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Bridging Practices: The Power of the Pedal Board

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Taking my experiments in improvisation further, I have come to incorporate a loop pedal as an instrument in my set up.

As seen in the image above, there has been more of a focus on using the turntable as an instrument as opposed to my classical instruments, although I am still incorporating them within my experiments. The turntable is the instrument I am most confident in, and therefore is easier to manipulate in a setting where the loop pedal is involved, as the loop pedal requires a presicion of timing.

It is important to incorporate the turntable for conceptual reasoning: this is an instrument that signifies the world and humanity’s relationship with technology, which is where my interest in writing lies at the moment. The turntable is an analogue instrument, relying on electricity, power to be utilised. In this sense it is highly technological, and its invention in the nineteenth century was a key point in the development of humanity’s understanding of technology. Being analogue, it howevever is also very easy to humanly manipulate.

The loop pedal is an intersting device, as not only does it allow the user to record, store, and build on ideas, it fascillitates tempo manipulation, as seen in the video above. This meant that I was able to record at much lower tempos to have more control when playing in basslines and creating the loop of the breaks.

The loop pedal is a great way for me to build a live set where I can build on sounds to create a whole piece of music, as opposed to improvising on one instrument, where I cannot build and creat a whole piece of music.

The granular pedal was an addition to the set up that allowed for variation and more experimental qualities to be added to my performance experiments.

Click image for full video of experiment using BOSS loop station, turntable and live instrumentation.

As seen in the video, the performance piece I am planning uses existing drum and bass records to build on breaks to create my own sounds. However, as I am still experimenting, it trakes a while for the track to build; this could be boresome to an audience and may not translate well in a live setting. There was also complications in incorporating the double bass- in the clip, you can see it fall over. In a live setting, not only would a double bass be impractical to transport to venues, but it may fall over as did in the above practice session. In addition, due to the nature of the double bass being an accoustic instrument, when recording a bassline to add o the piece, it picks up on the sound of the room. This could be combatted by using a contact microphone. In later experiements, I used my housemate’s bass guitar instead, as it could be connected directly to the loop pedal to construct clear basslines undisrupted by the sound of the room. The bass guitar is also smaller, and strapped around my body so as to avoid any damage to the instrument.

Although I heavily enjoyed the process layed out in the above video, the performance so far is still very situated in the realm of UK dance music, and not the art world. To make the performance more experimental, I would like to deviate from the drum and bass DJ style set that the performance currently feels it has. To do this, I am going to start the performance with elements other than percussion, and sample records which aren’t drum and bass. I would love to sample my own soundscapes and percussion textures, however the costs involved with pressing vinyl can be high, and the time to get the pressings back may not coincide with the deadlines of the unit. Nevertheless, it is something I will research to expand the scope of this piece.

Documentation of Creative Project:

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Before actually conducting the performance I had planned, I decided it was important to even experiment with using multiple mediums at once. I connected one turntable and my laptop (with Logic open) to my mixer. I decided to use each channel as though I was mixing in a DJ setting in terms of EQing and volume levels, and blending into each channel. However, I did not adopt constraints of timing and using tracks of the same genre, or even tracks at all at some points, that there would be within DJing.

I begun my experiment by playing this vinyl I bought in El Salvador a couple months back. This was to signify that the work is about my heritage, a mark of my own sonic mapping. I have Vestax PDX-2300 turntables, which means that I can manipulate the vinyl to slow down and speed up in very large amounts, as well as reverse tracks. I decided to use these functions to manipulate the sound of the vinyl from El Salvador.

I started off by playing with the pitch functions, and then reversing the record where there was a drone-like loop. I thought about how I could apply this as a technique when producing music, as a sort of “live chopping” technique when sampling. I then played with this idea of live chopping, thinking about how I could incorporate splices from other tracks to sample. Using Maria Chavez’s techniques in abstract turntablism, I used my cracked vinyl to add variation of samples used on the one turntable. I then added a second instrument, my laptop, with Logic open, to trigger samples from tracks I created. It was difficult to do so without having pre-organised a set of samples or loading them onto a sampler, I was just attemppting to work with raw audio. I found it was easier to play synthesisers I had created, as there was less ryhthmic clashing, and I had more control over what was being played. I added a third instrument, flute. I thought whilst experimenting, it would be easier to use than a saxophone because it is quieter.

DOCUMENTAATION OF EXPERIMENTATION.

This video displays a “rough sketch” of what my performance would look like. To improve, I will pre-load synths in one project in logic so that I can access them more easily, and switch between them with ease. I thought about how my saxophone is broken, and this is a big reasoning as to why I am reluctant to use it. I then thought about the use of broken vinyl, and how the rhythms of the different elements clashed with each other. The idea of incorporating the broken saxophone then adds to the aesthetic of the work, and allows me to conceptualise it.