Gear 1 What I Use
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 at 12:24AM 
At Toby and Nita’s house concert the other night, I used my looping box for a crowd that favors acoustic instruments and no frou frou on the sound. But they ended up really enjoying it and commenting on it after the show. It made me realize that perhaps we should do some talking about gear and how to use it.
I carry an ME-50 and a looping station as my only effects units. I have seen musicians carrying a ton of stuff, but I find that this suits my solo shows and my shows with John Batdorf or Peter Tork.
The ME-50 has ten banks of effects three in each bank, as well as a distortion, chorus and delay section separate from the banks. It also has a volume pedal, a tuner and octave boxes, compressors, reverb, noise reduction and tons of presets.
You have to experiment with them to find what works for you. I don’t think that I’ve ever used the distortion live, tho I have used it some on various recordings.
I like it for the road because it’s just one unit. Peter has all these separate pedals that must be hooked up and adjusted and battery powered and it always takes a long time at sound check to get it to the proper place. The ME-50 just sits there and does it all and sounds great.
As for the looping station, it is the Roland Looping Station and it has 12 channels that you can record stuff onto and save and it has twelve minutes or so of sampling. I always use one channel for live and the other channels for things that I’ve come up with that I want to save in case I want to use that particular lick on a recording.
For those of you who don’t know, a looping station is essentially a little sound on sound recorder, similar to the old echoplex. You can start it recording by simply stepping on the pedal and stepping on it again to take it out of record, then the same process allows you to record with what you just recorded over and over again. It is a very fun tool, but does require some serious rehearsal before you can bring it out on stage. The biggest hurdle is the one of time. You must punch in and punch out precisely or you get a piece of music that is not of an even number of beats and will lurch like a sailor with one short leg. I practice with a drum machine to keep my time precise and so it became not so difficult for me to accommodate the looping station. But if your time is a little sloppy you are going to have to work on it before you can use the looping station effectively.
I like to create a motif and then play over it and keep adding things until there is a whole new thing happening. And I think the audience enjoys seeing a recording taking place before their eyes.
You’ll have to go to a music store and fool around with everything to see if any of it serves your muse. And you never really know til you take it home and then take it on stage, so you have to bite the bullet and buy something before you’re sure of it. That’s a hard part for us working stiffs, but it is necessary if you want to include effects in your show. However, here is the thing about effects. They are effects. They are not the whole show. Yes there are some people who have made using the effects their entire show, but I derive enormous satisfaction from demonstrating all that one guitar can do and then perhaps at the end of the first set, demonstrate the pedals to the audience and then do something with them. That way, even someone who is resistant to this kind of technology is engaged. You’ve included them before you blow them away. But I don’t use the effects more than once or twice a set. I like being able to create a complete arrangement with one guitar. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
Reader Comments (4)
The audience *does* like "seeing a recording taking place before their eyes"! I remember when you first got that thing, and demonstrated its use, and it was great fun to watch you become a one-man band, in a sense. (Of course I also remember when you were still learning how to use it, and that was just as fun in a different way! LOL...) ;)
Hi James (and other looping-interested folkies :o)
imo Live-looping is like most other instruments -- you
get out of it what you put into it, and, like with
other instruments, it takes practice, skill, musical
arrangement in some cases, etc. for it to enhance a
live performance.
In terms of how well it goes over in folk venues ...
if you put folk music in you'll get folk music out :o)
I play mostly folk venues and festivals and have
found the live-looping very well received during/after
the performances. I use the instrument to create live
vocal beats/rhythms, harmonies, etc., i.e. to create
an intricate vocal ensemble live solo, but I don't
tend to use anything pre-recorded or drum-machine or
other synthetic functions (I'm a bit of a purist).
The biggest challenge with being a live-looping
folksinger is that it's an unusual instrument in the
folk world and not always well-understood (until
people hear it), so it's a little bit harder to market
oneself to folk venues at first. But on the + side,
it makes it possible for more unique & rich musical
arrangements to come out (without having to arrange 6
different people's schedules, or pay for 6 plane
tickets :o)
I'm talking about live-looping (where everything is
created live-on-the-spot), which is very different
from Karaoke or backing tracks.
As a touring folk singer/songwriter, I didn't lose any
folk audiences after beginning live-looping (rather
gaining some). I haven't played in hotels or other
lounge-act type venues, because the music really fits
better into folk/singer/songwriter types of venues --
I think how something fits or doesn't fit into
specific types of venues depends more on the music
itself rather than on whether a looping-instrument is
used.
peace&music, Irina
http://www.rosestreetmusic.com/irinarivkin.htm
irina, i've been meaning to thank you for such an indepth post. valuable stuff and informative as well. i'm glad to know that your audience has actually increased. and i have seen your show. i love it that you do as i do and play everything live. it makes the whole thing much more magical than if you prepare it at home and just bring it in. i encourage anybody reading this to check out her show and her website.
james lee
cass, i know you enjoyed me stumbling thru my learning curve on that looping box. i remember at clark place (www.clarkplace.com) in stevens point, wisconsin was one of the earliest places i used it.
james