Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 maybe my searching skills aren't as great as i thought they were, or there just isn't much talk about this. who uses a mixer into a looper? what's your setup? how does it all work. what kind of mixer do i need to get? (unpowered or powered, i'm not even sure what that means) i want to get my setup all into my digitech jamman. i want my nord electro, microkorg, mpc, mics, etc all to be able to be looped. and of course i'll get all my other effect pedals in there. i'm recording into my firepod, but i also want to know how to get this setup on stage. i've never played a live show so i'm pretty skeptical on if my equipment will sound good at a music venue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 i'm not going to let this thread die so quickly no one does this? i'm trying to think of some artists who set up like this. dosh (who is in andrew bird's band). i think jamie lidell has a setup like this, i don't really like his much though. i'll try to think of some others. maybe i put this in the wrong forum? i usually get the best info here in the effects forum. and i know a lot of you guys have loopers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lanefair Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 I think any decent mixer would do the job. It's hard to give a more informed answer than that. Just plug all your stuff into the mixer, use the regular stereo outs on it to go into the PA or whatever. Then you could use the aux send on the mixer to send signals to the looper, then feed the looper back into the mixer and use the aux volume to control it. P.s. definitely a powered mixer. Just find one that has enough jack and xlr inputs for your needs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TechBrother Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 Keller Williams uses a setup similar to what you're looking for I think. His stage setup includes multiple acoustic guitars, a bass on a stand, and electric guitar on a stand, a malletkat, midi keyboard, electronic drums and more. He has a 12-24 channel mixer on stage and can loop every instrument as well as vocals. Found this in a review w/ him from http://www.ascap.com/playback/2004/winter/radar-kellerwilliams.html In your live show, you perform using a Lexicon Jam Man that allows you to loop any number of instruments. There would be really no telling how many musicians are on stage without looking. Can you explain how you build a song onstage? There is the delay unit, which goes into my soundboard, which goes into each channel of my soundboard, meaning I can loop anything on stage. I hit the foot pedal, I sing something or play something, and at the right time I hit the same button, and it repeats what I just played. That's the initial loop. I can layer a guitar line, a bass line and a vocal percussion line on top of that, then I could solo or scat over the top. Another button is hit to completely stop it. It's a very basic process that anyone can do, but it just takes a lot of practice and timing. Do you still consider this your "loop phase"? Yeah. It's just too much fun. The live album called Loop is mostly just guitar and bass. Now as each year goes more instruments keep getting added to the stage. The loop phase is still in grand effect. There is always that thought of adding a really good drummer and bass player. But there's also the regression idea of going back to one guitar and one vocal mic. It doesn't give you a lot of details but I'm sure you can find more info on his setup somewhere. FOR ANYWAY WHO HAS NEVER HEARD KELLER WILLIAMS,THIS MAN IS A MUSICAL GENIUS. SURE TO BLOW YOUR MIND! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members simeon Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 i use a rack mixer, but any decent mixer with a couple of aux sends should be able to do the job. just remeber that anything in the aux loop of the mixer should be set to 100% wet (no dry signal passing through) otherwise you might get feedback and/or phasing i run my 3 loopers in parallel (set to wet only) with all my main fx in front and two processors post loopers for loop mangling here's a pic of how it's all wired together... the MPX-1 is in the aux outputs of the looperlative (i can choose to run the loop output through it) and the kaoss pad is in the aux send of the mixer, so i can apply it to anything. i'm thinking about moving it to the aux outputs of the repeater, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 heh, like keller williams reality i'm checking out his music now, but yeah, that's the kind of setup i want i think. i'll look for more information on his equipment so, a powered mixer. i hope to get something for a decent price, maybe behringer? here's some cool looping stuff by Dosh. in the 2nd video i think he messes with a boss delay pedal to get that glitchy sound on his drums. pretty cool stuff. thanks for the responses so far, i love it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 i use a rack mixer, but any decent mixer with a couple of aux sends should be able to do the job. just remeber that anything in the aux loop of the mixer should be set to 100% wet (no dry signal passing through) otherwise you might get feedback and/or phasing i run my 3 loopers in parallel (set to wet only) with all my main fx in front and two processors post loopers for loop mangling here's a pic of how it's all wired together... the MPX-1 is in the aux outputs of the looperlative (i can choose to run the loop output through it) and the kaoss pad is in the aux send of the mixer, so i can apply it to anything. i'm thinking about moving it to the aux outputs of the repeater, though. thanks for the response, simeon. looks interesting, but i'm not really following. could you label some of the equipment? maybe i'm just not following because i haven't really worked with any rack equipment other than my firepod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members simeon Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 ok, sure guitar and stompboxes go into the preamp, then into the g-force and the eclipse fx processors. from there it goes into a splitter and the main signal goes straight into the behringer rack mixer the split signal goes into the TC delay, the Looperlative and the Repeater - so they're all running in parallel the signal from those three is then passed to separate channels on the mixer there are two more processors involved - the lexicon mpx-1 is attached to the looperlative and has it's own channel in the mixer and the kaoss pad is in the aux send of the mixer and comes back on another channel really, the crux of it is - i'm using a splitter to give me 4 separate signal paths, so that i can run loops independent of each other (the loopers don't feed each other) and these 4 paths are remixed with the rack mixer hope that helps sim edit: i did have a page where all the stuff was labelled if you hovered over it with the mouse, but i can't find it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 that's a cool setup. i had to check out what some of that stuff was. do you have any videos of live performances or any videos of how you use your equipment? this definitely gives me ideas on what i could do though. another question, why do you use the three loopers? what options do you get out of this. i don't think they can be synced up, i could be wrong though. i'm interested because i have also have a dl-4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members simeon Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 that's a cool setup. i had to check out what some of that stuff was. do you have any videos of live performances or any videos of how you use your equipment? this definitely gives me ideas on what i could do though. another question, why do you use the three loopers? what options do you get out of this. i don't think they can be synced up, i could be wrong though. i'm interested because i have also have a dl-4 no vids at the moment sorry the loopers can be synced via midi clock, if i want them to be... i tend to use the D2 for rhythmic delays on infinite feedback, but it's also good for grabbing a section of audio and have it repeat to fade with a bit of filtering on it. the looperlative is essentially 8 stereo loopers in one box and it may bump the repeater out of my rack (which is actually 4 mono loopers or two stereo loopers in one box). the repeater is great at timestretching stuff and can store loops on a cfc card though, which is why it's still in my rack so really i have 11 stereo loopers (12 if you count the kaoss pad) - that's not overkill is it? edit: the advantage to having lots of stereo loops running in parallel, rather than just overdubbing stuff in layers, is that i can control each part independently - reverse, pitch shift, process etc - which you can't do only using one looper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members red_riviera Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 At the other end of the complexity scale, there is a youtube video of KT Tunstall demonstrating the Akai Headrush (I can't link it right now, as I can't get youtube at work). She uses a Boss LS-2 to switch between vox / gtr, but the LS-2 has three inputs, so you could patch a keyboard or something else in as well. Minimalist looping rig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 13, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 ok, i'm starting to understand what you do now that i'm reading up on everything on your website. i'm getting some ideas from it, but still, this might be a lot different than what i'm going to need to do since i'll be using multiple instruments instead of multiple loopers. few more things i need to figure out: preamps- i need preamps for my microkorg and the nord keyboard i'm thinking?powered/unpowered- i'm still not really sure what the difference is and which i needaux sends- how do these work? does all of the audio go out or just certain channels? it might be cool to put my dl-4 here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fiery Furnace Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 You need an unpowered mixer, not a powered mixer. A powered mixer generally refers to those Peavey head-style PAs with low power that have a built in power amp. Like the kind you'd use in a jam space. You just want a regular live sound mixer with aux sends, like this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fiery Furnace Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 Aux sends - every channel has an aux send, by turning up the aux send on a channel you send more of that channel's signal to an aux effect (ie, the looper). The output of the looper is taken back into the mixer via aux returns, which are routed, depending on the mixer, to the main mix, a channel, an aux out, a headphone send, etc. The above Mackie has 2 aux's. Aux's come in pre and post flavours, sometimes switchable. Pre means prefader, ie, before the main volume slider, so that you can turn down a channel and still have it routed to the aux. This is usually used for monitors. Post is used for effects, when you turn down the channel, you turn down the send as well.The mackie above has one of each, all though I think aux1 is switchable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpectralJulian Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 What I'd do is I'd take a stereo unpowered mixer and hook it up into a 2880. I'd take line signals from the bass and guitar, and try to get an aux signal from the powered mixer for vocals. Having a few microphones for different things would come in hand though. Have the mixer go into stereo into the 2880, and then send the 2880 stereo outs to two separate PA channels and hard pan them left and right. That would be an awesome set up. Unless you have your own PA set up you use at every show, I'd suggest you bring some mics, because the house PA might not always have enough Aux sends for your purposes. Also, you want to have your own mixer so you can mute the things you don't want to loop and do levels and stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fiery Furnace Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 Generally, SpectralJulian, looping artists would have their whole setup with mixer on stage, and just send a line/stereo out to the main PA. Relying on the House PA's aux sends could be a recipe for disaster! Lanefair had it right up until the powered/unpower mixer confusion. I think he might have been thinking about passive mixers, like these: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members red_riviera Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-RM3IAZ9_s[/YOUTUBE] KT Tunstall's demo - Boss LS-2 ---> Akai Headrush Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Fiery Furnace Posted February 13, 2008 Members Share Posted February 13, 2008 KT Tunstall's demo - Boss LS-2 ---> Akai Headrush fix'd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpectralJulian Posted February 14, 2008 Members Share Posted February 14, 2008 Generally, SpectralJulian, looping artists would have their whole setup with mixer on stage, and just send a line/stereo out to the main PA. Relying on the House PA's aux sends could be a recipe for disaster! Lanefair had it right up until the powered/unpower mixer confusion. I think he might have been thinking about passive mixers, like these: I guess the real terminology should be passive/active/powered Passive = very basic, probably sucks a little bit of tone, no powering, so no pre-amps or anything Active- Pre-amps and other features Powered- Sends large signals to speakers, pretty much a built in amplifier. I agree relying on a PA probably isn't a good idea. But it also depends on your band setup. I'm also thinking more of looping as being a non instrumentalist who just samples what the band is playing than manipulates it and does stuff to it, so that you'd still want clean unaffected loop stuff in the PA. It all depends on the situation. Maybe you just want a mixer to be able to loop vocals and guitar, in which case you'd probably like some sort of AB/Y pedal with a blended setting and a mic preamp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 14, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 14, 2008 spectraljulian is all over the place, i love it. anyways, thanks for all the tips guys, i've learned a lot i didn't understand the whole aux send thing before, but i realized i could put my effects there so i could use all my effects for all my instruments. right now i'm not sure if i should go for a mixer with two aux sends for more options, but for now i'm thinking about the possibilities for just one. microkorg/electro 2/mic 1/mic 2/mpc1000 > (behringer?) mixer > digitech jamman > p.a. (or firepod > laptop for recording) aux send > boss oc-3 > line 6 fm-4 > dano fab metal > behringer slowmotion > behr digital delay > behr mutli-effects (for tremolo, need to replace) > ehx stereo pulsar tremolo > ehx holy stain > dano eq > ehx flanger hoax > boss rv-3 > boss ps-2 > behr vibrato > line 6 dl-4 will this work? any suggestions on how to make this sound good or any other ideas would be great also, now i need to look for a mixer... i probably want to spend less than 200 edit: i'm going to get a mixer with enough inputs to expand later. eventually if i ever have money i'll want to incorporate guitar into this, considering that's probably the only instrument i'm decent at. i just don't really want to haul around my amp for solo performances, i have enough stuff already, so i'll probably go into the rack direction eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rocket34bg Posted February 17, 2008 Author Members Share Posted February 17, 2008 does anyone have any recommendations for for mixers, i'm willing to pay up to 300 us now, and i'm not sure about behringer. i want something with enough inputs and aux sends, good sound, effects aren't really necessary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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