------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain Loopers-Delight-d Digest Volume 97 : Issue 26 Today's Topics: RE: Music just for musicians? [ pycraft@elec.gla.ac.uk (Dr M. P. Hu ] do not write me [ Silvia Boschero ] Re: music just for musicians? [ kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) ] RE: Music just for musicians? [ kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) ] RE: Music just for musicians? [ Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.C ] RE: Music just for musicians? [ "Hogan, Greg" ] Re: JamMan upgrades [ nyfac ] Re: RE: Music just for musicians? [ Dpcoffin@aol.com ] RE: Music just for musicians? [ kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) ] On future looping machines [ Paolo Valladolid ] Re: Music just for musicians? [ matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias ] Some ideas... [ "Jason N. Joseph" <73311.213@compus ] RE: Music just for musicians? [ The Man Himself Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jon: >Michael writes: >> I thought we were having a good-natured debate on why the sales values you >>mention happened, especially in the light of how cool we know these boxes >>are. > I, too, thought this debate was all good-natured and fun, but it appears that >>others may have detected some un-intended animosity. So there we go - Jon and I were having a good time, and if anyone else wasn't that's not our problem! :):) Seriously, I think I've learned from this experience how difficult it is to phrase things humourously without offending people.... I'll have to try harder next time >:] > Michael--I suspect >you missed the "boston's not a big college town" reference: this is a line from >"Spinal Tap", and if you've not seen the movie, you must. It should be required >viewing for all musicians! You're right - I missed that one!! It's a while since I saw that. "How much more cool could my Vortex be? None more cool." Hey, that's it!! Lex should've used NIGEL TUFNELL to advertise the Vortex!! :) >>Many people around here would lose limbs rarther than Vortices. I thought >>we were debating why the rest of Humanity was stupid enough not to realise >>that. >Is that where we started? I lost track somewhere down the line!!! I can't actully remember where we started, but I'm sure we got onto that somewhere..... Michael Dr Michael Pycraft Hughes Bioelectronic Research Centre, Rankine Bldg, Tel: (+44) 141 330 5979 University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, U.K. "Wha's like us? Damn few, and they're a' deid!" - Scottish proverb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 04:14:55 +0100 From: Silvia Boschero To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: do not write me Message-ID: <32F6A9A3.6550@ats.it> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm not more a player, so please don't write any more. Thank, Silvia ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 03:22:37 -0800 From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: music just for musicians? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 09:02 PM 2/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >> >>In a message dated 2/2/97 8:24:51 PM, Kim wrote: >> >><>made any remarkably creative or innovative artistic statements,>> >> >>Woa! How do you know what they do in their off time when their not playing >>the corporate/commercial anything for a buck game? --Paul >> > > >awww, c'mon now - let's not descend into a slagging war !! Like him or not, >Joe Perry has put the hard time in - playing his brand of blues-soaked riff >rock - there's a place for simple - straight into the amp stuff too !! > >Slash - well - he seems into his music enough to have quit G 'n R to due a >more blues-based thing with his "snake pit"... anyway - let's not fall into >what the "other side" does - when they slag everything within a mile of a >rack of any sort. oops. More cyber juju. My quote there got slightly decontextualized, therby making me look like an ass. I probably didn't word it very well in the first place. I'll go out on a limb and admit that I've really enjoyed music made by both G'nR and Aerosmith. I've also met Slash and found him to be a really nice fellow. I honestly wish I could rock out with even a fraction of the attitude that comes from the fingers of these two. What I was trying to say was this: they make music that, while often times quite good, is also quite conventional. This combination of good and conventional has translated into enormous popularity for both. This popularity coupled with the use of Les Pauls translated into huge revenue for Gibson. The point of all this was that if you want to sell huge numbers of a product in the MI industry (like a lot more than 8000, I guess) it helps to have endorsers who reach a huge audience. Especially if your product is of the inexpensive variety where it is likely to appeal to younger musicians and impulse buyers. Now with a thing like looping, it is a new idea for much of the music world. That's where the musician's musician and experimental avant-garde types come in. They try new things and invent ways to use them creatively. Some of those ideas trickle into the mainstream, causing a resulting interest in that idea/product from more mainstream players. This takes time, because you are essentially creating a market. To profit from this, a manufacturer needs a clear vision of what the market is doing, and patience. One misperception that has come up in this thread several times is the idea that looping hasn't yet appeared in popular music. I totally disagree with that. Run-DMC's version of "Walk this Way" in the early eighties was a huge hit, and that was all about looping. Hiphop and rap has been looping away ever since, and I think both Lexicon and Oberheim/Gibson missed a giant opportunity there. One DJ Jazzy Jeff endorsement would easily eclipse all the guitarists that have endorsed either product. The problem was a failure to connect the products with the obvious market. I don't know what Lexicon's excuse is, but you can probably imagine how far my suggestions of using rap artists as endorsers went at a guitar company based in Tennessee. And then there are heavy bands like Ministry and White Zombie, using tons of loops and getting tons of airplay on MTV every day. And there's Beck's Odelay album, proving that even alternative rockers can figure this out. And there's Chet Atkins and Phil Keagey. And there's the huge techno scene which is only just starting to happen in the US but has been all over Europe for years. (How do you explain the Orb to people who have never even heard of Trent Reznor?) Another misperception I'd like to skewer is the idea that there are no other companies making loopers and that there is no money in it. Just about every dj mixer I saw at NAMM had a looper built in. They were primitive compared to jamman/echoplexes, but there they were. Akai had dedicated loopers that were really quite cool. So did Denon. They were making high profile showings with this stuff, and obviously see a big market in the techno/dance/hiphop arena. Some big name companies who weren't showing such products expressed a very great desire to get into it. So there will probably be more loopers in the future. You'll just have to go to the keyboard and dj sections of the music store to find them because they aren't being marketed to guitar players. The people at Denon didn't seem to even know who Robert Fripp was, nor did they really seem to care. The popularity of guitar music is currently dropping like a brick, and all the manufacturers are tripping over themselves to try and figure out how to make cheap products for all the kids making techno in their bedrooms. Anyhoo, enough spewing for this evening..... kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 03:22:41 -0800 From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:49 AM 2/3/97, Hogan, Greg wrote: >Well I tried to make a simple blanket statement about a very complex >situation and it seems that I opened a big can of worms. Has Lexicon made Hang in there, Greg. A few months ago it was open season on our poor little Echoplex. You ain't seen nothin'. The phone wires were practically melting each time I downloaded my mail,,,:-) >I was warned when I arrived at this list that John Durant was almost >railroaded off of this list. Well his interest in the art of looping has >kept him here. I am not running away as I am used to taking the punishment Well, I must be a serious masochist, because I started this whole damn thing..... Seriously, being in customer support, I'm sure you know that your harshest critics are often times your most loyal customers. They care enough to offer criticism, although sometimes they aren't as tactful about it as one might hope. The people who really don't like the product just go away and you never hear from them at all. After a good bout of whining, some non-user will say something to the effect of "well if this product is as horrible as you say, why don't you just sell it and shut up? I'm sure not gonna buy one!" And then the critics/whiners will suddenly realize how much damage they are causing and leap to the product's defense, with stuff about how much they love it and how all those complaints were really very minor, etc, etc.....;-) kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com ------------------------------ Date: 04 Feb 97 07:51:14 EST From: Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM> To: "INTERNET:Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com" Subject: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-ID: <970204125113_74074.1316_GHQ27-1@CompuServe.COM> Michael Writes- >You're right - I missed that one!! It's a while since I saw that. >"How much more cool could my Vortex be? None more cool." >Hey, that's it!! Lex should've used NIGEL TUFNELL to advertise the >Vortex!! :) And, if you can see here, these knobs go to 64!!!!! And Kim, speaking of selling Les Pauls, Nigel's '59 beauty with the sustain ("listen". "I'm not hearing anything." "Well, you would, if it were plugged in.") must've sold 2 or 3. In the immortal words of Johnny Lydon, "Is everybody HAPPY?" Out for a bit, Jon Durant ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:44:00 -0500 From: "Hogan, Greg" To: Loopers-Delight Subject: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-Id: <9702041555.AA02609@beryllium.lexicon.com> Hello, Your interpretation of my interpretations where misinterpreted. I am not nearly as sensitive to these subjects as I seem to have come across. My angle is that I do not believe that the JAMMAN will be resurrected and that a gripe session or going over the situation preceding the products demise is not really productive in getting the result that I think we are striving for which is:Getting the product that everyone wants to see(dedicated full featured looper) to the market. Hypothetically:If Lexicon were to build JAMMAN again, how many should we build and at what price should they be made available to the public? Please DO NOT answer this question! Instead please answer: What do you want in a full featured looper and what would you be willing to pay for it? Thank you and best regards, Greg Hogan Lexicon Customer Service Phone 617-280-0372 FAX 617-280-0499 email:ghogan@lexicon.com P.S. Other than my capacity as a Technical Support Specialist I am not involved in product development here at Lexicon. This is of personal interest only. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 11:07:32 -0500 From: nyfac To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: JamMan upgrades Message-ID: <32F8B044.167E@nyfac.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ed Drake wrote: > Trev, I want to make sure I understand you. Do you mean have the backwards > sample loop around with out having to trigger it via footswitch ? I'm not > sure. You can't play loops backwards, you can only play backwards in the > sample mode (one pass sample which means no layering, etc.) Also I'm not > sure but I think the MIDI clock, which runs sequencers and drum machines, > doesn't work in the sample Mode only in either of the Loop Modes. Ed (et. al.) What I would like to do is this- 1) just be able to play the loops I write backwards. That would be ideal. alternately, 2) be able to have the JamDude loop the sample when in sample mode, e.g. hold the trigger button down to have the loop start over automatically. I was suprised that the JamMan didn't do 1). When I looked at the comparason of the page, I (mistakenly) thought that it would reverse the samples. Sigh.... Trev ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 13:42:02 -0500 (EST) From: Dpcoffin@aol.com To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-ID: <970204134054_-1677245873@emout10.mail.aol.com> Greg asks: <> Here's my response: Since I haven't had the pleasure of using a full-featured looper (just have a Vortex at this point), I lean toward a full featured multi-fx, that includes, or can be expanded to include, serious looping potential, i.e. over 30 sec. stereo loops, at minimum. All the time tricks that the Jamman could reportedly perform sound cool, but in theory at least, I also like the idea of using following fx to morph and mutate a loop as it rolls by. Editing and storage potential seem critical, if the price is high (having to buy TWO echoplexPros to get stereo seems too high to me, for a setup that "just" loops). My druthers at this point would be upgrade or card options for the MPX or PCM-80, or something similar. David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:45:38 -0800 From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Michael Writes- > >>You're right - I missed that one!! It's a while since I saw that. >>"How much more cool could my Vortex be? None more cool." >>Hey, that's it!! Lex should've used NIGEL TUFNELL to advertise the >Vortex!! >:) > >And, if you can see here, these knobs go to 64!!!!! > >And Kim, speaking of selling Les Pauls, Nigel's '59 beauty with the sustain >("listen". "I'm not hearing anything." "Well, you would, if it were plugged >in.") must've sold 2 or 3. > Do you guys remember that Marshall really did have Nigel Tufnel as an endorser a few years ago? "This one goes to 20" I think it was. kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:52:28 -0800 (PST) From: Paolo Valladolid To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: On future looping machines Message-Id: <199702041852.KAA23485@waynesworld.ucsd.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hope no one minds the subject change... My vote goes to the looping card option as well. While I would like to see a low-cost, standalone looper to replace the JamMan, it seems like the card option for the PCM80 or whatever would be the most viable solution from Lexicon's point of view as well as ours. Paolo Valladolid --------------------------------------------------------------- |Moderator of Digital Guitar Digest, an Internet mailing list |\ |for Music Technology and Stringed Instruments | \ ---------------------------------------------------------------- | \ finger pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu for more info \ | \ http://waynesworld.ucsd.edu/DigitalGuitar/home.html \| ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 14:07:29 -0400 From: Ed Drake To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: JamMan info for LD Web page Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello JamMan loopers, I am attempting to collect info about the JamMan to put on the LD Web pages. At this point I have started to go back and sift JamMan related stuff from the List archives to put in a convenient form for all to access. This process will take a while, so if anyone wants to help out, please contact me. Also if anyone has anything that might be of interest to JamMan users, please submit it. There will probably be several categories of topics such as memory info, tips and tricks, limitations, famous JamMan users, etc. These are not set in stone so if anybody has any ideas for anything please let me know, feedback (no pun intended) is appreciated. This will most likely take at least a week or two to put together, so please help out. Ed ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 17:14:02 -0300 From: matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias Grob) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Music just for musicians? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The price argument reminds me of Prior's Double Dark, a wonderful >Philadelphia-brewed beer available for $2 - $3 a six back in the days when >there were *no* drinkable American beers. Some marketing guy decided that >they'd sell more if they were priced and sold more like imports - >specifically Guinness - and all of a sudden the beer came in 4-paks which >cost $6. Within a year, no more Prior's in any form. So what was the problem? >Ahead of their time? Misguided marketing? Recession of '82? From *my* >perspective as a loyal Prior's fan prior (;->) to their marketing suicide, >the whole thing stunk. They took a perfectly good product - one which had >basically no competitors - and $%#$$ed it over with a misguided marketing >strategy. Can you imagine how well they'd have done if they had just held on >at the level they were at, and caught the micro-brewery wave? My gut feeling >is the JamMan is a perfectly good product, reasonably priced even at >$350-400, that needed to wait for its market to develop. Dont worry too much. It looks like the Plex is holding this position (it actually IS mainly imported technology :-), and as you point out, its not the price that makes the success of such a product, but rather: uniqueness x smart marketing x time. So at the moment, helping Oberheim by demonstrating and explaining what it does is maybe the best we can do for the survival of the species (and my own :-). Matthias Oh, Greg just said it his way: > But lets not >waste time with this issue. It would be more constructive(and interesting) >to discuss what everybody would like to see in the next generation of >dedicated(or not) looping technology. Maybe if we are all good on the >karmic scale Lexicon or Oberheim(or Roland or Alesis) might answer our >prayers. Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 14:54:33 -0500 From: "Jason N. Joseph" <73311.213@compuserve.com> To: Loopers-Delight Subject: Some ideas... Message-ID: <199702041454_MC2-10CF-3690@compuserve.com> Hey folks, I've *greatly* enjoyed all the discussion of late, and have decided to get y'alls (sorry but I am in Lubbock, TX) input on some ideas I've been cooking up. Pardon if this seems naive in the ways of loopage, but I'm still very much captivated by one of the simple ideas Brian Eno cooked up in making that first looping delay system for Fripp, and that Eno still uses quite a bit (don't know about Fripp): basically different loops of differing lengths played over each other such that the ways they will interact musically is unpredictable. I've had my Jamman for awhile, but have only recently began to explore this via recording one loop to one track on my DA-88, then another to another, etc., and listening to the end results. The problem with this is that there is not as much spontaneity as having them loop over each other live (I'd *love* to see a looping machine do that). Anyhow, on expressing my frustration at the limitations of this to my "non-musician" but experimentally-minded friend Dave, he came up with the following, which I'd love to get everyone's thoughts/reactions to: >Ever play the game "Life" on >the computer? Not much of a game, really. You have a 2-D grid and in each >square of the grid you can place a marker representing a cell. Place as many >cells as you want wherever you want, then hit "go" and watch the results. >The cells either live, die, or reproduce based on certain rules. Something >like, if in the 8 squares surrouding square(x,y) there are two cells, a cell >is born in square(x,y). Or, if in the 8 squares surrounding square(x,y) >there are four or more cells, the cell in square(x,y) dies. Usually the >population of cells dies off after a few turns. I guess the goal of the game >was to get a population of cells that lived a long time, but people found out >that there were ways to place the cells such that the population would >oscillate between one pattern and another, or some placements would turn into >small groupings of cells that would oscillate and fly off the board. Got it? > > >OK, my idea is to do something similar w/ music. Start out with four (for >this example) simple drones(or sound loops or whatever) and periodically >measure some measurable variable of the drones (some examples: 1) number of >frequency components in the drone above/below x hertz 2) delay of the drone >above or below its starting value 3) reverberation of the drone 4) distortion >in the drone 5) volume). I don't even know if some of these variables can be >measured but you get the idea. Anyway have the drones react to one another >based on some set rules, like if drone1 has x number of frequency components >above 5kHz then adjust the distortion of drone2 by some function represented >by f1(x). Or if the delay of drone3 is y seconds, then add f2(y) frequency >components to drone 4 whose values are given by f3(y, f2(y)). Maybe in >addition to rules to alter the drones you have rules governing the death and >birth of other drones. > >What you'd have instead of a few sound loops with different periods where the >interest would be to see how they recombine to sound different at different >times would be sound that actually react to other sounds and can give birth >to a sound or hook up with another sound to kill a third sound off. Sure >it's pretty much impossible or at least super-hyper daunting but it sure does >make ya wet yer pants with the possibilities. > Anybody think this is remotely possible with the devices we have today? Any other thoughts on how to put some fresh, (relatively) unpredictable or at least systemic experimentation into looping? Thanks in advance for your thoughts. jj jj1@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 12:54:55 -0800 (PST) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: RE: Music just for musicians? Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, Kim Flint wrote: > Do you guys remember that Marshall really did have Nigel Tufnel as an > endorser a few years ago? "This one goes to 20" I think it was. Yeah, that's the quote, which was followed by, "...that's 9 louder, innit?!" --Andre ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 13:11:51 -0800 (PST) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: The different sides of loop music Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In reply to Kim's dissertation of the increasing prevalance of looping in popular music -- All very good points that are raised, with regards to the increasing visibility of looping features in DJ Mixers and electronica-oriented instruments, as well as the whole British rave scene (which EVERY magazine I read these days says is sure to usurp the allegedly rotting corpse of rock and role as the new popular music form here in the states any second now...) and the MTV-ready advent of White Zombie, et al. However, I do feel that there's a fundamental difference between what nearly all of the above areas relate to as opposed to what most of this list deals with. In essence, most loop-oriented music that's emergent in popular music is based on sampling already-existing source music and then re-contextualizing it (or not) in order to produce a new (or not-so-new) end product. It's a very studio-oriented endeavor, which involves sampling the source, probably tweaking and filtering the original sample, editing the length of the sample, assigning it to a sequencer for triggering, and then possibly blending it into a sonic collage with a myriad of other sounds and instruments. The difference between that approach and the Big Three is that the JamMan/Echoplex/Boomerang are specifically designed as real-time tools, which excel at creating and editing loops right then and there, in the same moment that the music is happening. Moreover, they're geared less around sampling music that already exists, and more towards acting as a conduit for sculpting new music that wouldn't exist without the mechanism of the unit's functions. Traditional samplers capture music that's already been made; loopers help create music in the here and now. (This is of course a bit of an over-generalization). So the way that music is made using an actual Big Three-type looper is, in my estimation, a very different sort of proposition, both mechanically and philosophically, than using a studio-based sampler to edit pieces together in step time. There are provisions in the JamMan and Echoplex for MIDI implementation and step-time studio construction, but as far as I'm concerned these definitely AREN'T where the strengths of these instruments lie (though the Echoplex, at least, is certainly servicable for studio and sequencing work if it becomes necessary). So while it's true that looping is becoming more and more ubiquitous, I'm not sure that that will immediately translate into more demand for the Echoplex or JamMan, simply because using one of those sorts of instrumnets requires a very different sort of approach than simply loading a two-bar drum loop into and Akai and then looping it for five minutes. (No disrespect towards that sort of approach intended, but I'd dare say that loop music in general leans more towards the latter than the former approach). Any other thoughts? --Andre ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 13:21:10 -0800 (PST) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: The wish-list of doom Message-ID: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, Hogan, Greg wrote: > DO NOT answer this question! Instead please answer: What do you want in a > full featured looper and what would you be willing to pay for it? -- Easily-expandable memory -- Multiple loop availability -- Reverse function -- Undo -- Multiply -- Insert -- Combining two seperate loops into one -- Variable pitch changing of the loop -- Easy and relatively fast download/upload of loops to computer -- Digital output for interface with DAT or ADAT -- True Stereo in/out -- Performance-oriented footpedal which can access just about any parameter -- Continuous feedback control -- Built-in effects loop -- Extensive MIDI implementation, including sync in/out that recognizes odd time signatures (very important!) -- Internal or (more likely) disc-based storage of loops, which can be re-loaded at a later date How much would I be willing to pay for this? The above is basically an Echoplex on steroids; I paid a little over $400 for my EP (admittedly an unheard-of price), plus another $70 or so for the footpedal. Throw in the above additions, and I'd say somewhere around $1,100, but not much higher, would be a reasonable price. (Yes, I feel that the $799 list price of the current Echoplex is unrealistically and prohibitively high). I can't help but think that more of the current crop of EP's could be sold if they were even $100 or so less expensive than they tend to be sold for... --Andre --------------------------------