Returning to the Live Looping Scene...

I'd been at university studying nursing for 4 years. During that time I'd tried not to allow my interest in live music distract me too much. This proved quite difficult. Within 5 months of being at university I had helped organise a music festival, a second was organised in the same year. As time went by I became more involved and set up musician's jam nights in the centre of York city.

 The festivals grew and so did the responsibility. Through attempting to distance myself from playing music to concentrate on saving lives, I found myself organising music events instead of playing them... well, sometimes I would play at them. I also found as I attempted to drag myself out of the rock and metal scene, I fell straight into the electronic scene. Drum and Bass, dubstep, techno, deep house. I'd realised the sexiness of house music and well produced electro.This would prove to massively influence my original material later.

In these years of study I also found myself distracted by a couple of characters on youtube. Dub FX and Beardyman. The RC-50 was out and being used to it's full potential. Beardyman was also using chaos pads that blew my mind when I first saw them being used. Someone was using the loopstation in the way I had imagined! It was possible, this guy Dub FX was doing it in the streets!

I also wanted to get my hands on the BOSS GT-10B. This is what Dub FX uses to make all his tasty bass sounds and delay/reverb voice effects. I'd played around with the RC-2 so I had a good idea of what the RC-50 was capable of having multiple loop tracks but the GT-10B bass processor was new to me and I couldn't wait to get one!

By spring 2014 I'd finished my studies and landed myself in a chaotic but exiting job in A&E. I was organising music festivals still and ran a weekly jam night, but I wanted to get back into performing. My drums had taken a beating at the pub I held the jam night at. Skins smashed, bolts missing... Each week I went back and more damage was done. It was depressing. I couldn't find the energy to save my much loved drum kit. They'd taken a decade of beatings but drumming in itself wasn't as exciting as it had once been. I wanted to try something new, something I'd been thinking about for years. I had a secure job now, I'd worked hard for the past few years, I felt I deserved a reward for my slog through university. So with my first pay packet I did just that. I bought the latest of the loopstation series, the RC-505

It didn't take much working out. The day it arrived I plugged it straight it and started attempting covers of songs. I tried classic tracks like'Voices inside my head' by the police and new house music like 'Jasmine' by Jai Paul. Anything seems possible.

I plugged the RC-505 into a roland cube I'd bought a few of months earlier. I'd bought the cube because I wanted a decent speaker that was battery powered to take to BBQ's by the river or camping at festivals. It works quite well with the loopstation but lacks the bass.

Obviously I needed a decent microphone. I called a friend at a music shop and asked what microphones he had in stock and what he could recommend. He said the best mic they had in was an AKG WMS45 perception mic. Now here is when I made one of my first big errors. The AKG WMS45 is a wireless mic. 

There are pro's and cons with a wireless mic:

Pro's:

• No cable getting between you and the loopstation
• On-mic gain adjuster
• More freedom to move around a venue to sound check

Cons:

• Probably not the most robust mic
• probably not all that good for beatboxing
• needs power supply for reciever
• needs batteries
• potential loss of signal or battery power during performance

It doesn't cause me many problems but if I wanted to perform outdoors like Dub FX, I have to now cater for more power consumption. On two occasions I've performed in a venue and the battery has died resulting in me using the plug in mic that was offered to me in the first place. I know what you're thinking and yes it's my own fault that I didn't use fresh batteries before a performance, but the fact remains that it's something else you need to worry about. My advice... GET A PLUG IN MIC.

I now had a basic set up. Mic, loopstation and speaker. Here's a video of me using the loopstation that first week. The track is 'Jasmine' by Jai Paul. Rough but please forgive me, I'd only just got my hands on the thing.

Don't worry I've made some progress since then.