On-Stage Looping

[Bernie Franks]

Any live loopers here?

I used to be a big fan of it, though I've since gone more towards more conventional music. That meaning, simply playing guitar. :o I've recently been getting back into it, though. Particularly with Ellotronix, which is a VST plugin which emulates Frippertronics. Very fun stuff, if a bit troubling and rather unforgiving when you hit a sour note.

Some of you here may be fans of Bass Communion, and I was talking with someone who went to one of BC's very rare live shows and basically all it was was Steven Wilson playing guitar through a couple pedals (a POD and a Line 6 delay, I think) and then into his computer, where he would tweak whatever it was he just played, I guess.

I'm wondering if anyone here does anything close to this kind of stuff? That is, looping/editing in real time with a computer, or just the more ambient soundscapes-type looping. Is there a venue for such music? Is it more acceptable in a band setting?

Questions! Questions! :eek:

[Nik]

www.loopers-delight.com

I do what you describe: I feed layers of stuff into my looper and the stop playing the guitar and meddle with the loops. Then I use the guitar to add more stuff. Not done any of this live yet, but it's great fun!

I use an Electrix Repeater.

[cincy_cosmo]

I do this at home. I've worked a couple of songs up doing it that I plan to add to a demo CD for getting into coffee house gigs. Part of my one man band thing.

[aliensporebomb]

I do this all the time.

The "ionosphere casting shadows" link in my sig is my looping guitar act,
I also have videos of two different live performances at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/aliensporebomb

Live I use an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man with Hazarai.
In the studio I use the Augustus Loop looper on a Mac.

Here's some pics of me live with my rig:

http://pod.ath.cx/icslive/ics-small6.jpg
http://pod.ath.cx/icslive/ics-small4.jpg

I use one of several guitars into a boss octave divider, then into
a rack comprising a Mesa Boogie studio preamp, Lexicon Vortex
processor and TC Electronic G Sharp.

The octave divider lets me do bass lines, the vortex is for the modulated
synthy sounding washes and synth-like lines and the g-sharp is for clean
reverb and chorus/flanging.

Then the output of that goes into the SMMH.

Then the output from that goes into an 8-channel mixer,
two channels from that go to a JC120 (overkill).
two other channels go to the house.

On this gig I had a Roland R5 human rhythm composer into two channels
of the mixer for live percussion so at times you were hearing bass, guitar,
synthy things and drums all from one guy.

I had some technical failures happening that night (7/3/09) but two other
acts with loopers or other technical bits had issues that night too!

Anyway....yeah, lots of fun. But not fun when it all falls apart!

[jeremy_green]

Bro you are a brave and talented dude, love your stuff! I used to do way more guitar-y synth stuff and the "blow up factor" shied me away from it for live stuff after some close calls. I applaud your efforts to do something different. The world has more than enough blues or hard rock metal players!

Cheers

[EdgeOfDarkness]

have not tried it yet, but it looks like fun.

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[English Bob]

My entire musical output was based on tape delays at one point. I used to reverse the tape and play against myself backwards, so I didn't think it was really feasible for live work. However after I saw Brian Godding on a TV documentary, I assembled a stack of delays (analogue and digital) and managed to play live a few times - on at least one occasion the sound source was a six-string bass. This was as part of contemporary music concerts, not rock gigs. It seemed to go down well. Maybe the audience was glad of something less challenging after listening to John Cage or whoever. :)

[aliensporebomb]

Bro you are a brave and talented dude, love your stuff! I used to do way more guitar-y synth stuff and the "blow up factor" shied me away from it for live stuff after some close calls. I applaud your efforts to do something different. The world has more than enough blues or hard rock metal players!

Cheers

No problem! I have played blues/rock/metal/jazz/fusion stuff but this
particular time seems to call for "the weird and unconventional".

Here is a pic of the pedals I used at my last 3-4 gigs:

http://pod.ath.cx/connies/pedals.jpg
Lexicon floor controller for the vortex,
EH SMMH
Boss OC-2 octave
Footswitch for the Mesa preamp

Oddly, the controls I need to really control the vortex aren't floor
footswitchable. Oh well.

[Bernie Franks]

http://www.youtube.com/user/aliensporebomb
Very cool, bubba. :thu:

Where do you play them kinda gigs?

Anyway....yeah, lots of fun. But not fun when it all falls apart!
I've inherited a knack for technological failure that goes back centuries in my family. This is a big reason I fear live ambient stuff. :o

[danfromdsf]

I love doing solo LoopStation shows. I can still play my songs, but do a bit more messing around and make it much more interesting for the crowd. As far as I know, there's only one video of me doing it... poor sound quality, out of tune, etc., but just for the idea of it, I start looping at the end of this song:
Jy0AxWvCpsc
Really simple set-up. Just my guitar into some pedals, that and a microphone into an RC-20XL, and then into my amp. It works for me, though.

And yes, I'm wearing candy cane pajama pants. My friend/the headliner, Chris Dorman, decided to make it a pajama party, so we put out a bunch of blankets and pillows in front of the stage for others that came in pajamas. Haha.

[aliensporebomb]

Very cool, bubba. :thu:

Where do you play them kinda gigs?

I've inherited a knack for technological failure that goes back centuries in my family. This is a big reason I fear live ambient stuff. :o

Both the ones you see at my youtube site is the smoothie bar under blacklights at a science fiction convention (a year apart) called Connie's Space Lounge at Convergence Con in Minnesota. I've also played the backing loops and ambiences for a jewelry trunk show. I've also played a wedding.

I'd like to do more but it's kind of a specialized gig I must admit. Plus, it's not like people are beating a path to my door to hear this.

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You'll see that sometimes it takes a good two minutes to get a tune "built-up" especially if there is a lot of dubbing.

Sometimes things come together promisingly and then disintegrate due to technical issues:

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And a couple tunes with drum machine ended up interesting because the drum machine decided to stop by itself:

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But nobody much noticed.

The other one turned out okay:

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[usrsbin]

Yes ... I do live looping in nearly every performance I do ...
I use hardware loopers (a pair of Boss GigaDelay DD-20s, four Lexicon Vortexes) and am slowly working toward using software-based loopers such as Mobius and SooperLooper.

See my profile for more info about what I do ... I just got registered in here and will be adding to this ...

Best,

~~D.

[GtrGeorge!]

I am working on this typw of thing now..but in amuch less ambient fashion. I have had my ex-drummer throw a fit because it required him to play very straight. Some people can deal with that..others, not so much.
I think the audio technology is there..but the interfaces are not quite up to the task (at least in my application).

[aliensporebomb]

USRSBIN: FOUR Lexicon Vortexes. OMG - amazing.

I've got one and it's one of the most amazing devices I've ever used.
I use it constantly for just about every instrument.

Have you seen Andy Butler's Vortex page yet? http://www.andybutler.com/vortex/vortex.htm

We should start a thread on that thing, it's almost an instrument in its own right.

My ionospherecastingshadows page in my sig is a good example of what the vortex can do thru loopers.

I'd love to hear your stuff and see pics of your rig.

[ieso]

Yeah, I'm very much into looping both live and studio

here was my band at the 2002 Beaux Arts festival in KC

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=265094

It was a nice day for the apocalypse

[Voltaire]

aliensporebomb

you're the coolest old man i've seen in my life.








yes, i do live looping using FL Studio, a Midi Keyboard, and an FCB1010 and a few different VSTs- loopy llama, amplitube, etc.

both guitar looping and techno-(pre-programmed) phrase sample looping.



initially it was a lot more difficult than it seemed it would be to get the FCB working the way I wanted. When I did get it going it worked like a charm.


lately I've been getting into midi-synced things where I don't have to tap dance at all to get the guitar loops going, it just goes.. it took a lot of practice not to fuck up live.



to answer your question:

it's really a niche type thing, but get yourself on the ambient/instrumental show circuit and you'll be fine, you'll get a fanbase quick.

[aliensporebomb]

Coolest old man! LOL. I'm only in my forties, those pics were taken at my last show and I look a lot older for some reason. Oh well.

Cool.

I've got another potential show coming up in September, gotta get the VG99 integrated into my rig so I can use it effectively with my existing rig.

[nuclear arsenal]

i just got a looper yesterday. boss dd20. havent figured it out yet.

[Voltaire]

Coolest old man! LOL. I'm only in my forties, those pics were taken at my last show and I look a lot older for some reason. Oh well.

Cool.

I've got another potential show coming up in September, gotta get the VG99 integrated into my rig so I can use it effectively with my existing rig.

ah! ha, sorry you looked older in the light, i guess!

I'm not spring chicken either, so :wave:

I need to get some shows lined up for myself, it's kinda hard in my current location to find anyone interested enough. ah well.

please take videos of your performance in september!

[neanderpaul]

Thought i would introduce myself here as I am a live looping artist.

I play fretless bass, electric guitar, electric piano, and a 3 piece stand up drum kit. The drums go through a dedicated drum looper (boss RC-20) that looper and the bass, guitar, and piano go into a mixer and then into a digitech jamman.
I do a capella, instrumentals, rock, pop, rap, spoken word, country, etc etc etc
Half originals and half covers.
Here is a sample - Kravitz' "always on the run"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogHm-tU_4Vs