Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 00:15:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Ray Peck To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Vortex queries >So please offer some hints if you have any, preferably by e-mail so as to >avoid taking up more bandwidth with non-topical material. I just got one too (a couple hours ago). Please copy me on any discussion. Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 01:15:58 -0300 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias) Subject: Re: Others way to loop??? >Then you could use multitracj recorder (I've an Akai 12 MG 14D) to add >loops played without delay, I mean you just keep repeating a phrase thet >seems relevant to you. >It allows to treat independantly by mixing each phrase as far as effects >and dynamics and so on are concerned. That is interesting to. >Thoise of you with mulitracker should try. That is different to rely on a >delay >unit to loop for yourself, and then having to play everything. Since you >never play exactly the same way, it gives a very differently flavoured >loop. More organic, but less etheral, I I can say. This is interesting, isn't it? I do not like drum machines for its stupid repetitivity, but I like loops for it. As you say, it turns sound more etheral, but still not mechanic. I also felt this with the written loop compositions like Reich or Glass (minimal music). While the electronic loop bring me peace (usualy), the "human" loop brings the atmosphere of work of the poor guys who had to play the same stuff forever... So what is the magic of the loop? Matthias Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 23:55:21 -0500 (CDT) From: Dave Stagner To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Vortex queries On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, The Man Himself wrote: > WARNING: This is a post regarding the Lexicon Vortex, and is not 100% > loop-related. Those easily offended by non-topicality are advised to > delete now or suffer the consequences! I think we're a long way from the topicops griping about deviations from the norm. Ghod, I HOPE so! > At any rate, I'm not entirely conviced of the unit's possibilities. It's > very nice sounding, but a lot of the distinctions between different > effects seem to be along the order of different sorts of delay tap > patterns and so forth -- pretty subtle things that would sound interesting > in a headphone studio mix, but not so useful in a more > performance-oriented application. There are one or two wonderfully > hideous things I've run across (ring-mod and envelope-detune), but I'm > wondering just how deep the thing is. It is definitely more a studio than a live instrument. This is no big deal for me. I hardly ever play live, and mostly monitor through headphones anyway. The subtleties are generally lost live, especially if you play in mono (yuk!). The user interface pretty much sucks for live playing, too. It's a shame it doesn't have MIDI support. But those subtleties are its strength in the studio. Personally, I can get lost in the abstraction of interacting delays, panning, and spatialization effects, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. :} > So if any Vortex users would care to share some editing/operating tips,. > I'd be most grateful. At the moment, I'm not sure if I'll hang on to it > or take advantage of GC's return policy. Even at this cheap of a price, I > don't know if it's worth it for two or three cool effects. Heck, it's worth it just for clean delays and chorus effects. If you have a typical ART/Digitech/Zoom multi-effect, try A/B'ing it with the Vortex. Lexicon's sounds are lush and warm, and don't sterilize your sound. But really, don't judge the Vortex by a few hour's fiddling. It's a VERY deep box, and like all deep instruments, it can't be picked up in a few hours of play. Keep working with it, and learn to appreciate its strengths and weaknesses. By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete. Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. Venus De Milo. To a child she is ugly. /* dstagner@icarus.leepfrog.com */ -Charles Fort /* http://www.leepfrog.com/~dstagner */ Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 23:17:55 -0700 (PDT) From: The Man Himself To: loopers-delight@annihilist.com Subject: Walls of the Vortex Thanks again to everyone who's contributed advice on the Vortex. After having spent a couple of evenings putzing with the programs in a clinical headphone environment, and about five hour's worth of live ensemble playing this afternoon with the Vortex in a stereo guitar rig, I can safely say that this is one of the *wierdest* boxes I've ever run across. It's almost like the bastard child of an Eventide Ultra-Harmonizer and a Delta-Lab Effectron II. There's a certain analogish funkiness to the sound and its responsiveness remeniscent of the latter (at certain settings you can even hear the pitch-mods hissing in the absence of a singal), while the morphing options and delays place it in a more modern context. Very odd. No wonder Guitar Center has to practically give them away. I must say that the presets don't even hint at the possibilities of the unit. Using the presets as a jumping-off point, I was able to come up with some extremely bizarre (and highly effective) patches that elicited no shortage of raised eyebrows from the other musicians I tested it with today; the factory presets may be designed for subtle studio orientation, but there are some obscenely blatant and eye-popping possibilities for live performance, particularly in a stereo rig with wide separation. One thing that surprised me was the way you can *play* the box in a very musical way. I spent much time in rehearsal today setting up a loop and then tweaking the Vortex for a minute or two. Some of the tones that came out of the amp were not only hair-raising, but more importantly, they were dynamic and animated -- they made the loops sound less like loops and more like a constantly evolving texture. I may be something of an anomaly among loopists in that I tend to like loops that don't just replay the exact sound over and over, but which constantly mutate in unpredictable ways. I've been wanting a processor that would do that for a while now, and the Vortex fits the bill perfectly. One other thing that I was taken aback by is how "familiar" some of the sounds in there are. Feeding one ambient loop through a chorus-and-delay patch, I suddenly found myself thinking, "God, this sounds *exactly* like _A Blessing Of Tears_!" Other patches bore a strong resemblance to _Polytown_-era Torn. This (along with other considerations) has raised some odd philosophical issues for me, but that's another post altogether. At the current Guitar Center rate of $150, it's an absolute steal -- for about what you'd pay for an average stompbox you get an utterly bizarre thing that seems pathologically incapable of functioning in any predictable way. (And yes, Olivier, I'll send you the phone number and address for Guitar Center very soon.) I think that's enough gushing for now. Needless to say, I'ma gonna keep that box... Loop on, --Andre Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 00:40:46 -0700 (MST) From: Dan Howarth To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: loops in a new light hey all, this being my first post to kim's marvelous world of the loopy, i'd like to recommend to y'all something i've come across: 'eberhard weber : pendulum' it's a great disc on the ECM label, number 1518. weber is better known for his side-man work as the bassist for jan garbarek (and others, i suppose). he plays a six string electric upright (helluva tone! it's that silky smooth sound that warms you to sleep - the 'walking on air' tony levin thing). anyhow, the pendulum disc is weber's curiosity with loops/overdubs and solo performance in action. excerpts from the liner notes... 'solo pieces for single instruments are actually not my favorite music. i have always preferred orchestral sounds. strangely enough, i came across the double bass, of all things, that awkward instrument which, according to conventional understanding, can produce only dark, low tones.' 'obviously the first thing was to drag the instrument itself out of that murky cellar; to make it as easy to play as possible so it could serve as a solo instrument...' 'a desire to put all my musical ambitions and my function as a bass player under one hat made me enter the world of the loner. however in my case playing alone does not mean sending individual notes meaningfully into space. basically, there is nothing wrong with it, but who wants to spend a whole evening listening to individual tones, deeply fraught with meaning? i'd rather make music with the help of certain aids, that permit me to carry on a kind of dialogue with myself and liberate me from the isolation of a solo performance - at least acoustically.' 'the discovery of the echo unit was a turning point for me. being able to store sounds, tones, rhythms, and bass lines quite spontaneously during a live concert, and to replay them at will gives me almost unlimited exploratory pleasure. this is fundamentally different from using prerecorded tapes, because you can give free rein to your spontaneous creation.' ---- he continues to describe his previous album, titled 'orchestra', which i don't have but am searching for, and the album pendulum. basically, pendulum could have been an album of overdubbed bass tracks. he mentions that he's taken quite a lot of time and liberty in composing the disc's nine tracks through the echo unit, meaning that if a certain loop needed extra time to execute, he'd take quite a while to do it right. so, it's not an album of spontaneity, (sp?) but one of composition through the use of loops. and, while we're on the subject of loops, his uses of them are admirable. the bass isn't incredibly varied in tones; he doesn't use any effects except reverb and possible a thickening chorus (but it could be the natural tone of the bass - it's great, whatever it is!), but he does use a bow to some interesting degrees. so, he uses the looping concept to establish backgrounds, lines, percussive noises, and chords, and then runs several different melodies over the top of it all. theoretically, it could have just as well been a sixteen track production of bass overdubs played one at a time... it sounds that good. i don't know what unit he's using, but it's probably the echoplex. i highly recommend it to all interested in the bass (whether for tone or for technique or for style) and/or loops. **************************************************************** ** Dan Howarth, History/Music, Unversity of Arizona, Tucson. ** ** http://www.u.arizona.edu/~howarth (under construction) ** **************************************************************** Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 03:27:47 -0800 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) Subject: Re: loops in a new light Dan wrote: >this being my first post to kim's marvelous world of the loopy, i'd >like to recommend to y'all something i've come across: > >'eberhard weber : pendulum' > >it's a great disc on the ECM label, number 1518. weber is better known for >his side-man work as the bassist for jan garbarek (and others, i suppose). >he plays a six string electric upright (helluva tone! it's that silky >smooth sound that warms you to sleep - the 'walking on air' tony levin >thing). >anyhow, the pendulum disc is weber's curiosity with loops/overdubs and >solo performance in action. > [stuff deleted] >and, while we're on the subject of loops, his uses of them are admirable. >the bass isn't incredibly varied in tones; he doesn't use any effects >except reverb and possible a thickening chorus (but it could be the >natural tone of the bass - it's great, whatever it is!), but he does use a >bow to some interesting degrees. >so, he uses the looping concept to establish backgrounds, lines, >percussive noises, and chords, and then runs several different melodies >over the top of it all. > >theoretically, it could have just as well been a sixteen track production >of bass overdubs played one at a time... it sounds that good. i don't know >what unit he's using, but it's probably the echoplex. > >i highly recommend it to all interested in the bass (whether for tone or >for technique or for style) and/or loops. > cool review....reminded me that the day before I resigned from Gibson I spent a rather pleasent day at Bob Weir's home studio demoing and teaching the Echoplex to Rob Wasserman. He also plays a 6 string fretless/upright electric bass, custom built by Ned Steinberger. Awesome player. It was really cool to hear such an excellent musician take to looping. Only took him a couple of tries to get some really great loops going. And his tone was just so marvelous. I imagine it will show on his next recordings, something to listen for. I know he's using it in performances, because in a recent concert review of a Rat Dog (band w/ Weir and Wasserman) performance in our local excuse for a newspaper, the SF Chronicle, a paragraph was devoted to a solo bit Wasserman did. Don't remember exactly what was said, something along the lines of "unusual but interesting." That can only mean looping! Of course most of the review was about the fact that various members of the Grateful Dead played together that night for the first time since Jerry died blah blah blah. In the photo, behind the smiling faces of Bob, Mickey and whoever the hell else is left from the Dead, was Wasserman's rig with a blurry yet distinguishable echoplex..... And that was the only pang of regret I had about resigning......ah well. 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: 23 Sep 96 08:14:20 EDT From: Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM> To: "INTERNET:Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com" Subject: Re: Walls of the Vortex Hi Andre- (and all the rest of you loopologists) Glad to hear you've seen the light with Vortex. I've been slow in responding, but it seems that there's a bunch of people on this list who actually "got" the box. If a single dealer had people working for them who got it, the box might have sold. Vortex was a major black eye for Lexicon, because it was so badly misunderstood. My favorite experience was the day I walked into a dealer in Nashville (I didn't tell them who I was) and asked for a demo of Vortex. I knew they had been trained less than 2 weeks prior, so I figured that it might be interesting. I asked what it was, I had seen some ads, but couldn't quite get a handle on it, etc. The response was: "it's a trick reverb". (There are no reverb algorithms in the box. Just delays.) >There's a certain analogish funkiness to the >sound and its responsiveness remeniscent of the latter (at certain >settings you can even hear the pitch-mods hissing in the absence of a >singal), while the morphing options and delays place it in a more modern >context. This was *exactly* the intent of the box. Some of the effects were modeled after analog effects--tape delays, vintage tremolo, etc. But then we weirded them out. While the presets were being developed, the project manager kept calling me downstairs to hear some new bizzarre sound and say, can you do something with this? (which invariably I could, though nobody would want to hear it!!!). In the end, though, we settled mostly on generally useful sounds (choir, atmosphere, orbits) with a coupla weird ones to freak people out (bleen, fractal). Some critical pieces of the equation: 1:The Expression Pedal is the key to unlocking this box. (We always used the Roland EV-5) Once you start working with it, it opens up all kinds of things. For example, you can do simple, useful things like swelling in echoes after a phrase, or even bringing the whole effect in from a pedal. Or you can morph in real time. Which brings up point 2: Morphing can occur between ANY two effects, so you're not limited to morphing between the preset A/B pairs. Try setting up a register pair of Fractal and Bleen and assigning the pedal to morph. Hold down a note (e-bow is great for this) and morph. It's whippin cool. 3: When using a pedal to morph, you can stop anywhere along the way. I happen to know that Torn's primary Vortex sounds are in between points from a couple of tweezed effects. He watches til he gets to the magic 41 (or whatever it is) and that's his sound. 4: There's so much to do in editing, you never have to feel restricted by the presets. Every one can be as weird or normal as you want. And you can do both, and morph between them as you need. Andre, since I know some of your work, I can say with assuredness that you're going to have tons o'fun with this box. I'm glad there are others on the list who agree... Later, Jon Durant Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:07:42 -0400 From: cwb@platinum.com (Clark Battle) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Vortex queries RE: Torn at Troy. My guess is that much of your audience will be from RPI. Its probably a good idea to post ads on bulletin boards up there. There are probably quite a few fans there. Do you know if he's playing around Philly sometime? Clark Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:55:26 -0400 From: cwb@platinum.com (Clark Battle) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Walls of the Vortex So how can i get in contact with the Guitar center? Phone number? Where are they? Clark To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: ToddM@LaserMaster.Com Date: 23 Sep 1996 11:02:22CST6CDT Subject: Deep Mojo Vortex Knowledge Here's something for all you loopologists out there. (By the way, the Vortex loops in STEREO, short though those loops may be! Think on that and be dismayed!) ... Here's an excerpt from the Vortex Manual Addendum: Vortex...it's a looping sampler! Deja Vu B is a looping effect. In the present, the envelope is used to create an overdub looper. Here's how to create a loop sampler that can be controlled with the A/B switch. Save a copy of Deja Vu B in both the A and B locations of any register pair. For this example, we will use Register 3A and 3B. Select the preset Deja Vu B. Push and hold the Store button. Turn the Preset Knob until the display reads 03. While still holding the store button, push the A/B button so the display LED is on A. Now release the store button. Since you are storing the same effect in both locations, you can simply push and hold the Store button and push the A/B button to select B. Deja Vu B is now stored in both Register 3A and 3B. In Register 3A, turn the Parameter knob to envelope and turn the value knob until the display shows 01. Turn the parameter knob to morph and turn the value knob until the display shows 64. Press store. In register 3B, turn the Parameter knob to envelope and turn the value knob until the display shows 01. Turn the parameter knob to morph and turn the value knob until the display shows 64. Turn the parameter kob to feedback 1 and turn the value knob until the display shows 01. Turn the parameter knob to echo fx lvl and turn the value knob until the display shows 01. Press store. You're all set to go! Use the A/B switch (front panel or footswitch) to turn the sampler's record function on and off. When A is selected, the sampler is recording - the input passes through to the output unchanged. When B is selected, the sampler plays an infinite loop of whatever was previously recorded. The size of the loop is determined by the tap. While the loop is playing, the input is passed through the Vortex so you can play on top of the loop. Have fun! From: "Louis Collier Hyams" Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 13:25:21 -0400 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Vortex queries On Sep 23, 7:04am, Clark Battle wrote: > RE: Torn at Troy. > > My guess is that much of your audience will be from > RPI. Its probably a good idea to post ads on bulletin > boards up there. There are probably quite a few fans > there. Do you know if he's playing around Philly sometime? > > Clark > >-- End of excerpt from Clark Battle This gig at the Troy Musical Hall was a David Lindley gig (and it turns out to be a blessing for iEAR(integrated electronic arts at rensselaer poly) Don't know if he's on his way to philly cheez. Does anyone have an address for Tornschedulingphenomena? iEAR has a program called EAPS(electronic artist performance series) that I'm lucky enough to be a part of. We had Mark Dresser recently, Larry Austin last week and the list go's. if any of you folks are in the area you'd be welcome just drop me a line. there are many future hopeful artists collier ps: my rig includes a modified DEP-5, jamman, rockman chorus delay for feedback delay triggers and stereo sep for the effects returns on a marshall acoustic amp... along with custom multi output guitars and gr-1, sansamps, wahs valumes etc. I'm not entirely happy with the marshall except that it travels easily. anyone using portable stereo multi-input beautifully clean amplification? If I don't find one I'll do an independant study in electrical engineering and design something. also, there is a plastics dept. and acoustical research here. my main goal is pure sound and portablility. To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: ToddM@LaserMaster.Com Date: 23 Sep 1996 13:21:36CST6CDT Subject: Vortex Loops Using Deja Vu B Ever have one of those experiences where one of your loops takes on a life of its own and becomes this THING that sounds like it was put together by decisions you guided, but is now its own THING?!?!? Saturday I started doing a loop based on single notes of a guitar arpeggio. Then I started adding the added notes an octave below the root. Then I added notes two octaves above the root just to add a smooth texture. All of a sudden I had this very animated, interesting loop. I just kept listening and listening and was amazed. Sometime this happens, but not typically this amazing - I was like "this should be on an album or something.." I put my instrument down and just sat and listened. For a long time. I walked off into the next room and my wife was saying "I really like that ..." so we just left it going. My wife and I had some errands to do, instead of shutting the Vortex off, I shut everything else off but the looper and came back about two hours or so later. When we came back it was still going...I figured if it was still interesting that maybe it was worth recording. I checked it out again to see if I still liked it and did. I figured it was time to really mess with it. I then plugged my cheazo swell flanger pedal into the effects loop of my 4-track's mixer, then added the Boss DD-3 pedal after that set to maxdelay (800ms) and about 90% regeneration and added to it and mixed it about 50-60% to the original signal. I had the most amazing animated texture going......I was like "sheeeesh! I need to get this recorded before it goes away..." shoved a blank tape into the deck and started recording until the tape ran out, all the while neat little variations on the main loop were occurring at the molecular level no doubt. I'll probably add some sparse synth or guitar bits to it, but it's amazing how this technology can take something as mundane as a simple chord and make it this eerie thing of beauty. Now I'm really hooked on this loop thing. Let's just say the Vortex turns out to be the best $150 I ever spent in terms of "best inexpensive musical addition"..now I have to get some more stuff to make bigger loops. Todd Madson PressMate Product Specialist LaserMaster Big Color Technical Support Corporate Web Site: http://www.lasermaster.com/ Personal W3 Site: http://www.waste.org/~crash/index.html Personal e-mail: crash@waste.org Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 15:08:31 -0400 From: cwb@platinum.com (Clark Battle) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: simple loop idea I dont have a looper (yet) but here's a neat idea. Send the output of the looping device of your choice out to a pitch shifter pedal. That way you can transpose entire loops into new keys easily. An intelligent harmonizer would be best but im sure a Digitech Whammy pedal would work just fine. Simple but effective. Clark Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 15:30:31 -0400 From: cwb@platinum.com (Clark Battle) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: simple loop idea 2 Back when i had a 2 sec looper my favorite thing to do was to build impossibly fast chordal passages with guitar loops. I would input one chord at a time (sometimes one note at a time) and stagger them so that they were very close together. Id have to practice the timing of each chord so that it would be recorded in the loop accurately. When the loop was finished id be left with this 2 second impossible harmonic onslaught of 16 to 32 stacatto chords. Each chord may or may not be even playable on guitar since some chords took multiple passes to record. The trick was getting the end of the passage to resolve into the beginning so that it sounded musical in the loop. Big Fun. Clark PS: The next trick is to learn to solo over a 32nd note chordal passage! Yeah right. Allan? Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 17:48:45 -0300 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias) Subject: speakers collier wrote > >ps: my rig includes a modified DEP-5, jamman, rockman chorus delay for >feedback delay triggers and stereo sep for the effects returns on a marshall >acoustic amp... along with custom multi output guitars and gr-1, sansamps, >wahs valumes etc. >I'm not entirely happy with the marshall except that it travels easily. >anyone using portable stereo multi-input beautifully clean amplification? >If I don't find one I'll do an independant study in electrical engineering >and design something. also, there is a plastics dept. and acoustical research >here. >my main goal is pure sound and portablility. Even for electic guitar, certainly for accoustic instruments, I recommend to use studio monitors. They will give you enough sound for the stage (unless you make really noisy music), serve you at home and allways will have a cleaner sound than any "professional" speaker system, giving only little less efficiancy. The only problem may be transport, but my 10 years old Tannoy Little Red are still working perfectly, and with all the scratches still look nicer than the heavy duty plastic corner metall grid "live" speakers. I use them on all the gigs, and on many of them even as PA for up to 300 people! Sure, my music is soft, but sometimes I explode, and see people beeing overwhelmed... When you loop, the complexity of the sound grows, and with it, the necessity for a system without distortion. The loved guitar amp, that sound good for a solo, suddenly becomes uggly, when you loop over it. Look for the clean sound Matthias Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 16:01:33 -0500 (CDT) From: Dave Stagner To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: speakers I agree with Matthias. Forget using guitar amplifiers completely, even dedicated acoustic amps. The speakers are inherently limited, and the preamp sections are INTENDED to add coloration. I'd say use a high-power stereo amp and studio monitors, with enough oomph to provide whatever volume you need. Use good speaker emulators like the SansAmp if you want that electric guitar speaker sound. If you need more volume than a studio monitor system can put out, you should be using a PA anyway. :} Assuming you're using a mixer, you can use it with the monitors to track your own sound, then send your mixer outputs to the PA for everyone else to listen to. This is good, because sometimes when looping, you don't want the audience to hear the next bit you're preparing. At least I wouldn't. :} By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete. Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. Venus De Milo. To a child she is ugly. /* dstagner@icarus.leepfrog.com */ -Charles Fort /* http://www.leepfrog.com/~dstagner */ To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: ToddM@LaserMaster.Com Date: 23 Sep 1996 17:26:49CST6CDT Subject: More Loopy Stuff. Here's some more stuff from the Lexicon Applications Notes for Vortex. I've also added these to my homepage at http://www.waste.org/~crash/index.html and select [LOOP]. For the sick and twisted: Vortex also provides some very outside effects. Bleen B and Fractal B are completely outrageous. Bleen B is an echo diving into ring modulation. Play a melodic line and listen to how the effect takes it over. Fractal B is a looping echo that devours itself. Play a melodic line through the effect, and as the echo continues, the notes stack up to form a chord. This pair also makes for an amazing morph. Set the two effects up as a register pair. Hold down a chord or single note (E-Bows are great for this) and morph between the two! Also try experimenting with Deja Vu A and B for Techno looping effects. One great trick is to use Deja Vu B as a looper. An expression pedal is very helpful here, though not necessary. Assign the expression pedal to adjust the envelope. Then, with the pedal in the Up position you can capture a phrase for infinite looping. By pushing the pedal all the way down, you can play over the top without adding to the loop. In the middle you can add music at different levels. This configuration can be saved in a register so that the pedal is assigned within the register. -- Monitoring Systems / Speakers... My own system: as far as monitor speakers go, for live performance I use a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp for my guitar in stereo. It's used more as a personal PA monitor than an actual amp, with my preamps giving me much of my final sound. For studio applications, I use a JVC stereo integrated amplifier with some bargain basement stereo speakers that I got for far cheaper than can be believed which gives me a very clean sound. I also have within that monitoring system a Barcus Berry Sonic Maximizer which is applied to final mixes. I really should diagram this out, but it's in constant change so... Todd Madson PressMate Product Specialist LaserMaster Big Color Technical Support Corporate Web Site: http://www.lasermaster.com/ Personal W3 Site: http://www.waste.org/~crash/index.html Personal e-mail: crash@waste.org Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:24:08 -0300 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias) Subject: Re: Unidentified subject! >>>This would be nifty for the web page. Does anyone know how to put RealAudio >>>stuff on a web site? Better yet, does anyone want to figure it out, do >>>whatever it takes to put the eno file in RealAudio format, and send it to >>>me for uploading? >> >>I thought Shockwave was the latest sound format? Text would still be the >>most immediate... > >Yes, but the format is proprietary. You need expensive Macromedia >software to encode the format. Their SoundEdit does it for cheap, and they say it sounds much better than RealAudio... Could it be worth the investment of the like 300 bucks (less, if bought together with DECK), since we are going to offer a lot of sound samples, I hope :) ? See http://www.macromedia.com Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:22:46 -0300 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: matthias@bahianet.com.br (Matthias) Subject: Re: speakers >Assuming you're using a mixer, you can use it with the monitors to >track your own sound, then send your mixer outputs to the PA for >everyone else to listen to. This is good, because sometimes when >looping, you don't want the audience to hear the next bit you're >preparing. At least I wouldn't. :} I forgot to mention that, using studio monitors, you can always record and reproduce your recordings anywhere. I visit sometimes someone with my rack and give a concert on their Hifi system and record it on their tape deck. See how they are amazed. And if I had to carry speakers, I would end up not playing there. You can use headphones and hear the same - I mean there is just one sound and you are always used to what comes out. - the compatibility of flatness. I wrote a sheet called "New Musical Concept" in '88, when I was in Rio, and I think its happening about now... How about puting it on the page, Kim? You have it? From: "Louis Collier Hyams" Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 02:56:42 -0400 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: speakers >, but my 10 years old Tannoy Little Red > are still working perfectly, we have several pairs of tannoy 6.5's and 8 (pbm) are these similar? I find them muddy, but I have used my pair of EV sentry 100's for special occasions. are the tannoy little reds 10" speakers or? > Look for the clean sound(matthias) yes! I used to carry around EV 1502er's(15"&horn) and a crown ps400.. but it was too much weight From: "Louis Collier Hyams" Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 03:04:35 -0400 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Unidentified subject! hey ya'll I've got access to soundedit 16, deck II, Protools, sounddesigner II, audiosculpt, session and just about everything else in beta and otherwise at the iEAR studios. I could pitch in within reason. tell me what size, format, etc. collier From: "Louis Collier Hyams" Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 03:10:52 -0400 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com, Mail Delivery Subsystem Subject: clark and others clark, I'm an iEAR MFA. there are rpi folks everywhere! so, you guys have me reinterested in the vortex.! yes... so I may have to buy one also. just when I thought I could keep my rig small... yes small. the going rate is 150? should I hold out for a plex? also, are there any amp designers/builders among us? I'd spoken with matthias about this before. collier Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 01:35:07 -0800 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) Subject: A life of its own (was Re: Vortex Loops Using Deja Vu B) Todd said: >Ever have one of those experiences where one of your loops takes on a life >of its own and becomes this THING that sounds like it was put together by >decisions you guided, but is now its own THING?!?!? > [Todd's description of a cool loop from the ether] Yes, I love that sort of thing! This used to happen to me sometimes at g-wiz while testing new soft versions in the echoplex. Usually meant the testing got delayed a bit while I enjoyed the loop! A couple really stand out: One time I looped a little sound made by scratching the sixth string of a Les Paul with my fingernail, then letting it ring a bit. I reversed it, and suddenly it was a completely beautiful, mesmerizing noise. Hard to describe it. Sort of a cross between the om sound for meditating and a digeridoo. People walking by my office were transfixed, stopping for a listen. I let it go for a couple of hours while I did other work. Amazing how something so simple could sound so perfect. Another time I was testing midi sample triggering. I had a max patch set up which randomly triggered one of the nine loops in the echoplex at some defined interval, which was sort of a stress test to see if pops would appear or anything would go awry after lots of triggering. I played a note into each loop and started the patch off. Trouble was, I forgot to set the delay between triggers, so MAX was sending the triggers at its maximum rate! The mac totally locked up and I couldn't stop the damn thing. I think max clocks every millisecond, so that's probably how fast the triggers were going. And then I noticed the sound..... It sounded like some strangely harmonic storm, with wind blowing and rain on the roof. Always evolving, yet always in a similar sound space. Really extraordinary, yet totally unexpected and quite beautiful. I'd like to try that one again, but somehow I think it won't come out so well. Maybe its better as a memory.... In case you're wondering, the 'plex survived all this. When I finally stopped it, all the loops were fine, and nothing bad had happened. It probably switched loops several hundred thousand times.... 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, 24 Sep 1996 01:49:04 -0800 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) Subject: Re: speakers >>Assuming you're using a mixer, you can use it with the monitors to >>track your own sound, then send your mixer outputs to the PA for >>everyone else to listen to. This is good, because sometimes when >>looping, you don't want the audience to hear the next bit you're >>preparing. At least I wouldn't. :} > >I forgot to mention that, using studio monitors, you can always record and >reproduce your recordings anywhere. >I visit sometimes someone with my rack and give a concert on their Hifi >system and record it on their tape deck. See how they are amazed. And if I >had to carry speakers, I would end up not playing there. >You can use headphones and hear the same - I mean there is just one sound >and you are always used to what comes out. >- the compatibility of flatness. > >I wrote a sheet called "New Musical Concept" in '88, when I was in Rio, and >I think its happening about now... >How about puting it on the page, Kim? You have it? yes, found it. I put in my folder of "stuff to add to the web page," which is growing quite large! I did manage to put one thing up over the weekend, from Gary Hall. Almost done html-izing some other stuff. Anyone want to help? 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, 24 Sep 1996 02:20:51 -0800 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint) Subject: Re: speakers >collier wrote >> >>ps: my rig includes a modified DEP-5, jamman, rockman chorus delay for >>feedback delay triggers and stereo sep for the effects returns on a marshall >>acoustic amp... along with custom multi output guitars and gr-1, sansamps, >>wahs valumes etc. >>I'm not entirely happy with the marshall except that it travels easily. >>anyone using portable stereo multi-input beautifully clean amplification? >>If I don't find one I'll do an independant study in electrical engineering >>and design something. also, there is a plastics dept. and acoustical research >>here. >>my main goal is pure sound and portablility. > >Even for electic guitar, certainly for accoustic instruments, I recommend >to use studio monitors. They will give you enough sound for the stage >(unless you make really noisy music), serve you at home and allways will >have a cleaner sound than any "professional" speaker system, giving only >little less efficiancy. I currently have a goal of getting two signal paths, where one handles the straight guitar sounds in all their distorted glory, and the other is clean and powerful for loops and other sound sources. Right now I have the guitar path pretty well set, with: custom Klein guitar (still being built, hurry up lorenzo!) -> assorted pedals -> mesa triaxis -> intellifex -> echoplexes -> mesa simulclass 2:90 -> mesa 1x12 200W ev's My goal is to have the echoplexes out of that chain, but in parallel, with some sort of mixer that can bring the guitar signal in from different points in its path. I also want to be able to mix other sound sources into the loops, and have some assortment of effects that can be arbitrarily placed before or after the loops. I'll then send it out a clean power amp and pa speakers. Of course, then there is the fairly hopeless goal of keeping things small and reasonably portable. I think I'll try to make some kind of modular thing, where depending on what I'm doing and where, I'll take appropriate pieces. The best mixer choice I've seen is the SwitchBlade 16, a 16x16 crosspoint, fully programmable mixer, in 1 rack space. Real expensive, but probably worth it if ya need it. I think I probably do. Now where are those lottery tickets? A friend of mine has something similar to this. He plays a parker fly, with the piezo pickups going to an Eventide dsp 4000 and various other stuff, while the magnetic pickups go through a triaxis, ensoniq DP/4, and an ADA ampulator. This all mixes together for a stereo pair of echoplexes, which goes out either to his PA or his mixing desk, depending on whether its studio or live. His rig sounds great, he gets some really excellent effects by mixing the piezos and mags with different effects applied to each. 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 Subject: Re: clark and others Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 08:24:53 -0000 From: Tom Attix* To: > also, are there any amp designers/builders among us? > I'd spoken with matthias about this before. I've been poking the idea around. A nice all tube stereo amp (for my Stick). I suspect I'm going end up building something more like a PA than a guitar amp. Do you know of any good sources for schematics? -Tom Attix _______________________________________________ attix@apple.com _______________________________________________ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -Uncle Duke Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 11:20:35 -0400 From: "S. Patrick Hickey" To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Walls of the Vortex Try Guitar Center's web page. I found the local (well, same state, anyways) Guitar Center there, and ordered a Vortex by phone. Got it yesterday, and am at the "why do I want this box" stage. I'm sure I'll get past that in a couple more days of playing with it. Point your web browser at http://www.musician.com, which is run by Guitar Center. Their locations are listed at: http://www.musician.com/location/location.html which can be reached via the home page. Pat Hickey ***SPH brzrkr@nielsenmedia.com Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 12:55:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Dave Stagner To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Amplification On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Tom Attix* wrote: > > also, are there any amp designers/builders among us? > > I'd spoken with matthias about this before. > > I've been poking the idea around. A nice all tube stereo amp (for my > Stick). I suspect I'm going end up building something more like a PA than > a guitar amp. Do you know of any good sources for schematics? > > -Tom Attix I'd say your choice of amps and speakers is highly dependent on the manner in which you intend to present the music. Is this for a home studio, or live playing? Since you're playing Stick, you're going to need to hit some REALLY low bass notes. There are two ways to approach this. One is to use a heavy-duty biamped system with big subwoofers to capture those low fundamentals (a Stick tuned down to low A produces a 27.5hz fundamental!) where typical speakers (especially guitar speakers) crap out. Another is to just roll off that fundamental octave and concentrate on a tight sound (this is why the old Ampeg SVT bass amps with the 8 10" speakers sounded so great. They rolled the fundamental right off, and just reproduced the first order harmonic of the low notes. The amp and speakers weren't overstressed and sounded much tighter). Here's where you'll have problems with tubes. The power requirements for those low notes are enormous. The odds are you'll see power supply sag and its attendant distortion, which may or may not be a Good Thing, depending on your POV. Personally, I want as little coloration as possible after my effects chain and looping devices, and I think most would agree with me here. So unless you're willing to buy or build tube amps big enough to handle the bottom end of the Stick without distortion (well over 100 watts), you'll have to limit your volume, deal with distortion, etc. Solid state amps won't have the power problem. Yeah, they don't sound as transparent and nice as tubes, but you can get big 400w monsters for reasonable money that will drive a 15" vented subwoofer to deafening volumes without excessively coloring the sound. Getting to the point, I'd say the best approach by far for a Stick player would be bi-amping, especially for playing live. The Stick has a ridiculously wide range compared to most instruments. You need something that can handle the deep low notes without compromising the low-midrange fundamentals that make the higher registers punchy. Use an active crossover to split the signal before amplification. Use a high-powered solid-state amp and the best subwoofers you can afford to get the bass. Then use good studio monitors to handle everything over 120hz or so (you'll definitely want to play with the crossover here for best balance). Tubes might help the higher stuff, but there are other problems. Again, I'm presuming you're looking for a clean, transparent sound, not guitar-like distortion. This means an audiophile tube amp, not a guitarist tube amp. If you want a roadworthy system for live performance, you'll have a problem. Audiophile isn't meant to be lugged around all over, and isn't mechanically robust like PA equipment. Older tube PA stuff distorts as bad (good!) as guitar amps. And you'll still want high power, even though tubes sound best at lower power ratings. High-powered guitar-oriented pentode amps might give you clean power at moderate volume. But MOSFET power amps have much of the smoothness of clean tubes without the hassle. Do NOT believe vendor specifications when looking for an amplifier! Let your ears be the judge. Amp specs are made in a pseudo-scientific vacuum by treating the speaker load as a simple 8 ohm RC circuit with negligible capacitance (this is electronics geek stuff. Skip it if you don't understand). Speakers are NOT simple RC circuits, they are complex, reactive devices that generate electrical distortion as well as sonic distortion, and interact in unpredictable (and probably unmeasurable) ways with the amplifier negative feedback loop. The upshot of this is that the speaker/amplifier combination is a single system, not two separate systems, and it should be judged as such. (as an aside in this already excessively long post, I think the problems with the electrical behavior of speakers in the negative feedback loop of the amplifier are the reason tubes sound "better" than transistors, despites theoretically inferior specs. This has to do with the relatively low gain and high impedance of tube output stages compared to transistors reduces the effects of speaker-generated electrical distortion. The Tubeworks MosValve power amps emulate tube gain and impedance structures with MOSFETs, and sound VERY good, at least for simulating the distortion of tube guitar amp power stages. But I digress severely) Still with me? Wow! Again, look into bi-amping, using a big solid-state amp to drive subwoofers to get the low end of your Stick, and use good monitors to get the highs. Whether tubes will improve the sound of the monitors is a subjective call... let your ears guide you. Think about performance conditions... playing volume, touring needs, etc, and balance your needs for clarity/low distortion, mechanical robustness, and volume. Even a simplistic bi-amped solution should buy you better sound than tubes will. But tubes might sweeten it even more. By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete. Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. Venus De Milo. To a child she is ugly. /* dstagner@icarus.leepfrog.com */ -Charles Fort /* http://www.leepfrog.com/~dstagner */ Subject: Re: Amplification Date: Tue, 24 Sep 96 12:51:44 -0000 From: Tom Attix* To: Dave- Thank you very much for all the info. I will definitely have to reconsider what I've been thinking of building. I don't tour or play live, but I don't want to create a monster that can't leave the house either. Loopers- Sorry if this got a bit off topic, but at least it was educational : >) -Tom Attix _______________________________________________ attix@apple.com _______________________________________________ "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -Uncle Duke Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 15:28:25 -0500 (CDT) From: Dave Stagner To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Amplification Well, I *hope* we're not straying too far off-topic here! Personally, I think our choice of amplification and reproduction systems is a crucial issue for our unique form of music, and speaker/amp/mixer/headphone discussions should be right up there with JamMan/Echoplex discussions. Some philosophical audiophiles believe there is a fundamental difference in musical experience between live and recorded music, which changes the way we listen. And this isn't just a matter of recorded playback sounding inferior to live. Somehow, I suspect the sound of King Crimson's "Great Deceiver" live cuts is superior through my home stereo today than it was to the audience in 1974 or so. But more importantly, repeated listening changes our understanding of music. When we hear our favorite recordings, especially complex pieces, we hear new and different things every time. Not only do we pick up nuances and detail, but we react emotionally depending on our state of mind at the moment. Now, the music we *create* with our looping devices lies somewhere between live and recorded music. We're making live music, then listening to it again, over and over, sometimes processing and changing it dynamically. We're improvising with recording devices. My first experiments with looping used a Boss Pitch Shifter/Delay with 1.7 sec of grainy 12 bit echo, fed into a tube guitar amplifier. The distortion and tonal change imposed by the amplifier smeared my loops (especially close-voiced chords), and the poor looper trashed my dynamic range and tone quality. I later progressed to a Roland Jazz Chorus amp and better effects to get more control over my tone, and then on to a rackmount preamp with speaker emulation, monitored through headphones. I want to hear EXACTLY what is in my looper, or at least as close as I can get without unpleasant coloration. I enjoy listening to my loops as much as creating them, and I often find myself leaving a good loop alone just listening to it for a long time, maybe reading or writing rather than creating more sounds. So I want a system that causes minimal listening fatigue as well. Eventually, I hope to run my looping output to a nice pair of single-ended audiophile tube amps and monitor speakers. Useless for live playing, but beautiful at home. :} But the basic point is, a big part of the beauty of looping is the intricate detail and sense of motion in the sound. To get the most from the experience, we need to hear our loops as clearly as possible. So amplifier and speaker issues are as much a concern as instruments and delays. By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete. Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. Venus De Milo. To a child she is ugly. /* dstagner@icarus.leepfrog.com */ -Charles Fort /* http://www.leepfrog.com/~dstagner */ Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:50:57 -0700 (PDT) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: simple loop idea On Mon, 23 Sep 1996, Clark Battle wrote: > I dont have a looper (yet) but here's a neat idea. Send > the output of the looping device of your choice out to a > pitch shifter pedal. That way you can transpose entire > loops into new keys easily. An intelligent harmonizer > would be best but im sure a Digitech Whammy pedal would > work just fine. Simple but effective. I've tried this before. If you're looking for clean transposition, forget the Whammy pedal, since it imbues any signal containing more than one basic note with a gurgling warblish sound. The first five minutes of owning it, I freaked out over this ideosyncrasy, but have since come to enjoy it for its own demented purposes. It is a very wierd effect, using the Whammy to alter loops, because you get a tape-speed kind of pitch effect, but the speed of the loop remains constant. So you're expecting to hear the loops drop in rate as the pitch decreases, but it doesn't. Perty odd, to say the least. --Andre Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 14:36:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Ray Peck To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: Re: Looping Setup >The other is the 24-bit processer (TSR-24S) which has great sounding reverbs, >choruses, phase shifters, pitch shifters, you name it....but the trick here is the use of >the continuous MIDI controller pedal. With one simple pedal I can take a loop and >gradually bring it from a "dry" state into a huge cavern. Or vary the speed of left to >right pan from very slow to incredibly fast. The CC can be assigned to any effect >parameter....mix, reverb level, chorus speed, anything you want. I'm not familiar (yet) with MIDI controllable eeffects, but I assume that each controllable parameter is a different "channel" or something, so that if you had enough controllers to mangle, you could hack them all at oncee. Is this right? If so, this Peavey MIDI fader box I have over heree, which I bought for controlling Deck, would be way cool. 16 faders with buttons, "shuttle" dial, and a few other buttons, all of which I believe are programmable. Gee, I need to get one of these TSR-24s thingees and try it out. Spent my first hour with the Vortex last night. It's darn cool. I was playing with the two delays set at, say, /2 and /3, feedbacks up at 64 (100% -> infinite sustain), 100% wet. You can build some pretty darn dense sustained loops. One neat thing is that if you add some percussive sounds (clacking the strings against the fretboard, say), and you get nice 2 against 3 patters (or whatever the ratio is), by dropping the feedback for one of the two delays and then cranking it back up, you can control the level of the two rhythmic parts of the loop. I can see that I really need an Echoplex. Now, who's got 'em for $500, again? Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 17:42:43 -0700 (PDT) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: finley@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matthew F. McCabe) Subject: Re: speakers >yes, found it. I put in my folder of "stuff to add to the web page," which >is growing quite large! I did manage to put one thing up over the weekend, >from Gary Hall. Almost done html-izing some other stuff. Anyone want to >help? Kim....I'll lend a hand at coding a couple of things. Matt ------------------------------------------------------------ King Never http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~finley/kingnever.html ------------------------------------------------------------ Matthew F. McCabe Able Cain King Never Marathon Records Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 17:46:27 -0700 (PDT) To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: finley@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matthew F. McCabe) Subject: Re: speakers I recently upgraded my guitar rig with 2 custom build speaker cabinets loaded with EV 12Ls. They sound WONDERFUL!!! Very rich, musical, and guitarish. If anyone is interested my buddy has a bunch of EV 12Ls (he re-cones them) that he is selling. Let me know. Matt ------------------------------------------------------------ King Never http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~finley/kingnever.html ------------------------------------------------------------ Matthew F. McCabe Able Cain King Never Marathon Records Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 19:41:51 -0700 To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com From: studio seventeen productions Subject: Re: Looping Setup At 02:36 PM 9/24/96 -0700, you wrote: > >>The other is the 24-bit processer (TSR-24S) which has great sounding reverbs, >>choruses, phase shifters, pitch shifters, you name it....but the trick here is the use of >>the continuous MIDI controller pedal. With one simple pedal I can take a loop and >>gradually bring it from a "dry" state into a huge cavern. Or vary the speed of left to >>right pan from very slow to incredibly fast. The CC can be assigned to any effect >>parameter....mix, reverb level, chorus speed, anything you want. > >I'm not familiar (yet) with MIDI controllable eeffects, but I assume >that each controllable parameter is a different "channel" or >something, so that if you had enough controllers to mangle, you could >hack them all at oncee. > >Is this right? > AND THEN MUCH LATER DAVE @17 SAID: YES sort of. It's really too hard too explain "simply", but the TSR-24S is advanced enough that ANY PARAMETER of a given voice (say number 42...long hall) can be assigned to an expression pedal, and minimum and maximum values can be set for pedal travel. In practice...say you have a slow sweeping phase shifter patch. Normally, it sweeps at .6hz (REALLY slow). If you choose the SWEEP as the parameter you want to CC, you can tell it: when pedal is UP, be at .6hz when pedal is down, be at 12Khz. (VERY VERY fast FAST). The other great thing about the TSR-24S: you can assign MORE THAN ONE parameter to a CC. So you could have a patch with two harmonies, say one octave down PLUS a fifth up...then you assign the OCTAVE DOWN to go from pitch -24 to say pitch +24, and the fifth up you assign to go from 5th up to 4th down. SO: when you push the pedal slowly down, your root note stays constant, your octave down moves slowly up TWO FULL OCTAVES and your fifth up moves down to the 4th below the root note. GOT IT? I took me about three weeks of intense work to come to grips with MIDI for guitar processors (which I hate and distrust as all musicians really should!:) ) but once i figured out what was going on, I've created some pretty cool expression (CC) settings. (BUT I always want to improve them...) Reverbs are my fave, I usually select REVERB LEVEL or a similar parameter. PEDAL UP is NO REVERB (completely dry) and PEDAL DOWN is 100% REVERB. You can make some stupendous sounding changes this way...especially when you consider that my personal preference is to make a loop (or loops) in the Oberheim, and THEN treat them with the TSR-24S. SO: build up a loop with say about 80% reverb, develop it, lull your audience into it, and then suddenly...REMOVE THE REVERB and set down you guitar. the dry, warts and all loop is revealed in all it's horrific glory. shocking but wonderful. and THAT was the SHORT answer... >If so, this Peavey MIDI fader box I have over heree, which I bought >for controlling Deck, would be way cool. 16 faders with buttons, >"shuttle" dial, and a few other buttons, all of which I believe are >programmable. YES...sounds like it may be equivalent (COMPUDER-WISE...) >Gee, I need to get one of these TSR-24s thingees and try it out. > ya really should! although by NOW there are probably way better 'verbs out there, it's 24 BIT, true stereo, and it does excellent pitch shift and harmonies, PLUS it's a FIVE SECOND LOOPER,...plus awesome reverbs, phase shifters, choruses, flangers....everything but DISTORTION/COMPRESSION etc. >Spent my first hour with the Vortex last night. It's darn cool. > >I was playing with the two delays set at, say, /2 and /3, feedbacks >up at 64 (100% -> infinite sustain), 100% wet. You can build some >pretty darn dense sustained loops. One neat thing is that if you add >some percussive sounds (clacking the strings against the fretboard, >say), and you get nice 2 against 3 patters (or whatever the ratio is), >by dropping the feedback for one of the two delays and then cranking >it back up, you can control the level of the two rhythmic parts of the >loop. SOUNDS VERY interesting...but i have my hands FULL just with Obie and TSR... :) :) > >I can see that I really need an Echoplex. Now, who's got 'em for >$500, again? > nobody dude. apply for a grant! cheers to all! keep those ideas flowing... dave at studio seventeen 173451681734516817345168173451681734516817345168 * * * * * * i'll be downstairs if you need me. * * i'll still be downstairs if you DON'T need me * * (Mr. Blint, Consequences/Godley & Creme) * * * * visit: http:www.adnc.com/web/ambient/index.html seventeen: the ambient music page 173451681734516817345168173451681734516817345168 Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 21:24:28 -0700 (PDT) From: The Man Himself To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Subject: $500 for a Plex: Believe it > >I can see that I really need an Echoplex. Now, who's got 'em for > >$500, again? > > nobody dude. apply for a grant! *BZZZZZZT!* Survey says...: A grant shan't be necessary. Nadine's here in luvly SoCal has 'em at that price. The address and phone # has been floating around the list over the last week, so I'm sure someone out there can repost. (I can't find the thing...) Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:42:44 -0400 From: "S. Patrick Hickey" To: malhomme@infobiogen.fr Subject: Re: Walls of the Vortex Cc: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com Sorry about that. I misunderstood the question. Here are the locations advertised on the web. Enjoy. Pat Hickey ***SPH brzrkr@nielsenmedia.com California: Guitar Center El Cerrito 10300 San Pablo Ave. El Cerrito Ave, CA 94530 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (510) 559-1055 Manager: Sammy Moir Guitar Center Brea 606 South Brea Blvd. Brea, CA 92621 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (714) 672-0103 Manager: Mike Margolis Guitar Center Covina 1054 North Azusa Ave. Covina, CA 91722 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (818) 967-7911 Manager: Danny Thompson Guitar Center Fountain Valley 18361 Euclid Street Fountain Valley, CA 92708 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (714) 241-9140 Manager: Don Rodrigues Guitar Center Hollywood 7425 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90046 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (213) 874-1060 Manager: George Lampos Guitar Center Pleasant Hill 2233 Contra Costa Blvd. Plesent Hill, CA 94523 Store Hours: M-F 11-8, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (510) 825-8880 Manager: Joe Mullinax Guitar Center South Bay 4525 Artesia Blvd. Lawndale, CA 90260 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (310) 542-9444 Manager: Brian Thoryk Guitar Center San Bernardino 720 South "E" Street San Bernardino, CA 92408 Store Hours: M-F 10-8, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (909) 383-3700 Manager: Tod Ericsson Guitar Center San Diego 6533 El Cajon Blvd. San Diego, CA 92115 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (619) 583-9751 Manager: Steve Harder Guitar Center San Francisco 1321 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103 Store Hours: M-F 11-8, Sat. 10-7, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (415) 626-7655 Manager: Breck Diebel Guitar Center San Marcos 733 Center Dr.. San Marcos, CA 92069 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone:(619) 735-8050 Manager:Scott Black Guitar Center San Jose 3430 Stevens Creek Blvd. San Jose, CA 95117 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (408) 249-0455 Manager: Reed Williams Guitar Center Sherman Oaks 14760 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (818) 990-8332 Manager: Jeff Josephson Florida: Guitar Center Hallandale 1101 West Hallandale Beach Blvd. Hallandale, FL 33009 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-7, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (954) 456-7890 Manager: Ron Bicknell Guitar Center Miami 7736 North Kendall Dr. Miami, FL 33156 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-7, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (305) 271-2600 Manager: Dan Hansen Illinois: Guitar Center Central Chicago 3228 Clark Street Chicago, Ilinois 60657 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (312) 327-5687 Manager: Dave Lewark Guitar Center N. Chicago 2375 S. Arlington Heights Rd. Arlington Heights, IL 60005 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (847) 439-4600 Manager: Gary Rice Guitar Center S. Chicago 8250 South Cicero Burbank, IL 60459 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (708) 422-1400 Manager: Tony Buffalo Guitar Center Villa Park 298 West Roosevelt Road Villa Park, Ilinois 60181 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (630) 832-2800 Manager: Tony Buffalo Massachusetts: Guitar Center Boston 750 Commonwealth Ave. Boston, MA 02215 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (617) 738-5958 Manager: Peter Schuelzky Guitar Center Danvers 120 Andover Street Danvers, MA 01923 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 11-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (508) 777-1950 Manager:Freddy Gilfeather Michigan: Guitar Center Detroit 30530 Gratiot Ave. Detroit, MI 48066 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (810) 296-6161 Manager: Kenric Knecht Guitar Center Southfield 29555 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield, MI 48034 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 11-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (810) 354-8075 Manager: Rahn Wolf Minnesota: Guitar Center Twin Cities 2059 North Snelling Roseville, MN 55113 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (612) 631-9420 Manager: Jerry Grote Texas: Guitar Center Arlington 721 Ryan Plaza Drive Arlington, TX 76011 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 11-7, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (817) 277-3510 Manager: Tim Lovick Guitar Center Dallas 14080 Dallas Parkway Dallas, TX 75240 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-7, Sun. 11-6 Phone: (214) 960-0011 Manager: Randy Singleton Guitar Center Houston 7729 Westheimer Road Houston, TX 77063 Store Hours: M-F 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (713) 952-9070 Manager: Don Kelsey Guitar Center N. Houston 16745 North Freeway Houston, TX 77090 Store Hours: M-F 11-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6 Phone: (713) 537-9100 Manager: Jim Moon