Introducing myself :: Rob McDade (South Australia)

["McDade, Rob (SLSA)" <McDade.Rob@slsa.sa.gov.au>]

Hi,
This is my first post to this email list and I thought I'd introduce
myself.

My name is Rob McDade  - I live in Adelaide in South Australia. I have
been playing guitar for 20 years now - and am a long time prog rock fan.
I have recently gotten heavily into looping. In a way I began a long
time ago with my first delay pedal - but I recently discovered the
potential with the equipment that is around today.

I am a solo performer - I play a mixture of solo acoustic guitar (akin
to Steve Howe, Michael Hedges and Will Ackerman); and electric loops
which enable me to produce a band sound  - a mini Pink Floyd or Mike
Oldfield!

My set up revolves around the BOSS DD20 which I bought for its delay
functions - not aware that it has a sound on sound looping setting. Now
that is my mainstay effect.  I run a normal guitar -> boss pedal effects
set up into a small behringer mixer, into which I also patch my acoustic
guitar and a drum machine (Alesis HR16) the FX send of the Mixer runs
thru the DD20.
Despite its limitations at 23 seconds - the DD20 does give me quite a
lot of flexibility with performance - esp if I run the SOS as the manual
setting and pre set some long delays into the 4 memory banks.

My performances involve setting up some Fripp-esque soundscapes using
the long delay settings (particularly nice if using an ebow - and a
standard digital delay pedal!).  Switching the DD20 delay on and off -
allows for normal decay of the delays (which might take a few minutes)
and soloing over those - or whatever!  Then switching to the SOS
function (again while the delay 'soundscapes' decay naturally over
several minutes) and setting up a loop - I mostly use 2 or 3 chord  -
chord progressions then enhancing with some percussion sounds which I
tap in manually from the drum machine; and play a bass line using an
octave pedal. When it works it sounds pretty cool - and has impressed
quite a few punters when playing live.  Solo over the top!  

Ending the performance is the trick - I can either fade out the loop
using the mixer. I am thinking of getting a 2nd volume pedal to put
after the output of the DD20 so I can fade out using my foot - while
still playing lead - as opposed to fading out with one hand and soloing
with the other - or just fading the loop on its own.  Another option is
to end the piece with a big, abrupt finish - stopping the loop dead and
playing a huge chord or sustained note  ; or while the loop is still
running, switch back into one of the delay settings and build up another
soundscape - then switch off the loop (rather abrupt finish) but the
soundscape runs on. The footswitch settings need to be set up a special
way to do that. Basically by stomping on both pedals at the same time
you can switch between the memory banks.


I am investigating another dedicated looping device such as the Boss RC
20 (XL) or the RC2 (more in my price range) and coming up with a more
complicated signal flow using both DD20 and RC side by side.
One option is to split the FX send into 2 signals, one into the DD one
into the RC and then have 2 FX returns. Then they should not conflict
with one another - I can have a soundscape running along side a loop and
have more flexibility with each without affecting the other.

One of the other visual performance highlights of all this is say
swapping guitars mid song - start off a loop on acoustic guitar - play
along for a bit and then switch to electric and build the piece.

I suppose the next step is to get a guitar stand for my acoustic (ready
to play) so I can have seamless interchange between the two instruments.

It's about now that it's all getting very w@nky and nerdy and probably
time I got some friends to jam with!!

All good fun - and all very interesting to you readers, I'm sure.

Hope to hear from fellow loopers soon. I'm sure I know some of you out
there!
cheers

Rob McDade
www.myspace.com/robmcdade
www.mp3.com.au/robmcdade