a very basic question

[doc rossi <docittern@gmail.com>]

Hey,

I'm about to embark on a new project that will involve looping and, in  
the interests of time and productivity, I thought that rather than  
trying to learn a bunch of stuff that I might never use, or buying  
something useless, I'd ask the group for advice.  I've been a member  
of this group for about a week and I can see that this will all be old  
hat to you, so if you prefer not to clutter the group with this, just  
write to me off-list if you want to help.

I play an instrument called the cittern - you could think of it as a  
small 12-string acoustic guitar without the octave stringing. It is  
totally acoustic, so I would be using mics. I have a matched pair of  
Josephsons, but I was thinking of using a clip on. I could use a piezo  
if absolutely necessary, but this project is meant to sound as  
acoustic as possible.

Basically, there will be two types of arrangement - one loop that  
would function as an ostinato, and a gamelan type thing made up of  
small loops that I could add one at a time and then play over. Very  
basic stuff loop-wise.

The question is, what do I buy? At first I thought of a JamMan with  
maxed-out memory.  Then I was considering the RC-50 until I heard so  
many bad things about it. I think I would prefer to use my MacBook  
with the Edirol UA-700 interface because I'm very comforable with this  
setup, but I worry about using a laptop on stage - there's so much  
that could go wrong. I'm about to jump into SooperLooper, which I  
think would do the job on its own quite well, but before I make a big  
investment in learning, I'd like to hear what people think about these  
options - a small loop player versus a software-only laptop rig.

Thanks a lot,

Doc Rossi

http://cetrapublishing.com/artists/rossi/
http://www.myspace.com/docrossi
www.magnatune.com/artists/docrossi.html