Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

Re: Loop Length



At 10:22 PM -0500 12/7/97, David Myers wrote:

>Randy:
>
>No big deal.  Record a short sound, then just tap "multiply" until you 
>have
>X (e.g., 16) number of end-to-end copies.  Tap it again to fix the 
>multiply
>number.  Overdub some stuff.  Then to divide, tap "multiply" again, and 
>the
>'Plex will start counting thru your "segments".  This time a second tap 
>can
>halve your total loop if you tap at X divided by two (e.g., 8), or
>whatever.  In other words, "multiply" can just as easily be "divide".
>Sometimes I like to alternate even/odd multiply/divide figures 
>successively
>to mess up the rhythms, or what a trained musician would probably put in
>terms of time signatures, syncopation, or some such.  I just work with
>sounds.
>
>Kim and Matthias will be chuckling at such rudimentary use of this 
>machine.
>"Multiply" functions are completely covered in the manual.

not at all! It is one of the easiest things to do with the echoplex, but
also one of the most powerful and musically interesting. And what you are
doing with "dividing" the loop is often overlooked. That is also an
extremely useful technique. Thanks for the nice explanation.

Another very useful function of multiply is in combination with Record. If
you have multiply going, and press Record, the loop length will be
redefined at that point. So you could take a loop and cut out a shorter
chunk, making that the loop, by pressing Multiply and then Record before
you reach one loop time. Or you could make it longer by leaving multiply on
past one loop period (or more) and pressing Record, getting the whole loop
plus some arbitrary amount as the new loop.

Multiply-Record and Dividing are great when you work with long loops and
use feedback to evolve the loop. Letting feedback act on a long loop takes
forever, so you turn feedback down a bit and shorten the loop with multiply
or multiply-record. Then with overdub on you can quickly change the
character of the loop, and then turn feedback up again, and maybe multiply
it out into a longer loop again.

>Only mentioned
>it because I'm curious if the JamMan does this sort of thing....

no, multiply in real time is unique to the echoplex. You could do it with
hard disk recording, but nowhere near as easily. Once you try, it seems so
completely natural and obvious. I don't think I could live without a
feature like this, and neither could Matthias, obviously!

kim


>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: David Myers <dmgraph@bway.net>
>>To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com <Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
>>Date: Saturday, December 06, 1997 11:36 AM
>>Subject: Re: Loop Length
>>
>>>With the Oberheim Echoplex, I like to set up a 1 sec loop, record a bit 
>and
>>>then multiply it out to maybe 16 sec, add some more material, then 
>divide
>>>the loop period to perhaps 8 sec, etc. etc.  JamMen, can you do this?  
>One
>>>of many reasons the 'Plex is more an instrument than an effects device.
>>>
>>>David


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                   | Looper's Delight
kflint@annihilist.com       | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html
http://www.annihilist.com/  | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com