looper's nightmare, slightly OT probably

["Tilmann Dehnhard" <tilmann@dehnhard.com>]

here is what happened:

i flew from berlin to sebastopol, ukraine for a gig in a defunct nuclear 
submarine port.
solo contrabass flute and electronics with live video projection. so far, 
so 
wild!

at the check-in the nasty little man didn't accept my cb-flute as hand 
luggage.
it's smaller than a tenor sax...

arriving in sebastopol i was very happy to find my flute case on the belt 
and was only mildly concerned about the case with my electronix not coming 
up. i filled in the missing report kind of happy - man, how did i misjudge 
the situation...
i spent the next week running around in the glaring sebastopol sun trying 
to 
buy cables, firewire cables, volume pedals, loopers, pitchers, everything.
i managed to get a powerchord for my cell (yes, i know, i will never ever 
put it into the luggage again...) and a firewire cable. NOTHING else i 
digged up not even one effing volume pedal. or some 
whatever-kinda-stompbox-with-a-decent-octaver. nothing.

i contacted PER who was wonderful.
he helped me with mobius, bidule and a lot of good ideas about vsts and so 
on.
he gave me some really good ideas. his mails helped my morale, too.
THANX PER!!!

my setup was finally mobius and nothing else.
ll other solutions sounded questionable or weren't stable enough. (guitar 
rig left me alone standing there many times while rehearsing, so i kicked 
it.)
as a foot control, i threw down a usb keyboard and programmed the space 
bar 
to be record and some other key to be overdub.
all fades and loop select and multiply i had to do with my hands, looking 
at 
the screen.

now guess what a friend said after the gig:
"wasn't very sexy to see you stare at the screen all the time - were you 
reading emails or what!?!"

but anyway, i survived. nobody got killed. not even bruised.

i haven't seen my gear since then - it flew: berlin - frankfurt - munich - 
kiev - istanbul - sebastopol. but i am keeping my thumbs pressed. and the 
number of "lost and found" on speed dial.

smooth looping - tilmann