I like the idea of using sends to route stuff to the looping tracks. and making new loops from old ones. (could get interesting poly rhythms going that way by playing a loop against a shorter, mangled up section of itself)Angstrom wrote:I think I should also say theres a handy way of getting almost sound on sound loops like this. well, bounced sound on sound anyway.
have 4 audio 'loop tracks' getting their audio from a main loop source, but make that loop source be a return track - now anything you send to that return track is recordable.
so you can send loop 1 into send A , then start recording loop 2, it will record loop one.
the only benefit to this being that you can assign the sends to a standard controller - my usual set-up for this is quite complex, but essentially I have
- a row of dials that send tracks to the loop return channel
- keyboard keys to start a loop track recording
- controllers assigned to the start and loop length controlers
- a load of stupid effects to reverse the return audio and fragment it as it goes into the loop.
It's amazing what you CAN set up with live with a bit of thought - once you "get it" (A large sheet of paper and some coloured pens helps)
Now that I've got a machine that can run more than one vst at a time, I've started building a complex set up of my own, controlled by a BCR2000 and a Midi Keyboard. The main features so far:
Removed all stop buttons.
a group of tracks containing various vst's or routed to multi part vsts. The "monitor" control of these tracks is turned on and off by pushing the top row of knobs on the BCR. The volume is controlled by the rotating the same knobs.
The buttons at the top of the BCR are used to turn vst instruments and fx on and off as needed and to trigger loops.
The Vst instruments are routed to group tracks (pianos,epianos,strings and pads,analogue synths,bass, etc). each group as some inline fx appropriate for the kind of sound. Plus basic fx like reverb and delay on return chans.
The top 2 rows of knobs in the main area of the BCR are dedicated to controling these groups. some groups have more controls than others, i.e piano just has reverb, epiano has rotating speakers and all sorts.
The output from each group goes to a master "Live Performance" track, which is where the live looping tracks take there input from.
There are 8 live looping tracks (might add more) and other tracks with pre-programmed loops.
I have three buttons dedicated to next scene, prev scene and launch current scene.
The last 8 scenes are the only ones that have any stop buttons, one on each live looping track, layed out diagonally. So I can play with one hand and move up and down and launch with the other. I call this area my "Loop Factory" where I make new loops.
Once you get a few loops running you can start to move them up to other scenes and arange them into groups.
the level of each looping track has it's own control on the bottom row of the BCR.
Now I need to figure out a way to map one control to the same function on multiple instruments (e.g. one knob to open up all the filters) i'm tinkering around with a PD patch for that.
Also need a foot switch to trigger recording so that I can play with both hands.
I call my "compositions" Streams Of Conciousness (Pretentious? Moi?), by the time I reach SOC99 I might have something worth sharing.Angstrom wrote: sometimes the 'songs' that come out are almost bearable, but generally they are a good way to discover things.
But you can learn a lot by doing them, and you can get enough material for a complete track in less than an hour; instead of taking days (or weeks) just to get started.
gosh, what a long post. It's just that I'm so pleased with my new setup I felt the need to share it with somebody (I tried explaining it to my Vocalist colaborator but his blank expression showed I was wasting my time)
