setup advice

here's what i want to do, let me know if it makes sense, what you'd change or what i should buy before i spend moneys:

live drums with a bunch of atypical percussion shit, 2 or so mics, put through a looper and subsequently through effects

i would like to have at least 4 loops going on where i can adjust levels of each one, and i'd like the looper to sync with live.

i thought of doing it with my old lexicon jamman but that thing has funky power issues and no ability to adjust specific loops.

i don't care if this stuff is rackmount or stomp boxes, all i care about is the functionality and sound quality and hopefully under $500 for the whole thing, excluding effects.

i guess, after writing this all out, my main questions are about what to purchase regarding:

mics for the percussion

type of looper

thanks watmmmmmmm

edit - i would also like to say that i'm trying to get away from using live for everything. i like live, but i want to get away from a pc-based setup. i will only need the looper to sync with live, nothing else.

Real live multichannel dynamically constructable looping is very challenging, there is very little hardware on the market that has all the powerful looping features you need to really have full control. Which is why I use Zone Mobius software with a midi foot controller. Been practicing jamming with quick movement looping progressions for almost a year hardcore and I am just starting to feel comfortable with how much multitasking I am doing. Now if your just looping to an on the grid Live project there is a lot less off the rails performance pressure. Either way you go, unless you make your looping process so simple and on the rails that people will fall asleep, it's not a simple quest.

i imagine i'll start off doing minimalist type stuff at first. this is mostly for a project with 2 other guys who will be doing ridiculous synth/bass guitar things, but i've wanted to set up something like this for a while. i'm not looking for pinpoint precision, just something i can work with and run thru some effects.

There's a Boss Loopstation that has two separate loopers in one unit that can be synced to each other and MIDI (and possibly have individual outputs? dunno), but it's like, $1000 or something. If I had the money I'd buy 2-3 of those and do some really wacky multiloop stuff.

nah dude they should be cheaper, RC-30 is around 300eu -> http://www.thomann.de/nl/boss_rc_30_dual_track_looper.htm

probably get 2x Shure SM57 for the drums, that's basically a good all around mic for drums and amplified instruments..

maybe this might help

http://curmudgneon.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/overviewreview-of-modern-looper-pedals/

are you resigned to using hardware to do this? it all depends on the PC you're running, how powerful it is, and how many inputs your sound card has.

I would've thought there'd be plenty of software alternatives. I had to build something not so different for the vocalist in a band I'm in. 4 channels for real time recording and synced looping. made a Reaktor patch which worked well for this type of thing.

there are advantages and disadvantages I guess. With hardware you've got more things to transport, the issue of synching to your computer, and so on. With a software alternative you'll have everything in one box, and access to all your ableton effects, but again latency would be a worry and the strain on your computer as well.

Just thought I'd wave the software flag, there are some great hardware options but software could work out well.

Oh also, surely a Kaoss Pad would be ideal for this. You got four loopers which can be midi synced with seperate gain controls, and all the built in effects.

EDIT: I dunno I guess I'm coming from a completely different perspective of wanting looping as a limitless organic creative tool to play with a different feel, structure etc etc. every time. You can obviously make looping pretty simple and easy if that's all you want.

LOL, I love how clueless the software industry and general musicians are too real deal looping options. You need at least two separate channels to make dynamic structuring smooth and not make it so your basically stuck on a one track road of repeating the same build up and break down trick. Loop feedback auto decay, individual channel volume control, syncing and unsyncing seperate channels, multiple inputs, multiplying and dividing loops etc. etc. all the countless options Mobius has is imperative to actually making looping an exciting limitless tool. The only hardware that can even come close to being nearly as powerful as Mobius is the old Gibson Echoplex or the new rack mount 1400 dollar limited custom build Looperative.

Well have you thought about how mic'ing an acoustic kit is about the hardest thing in the world to consistently make sound good even with using nearly a dozen mics? I would never want to loop an acoustic kit live personally. You've got all this power behind your kit and then you loop it and then you would just hear the sound of an unrefined mix of two SM57? Not exactly seamless.

Not saying your ideas are way to impossible to accomplish but there is a lot to consider and if your not prepared with the right tools and correct progressive mindset to making looping your bitch it will get old real fast.

But basically the only option that makes sense is syncing Mobius to Live, seeming as how there is no hardware unit you will get to sync to software or barely even any other hardware and no software looper is in the same universe. You can set it to do countless on the rails cheat code shit like autorecord the beginning of your bars in Live etc. It's ridiculously powerful, it's fucking bizarre that it has like 666 options and the next shit down the line has like 11 options at the most.

Boss are releasing a new three track looper with FX or maybe you should look at a Kaoss Pad 3 for sampling especialy if you want it MIDI synced to something else as it allows quick triming of the start end points

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39n4wow8fWE

  On 9/16/2011 at 6:35 AM, Blanket Fort Collapse said:

EDIT: I dunno I guess I'm coming from a completely different perspective of wanting looping as a limitless organic creative tool to play with a different feel, structure etc etc. every time. You can obviously make looping pretty simple and easy if that's all you want.

 

LOL, I love how clueless the software industry and general musicians are too real deal looping options. You need at least two separate channels to make dynamic structuring smooth and not make it so your basically stuck on a one track road of repeating the same build up and break down trick. Loop feedback auto decay, individual channel volume control, syncing and unsyncing seperate channels, multiple inputs, multiplying and dividing loops etc. etc. all the countless options Mobius has is imperative to actually making looping an exciting limitless tool. The only hardware that can even come close to being nearly as powerful as Mobius is the old Gibson Echoplex or the new rack mount 1400 dollar limited custom build Looperative.

 

Well have you thought about how mic'ing an acoustic kit is about the hardest thing in the world to consistently make sound good even with using nearly a dozen mics? I would never want to loop an acoustic kit live personally. You've got all this power behind your kit and then you loop it and then you would just hear the sound of an unrefined mix of two SM57? Not exactly seamless.

 

Not saying your ideas are way to impossible to accomplish but there is a lot to consider and if your not prepared with the right tools and correct progressive mindset to making looping your bitch it will get old real fast.

 

But basically the only option that makes sense is syncing Mobius to Live, seeming as how there is no hardware unit you will get to sync to software or barely even any other hardware and no software looper is in the same universe. You can set it to do countless on the rails cheat code shit like autorecord the beginning of your bars in Live etc. It's ridiculously powerful, it's fucking bizarre that it has like 666 options and the next shit down the line has like 11 options at the most.

i see you're way more into making some sort of pro setup than me. i have mic'd drums before i understand that it's not going to sound crisp and solid like a drum machine.

i'm not worried about sound quality, persay, that can be tweaked and adjusted later. i'm looking to get functionality now so that i'll have a better idea of how to upgrade the system later.

kaoss pads look like they will do what i want to do, are they all limited to 3-4 tracks of looping at the same time though? how does one of these look?

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SP404SX/

dunno bout the 444 but the 555 is pretty sweet with the FX and is the first new Roland product to impress me since I don't know when

was looking at the 55 as well, and i don't want to buy a piece of shit, but still $850 is a lot

woah good tip on mobius, Downloading now...