Introduction -- Live looping in SF

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green witch
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Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by green witch »

Hi All! I'm new here, and just getting started making music with Linux. What a great time to get involved! I do server administration, and have a hobby habit of taking macs or pcs that are about 10 years old and turning them into awesome linux machines for friends and kids. I've been a pro musician since the early 80s. I usually keep a day job around so that music will be free of commercial constraints, therefore I'm an amateur in the best sense as well. But I did have the good luck to play gypsy swing music during a time when it was all the rage, and quit day jobs for about 10 years.

Live looping laptop

A few months ago I took a 2013 macbook pro and installed Ubuntu Studio 22.04 jammy just to see how it would go. During the pandemic I had been using jack2 and jacktrip to rehearse with a bandmate, so I had gotten a bit of comfort level with those on a mac and raspberry pi. It was a completely joyful experience for me to see how far this has come in OOTB useability. For though I love to tinker, I love playing music more! I'll write more about my music practice below. Here I'll just list some current LM topics so the reader can skip to what they need or love:

MAudio MTrack Duo (2ch usb interface)

Works great out-of-the-box with US 22.04 jammy, I've had literally zero issues. Running jack at 48k with a 128 sample buffer, at 3 frames. I monitor direct on the MAudio for live drums. I usually put the sound in the speakers for the rest of the performing/overdubbing process. I have to get an interface with more channels, and I don't think I would do a lot of studio production with this, but this setup is reliable enough to take onstage where the sampling rate is not a meaningful limitation.

Sooperlooper

I had made several passes at using SL, but never 'got it' until last Fall. I remember thinking WTH there's no stop button. This season I was motivated to have multitrack looping, and after reading about the history of Echoplex and some other great resources I finally saw the light! On the subject of stop button, essej makes a great comment in the docs about having at least 3 ways to stop depending on what you need. I use a footswitch to start/stop recording, and then have pad triggers assigned to overdub/multiply etc, as well as mute/unmute separate tracks. You go into MIDI mappings, use learn and stuff just works!

Carla

I can't believe the level of polish and functionality that has gone into this software. It's a full fledged rack/patchbay/host. I have my laptop run a little startup script to wait for jack engine to start, then start SL and open the studio controls. The first thing I do is open carla and load a configuration file. Stuff just works! I let my little Akai MPK Mini be the pad and knob controller for SL, I usually put a big beautiful VU meter in between SL and the main outputs. I run the system inputs through tiny gate modules on their way to SL. That way I can have a drum mic (dynamic), guitar amp and electric bass all plugged in and not humming on each other's tracks. I'm working on some nice signal chains for live performance using dragonfly reverb, ZamGrains, multi-tap tape delay! So many things! One thing I would like to see is flexible bars/beats in the carla host time. I do a lot of stuff in crazy time signatures, but my workflows aren't usually built around machine time.

Audacity

Again, just works. Sometimes I need to make a record of the sounds as a stereo file. Open Audacity. Route the outputs into it with carla. Press record. Chop the heads and tails & I like to normalize (to -1 or -2 peaks) because usually my sketches have a bit of headroom.

Cardinal

So apparently there's a lot of people buying eurorack modules and getting deep into this stuff, who knew! I found out there's a modular store in my neighborhood! But I don't have thousands of dollars laying around. I checked it out, I think it's beautiful. For what I want to do I am so grateful for developers who put time into open source modules and for all the work falktx put into cardinal. All I can say is I have a lot to learn. See below about subtractive synthesis. Despite the glamour and cachet of hardware, I'm really glad I can experiment in software. I'm mostly looking toward modular for signal processing as opposed to sequencer or keyboard driven methods.

Performing

I'm going to live loop in front of people for the first time this Spring. It just has to happen. I'm working really hard on the workflow, and planning the tunes to perform. I'm going for a pretty organic sound: West African drums, usually built around a reference bell, then dubbing guitar and bass interchangeably, and then taking up live drums for certain jam sections. It's fun but challenging to arrange the build up in an engaging way. I've seen people who are really good at the multi-instrument layering, like Keller Williams, or Jacob Collier. One of my major guiding lights has been the pure improv looping group out of Seattle, called Radio Chongching (or Chongqing). They were chaining together Lexicon Jam Man boxes and playing unplanned music beautifully. And I get it about modern ambient music, that how it is processed can be as important as what is played. That's the territory I want to be in, but also I have to be myself. I come up with intricate interlocking parts and I spend a lot of time crafting how they will fit together.

Music practice

Ancient history

When I was a teenager, we used garages and guitar amps. My friends and I started an eclectic rock band, some of us were into jimi hendrix, some into lynrd skynrd, others into heart and black sabbath, the b-52s or zappa, and yet others into local punk bands like oily bloodmen, neoboys, and fred & tootie. We just put it all together, playing each instrument in turn and making up silly/fluffy/political/satirical/dark/melodic/heavy songs. We had gigs opening for serious bands made up of people just a few years older than us. I came into adulthood (turned 21) having some years experience playing in bars, at the time I was in a popular local band where I played standup tom-toms and octapad while starting/stopping a stack of sequencer, drum machine, and keyboards with a foot trigger. We had techno-tribal beats, three female singers, big hair, a band leader 20 years older than the rest of us, a heavy metal guitarist, a sax player, a german guy who became our financial sponsor, a record deal exploitative contract that fell apart, etc etc.

Recent history

I play drums in traditional West African dance classes. But also in recent years I connected with a singer who writes devotional material to the deities of the African diaspora, Orishas. We have been building a bridge between dundun and djembe rhythms and rock band instrumentation. Our newest incarnation involves live looping as well, using the aforementioned laptop.

Subtractive synthesis

I've dabbled in subtractive synthesis since the 1980s. My friend had a synthesizer from radio shack. It was branded realistic but it was a moog. Later someone loaned me a mini-moog for the coop studio I was running, and I used it on some radio sound design work. I remember tuning the oscillators for each group of +/- about five half steps where I would play a part. Range any further and it would be too out of tune. Write another part, tune for that range and overdub again. Lately I've gone so much deeper by choosing the oscillator, filter, VCA, etc. and patching them together while watching videos or reading about how sounds are made. It's tuning my ears as well, where the particular timbres of synth music are becoming more distinguishable.

Contribute?!

I hope I can answer questions, although we'll see how that goes, 'cause I mostly just know how to create/solve my own problems. I'm also hoping to document some things. I'm available if anyone wants a proofreader or collaborator for guides. My second biggest hope is that I can learn enough about usb drivers to get more interfaces supported. My biggest hope is that I can write some custom modules myself, but there's a lot to learn and only so much time.

tseaver
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Re: Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by tseaver »

Welcome aboard! Enjoyed the listen to your Dununba Village track.

Ubuntu, Mixbus32C; acoustic blues / country / jazz
novalix
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Re: Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by novalix »

Hi,
nice introduction!
Am i guessing right that

green witch wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 10:26 pm

fred & tootie

corresponds to the heart and soul of rock and roll, the Cole family?

green witch
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Re: Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by green witch »

tseaver wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 2:45 am

Welcome aboard! Enjoyed the listen to your Dununba Village track.

Thank you for listening. And thanks for the warm welcome.

green witch
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Re: Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by green witch »

novalix wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:50 pm

Hi,
nice introduction!
Am i guessing right that

green witch wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 10:26 pm

fred & tootie

corresponds to the heart and soul of rock and roll, the Cole family?

Thank you for reading! And I'm so glad somebody caught that reference! We used to buy strings and picks and sticks from their store "Captain Whizeagles".

Plug&Play
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Re: Introduction -- Live looping in SF

Post by Plug&Play »

Santa Cruz is the epicenter of the international https://www.y2kloopfest.com/about/, in 2023 it was in November.
The founder is very well versed in African Music https://localwiki.org/santacruz/Rick_Walker


Rob

Music Music Music !
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