Loopers, Midi Controler, And Switcher

[upperlines]

Hey all!

We (Upper Lines) are thinking about playing our tracks live.

I'm the guitarist and i need some effects to be able to play all guitar parts. If you take a look at our songs, you'll see that there are often 2 or 3 guitars in the same time, but not on all of the song. It's just superpositions of guitars on some parts. Moreover we have also many little sounds at the background, who creates some ambiances.

So we intend to play our tracks with the most fidelity, like what we done for recordings.

So i need to :

- be able to switch between my electric and my electroacoustic without plugging each guitar during performing (and i just want to use one amp)

- be able to loop guitar parts ( which looper? Boss RC-3, Boss RC-30...?)

- be able to send midi signal to Apple Mainstage, to play synths sounds programmed. (it would be great if i could do that with a midi pedal).

So i ask you to give me advices about the gear i could use, or others technics.

I wish someone uses suff like that to give me his opinion.

I'll take everything you'll tell.

Thanks for helping.

Seb.

[TapperMike]

Hi, Loopers like rc.s are only good if that was the way you originally recorded the music that way.

Re just want to use one amp.....

Most acoustic performers I know send acoustic guitars via the pa/power mixer. You will most likely need a pa anyway. Don't know what type of amp you have. Some have flat in's for acoustic. honestly live sound is not studio sound you can usually get away with running your piezo thru your amp on a clean setting boost the treble/presence if you feel you really need it. Some amps are designed for three way acoustic, electric clean, high gain. They are expensive.

Re send midi

From a guitar? You do know that guitars are not midi instruments. You would have to go the roland GK, GR route and while I was a roland midi fanboy for many a year it was only because there was nothing better. Midi out from a GR unit is crap. don't take my word for it bring your lappy into a guitar store and ask to test the gr55 midi out.

I think you might want to consider thinking about what you can do with what you have before thinking about what you could do with what you don't have.

Mike

[john]

First issue of multiple guitars and one amp look at this:

http://www.glab.com.pl/lms-1_en

or you could use 2 channels on the same amp if you have a two channel amp, with a simple footswitch to select channel, make one channel your electric the other your acoustic.

The good thing about the linked one is that you could control it from a sequencer. Using a sequencer would require your drummer to play to a click live.

Using a sequencer you could do live loops using a midi foot controller surface to prime tracks for loops etc and then to control playback, you could easily rig it so that the sequencer does much of the work. environmental sounds could also easily be triggered using a sequencer

You could go down the route of a single channel amp but use an FX unit with inbuilt amp simulators, for example a Boss GT-100. I think you could do it with a GT-10, which is cheaper but you should confirm that in your local shop. You could use the guitar input selector (first link in post) with the GT-100 and a sequencer (hardware or software) Let the sequencer control your GT-100 and the guitar/amp switcher and your Apple Mainstage.

Loops, the GT-10 and GT-100 do support loops but certainly on the GT-10 it's pretty basic. You can however connect a loopstation for better functionality.

Not a cheap set up either way, but it does give you a very versatile and quality set up.

So...

Audio Chains

Guitars -> GLabs line midi switcher-> GT-10/GT-100 -> amp -> PA (optional depending on venue)

Apple Mainstage -> PA

Midi Chains

sequencer -> GLabs

sequencer -> GT-10/GT-100

sequencer -> Apple Mainstage

Now you could run the sequencer on the Apple, or another laptop (PC/Mac) or a hardware sequencer. The PC option would work fine as any PC audio glitches are audio only, not midi.

if you are restricted midi wise you could set up a star network using an external midi port (cakewalk make a good one) or a daisy chain.

food for thought

[upperlines]

Thanks both for advices.

I am going to check some stuff this afternoon.

Seb