Re: loops with a drummer?

[Teddy Kumpel <teddykumpel@mac.com>]

excellent breakdown of the facts of drummers with loops Rick, thanks... I 
agree with all of that

I would add Scenario C because I don't like having my rhythm gtr be the 
time keeper. Allow me to explain.

When I play rhythm guitar with a drummer in a groove oriented band with no 
looper, the drummer is, of course, the time keeper and I am usually 
somewhat behind the drums on purpose, for grooviness, you know like on 
everyone's favorite soul music records. That's just how I feel it. So, for 
my rhythm guitar to be the time keeper with the drummer following always 
sounds odd to me. That's why I use a click, that the audience doesn't 
hear, to keep the beat. In my experience, that frees up the loopist from 
being the time keeper and can lead to a much more authentic groove... by 
authentic I mean, closer to what a gtr player playing with a drummer being 
the time keeper with no looper or click would feel like.

The purpose of my post was to ask everyone if they knew a better technical 
way to feed a click to the drummer. I've been using the RC-50 for a while 
now and it's been fun, but I want more possibilities from the looper side 
of things. Is there a piece of gear that is not an RC-50 or a laptop that 
will do this (I already know how to do it with either of those things). 
Maybe the LP-1?

thanks for chiming in everyone, very interesting posts.

On Apr 3, 2012, at 2:50 PM, Rick Walker wrote:

> This is an interesting topic that I"ve given considerable time to in my 
> own life as a professional drummer
> and a live looping artist.
> 
> I love playing to loops.  I consider it a unique timely challenge to be 
> able to do so rather than being
> a 'slave' to the loop.    It's difficult to do and not every drummer has 
> the timing skills required to
> play to a loop.
> 
> That said,  there are several things that have to happen for this to 
> work in two distinctly different scenarios:
> 
> A) Where the drummer is supposed to play continuously to a an already 
> established melodic loop
> 
>     1)  the drummer has to have really good monitoring of the loop.   
> That's a bottom line.
> 
>     2) also,  frequently, an instrumentalist will lay a rhythm loop down 
> and then proceed to overdub on the
>     loop which causes timbral masking and makes it exceedingly difficult 
> for a percussionist (or anyone)
>     to hear the foundational rhythm loop clearly enough.
> 
>     3) towards this end, I think it's excellent for the drummer to have 
> their own monitor whose volume they can control
>     in the middle of the gig, themselves.   This monitor works best if 
> it receives ONLY the loop that is foundational
>     This can be tricky depending on who is sending them the loop,  but a 
> loop selector pedal is really a great tool
>     for directing a loop to the drummers monitor.
> 
>     4)  a drummer who has not experienced this kind of situation HAS to 
> practice synchronizing in such a scenario.
>      Don't expect an inexperienced drummer to be able to do this the 
> first time.  It wont' happen and you'll get
>      musical drift.
> 
> In the case of multi-tracking loop setups,  I recommend that the first 
> loop (rhythm loop) be sent to one
> channel and then sent on to the drummers' monitor.   In the LP-1, as an 
> example, you can route a loop to an AUX channel out that only goes to 
> the drummer/percussionist for audible loop synchronization.  I believe 
> Ablteton's
> Live and Mobius can also be routed similarly.