trigger similar samples 
and people would fall all over him asking about his 'magic' saxaphone.    
LOL,  I finally gave in 
and bought a WX-5 just for it to look more interesting as a sense of 
performance.

Rick Walker