Wear midi controllers in your hair

July 1, 2019 9:54 PM

Solo artist Elise Trouw plays every instrument in live loop mashups. Foo Fighters Meets 70's Bobby Caldwell. Radiohead Meets The Police.
posted by adept256 (14 comments total)

Amazing. I have wondered how far loop pedals could be pushed to do live editing. This is truly virtuoso level.
posted by bitslayer at 5:37 AM on July 2, 2019

I'm intrigued by these. The videos all say they are recorded live, so I assume someone else is operating the looping mechanism. The instruments are all too far apart for there to be a single loop pedal, and you don't see her do anything specific when instruments drop out and come back in.

This is not a criticism - I'm just intrigued and trying to figure out how it's done.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:05 AM on July 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure she's using Live with some plugin or Max For Live device that allows scripted punch-in and punch-out points across multiple tracks. I'm also sure that the vocals on the videos linked above were re-recorded after the fact. You can't get that intimate breathy sounds so far from the mic.

But! Here's a live video of the Foo Fighters track where it is all happening for real, and she's amazing.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:07 AM on July 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

Looping is perhaps done by Ableton Live or similar software, which, I think, could be programmed to respond to a new input source
posted by thelonius at 7:08 AM on July 2, 2019

Oh wow. Clearly I have no idea how any of this works. ;)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:11 AM on July 2, 2019

Oh, I don't either - just speculating - I know that people do loop with software
posted by thelonius at 7:23 AM on July 2, 2019

The description of the video gives technical notes. Says, ‘Live looping triggered through Ableton Live using the internal IAC MIDI driver.‘
posted by barrett caulk at 7:39 AM on July 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

One person commented:

Easy to figure out how Elise is managing the loops. She controls them with a switch in her hair.

Eloise replied:

hahaha you figured it out

I don't think she's idly joking with a youtube commenter, because that's insane. She touches her hair a lot, and at critical points. Pretty clever. Either that or foot pedals.

She lists her equipment:

Instruments:
Vintage Pearl drum kit
Pearl Jupiter snare
Paiste 14" Dark Energy Hi-Hat
Paiste 22” Big Beat Ride
Regal Tip Jazz Series Sticks
Taylor T5z
Fender Mustang Bass
Korg SV-1

Recording: Neumann M147
QSC TouchMix 30 Pro
Empirical Labs Distressor
UAD plugins
Sennhesier EW 300 IEM
Audix drum mics
posted by adept256 at 7:40 AM on July 2, 2019

Having looked at the live video, she's not playing with her hair. Maybe she's a witch.
posted by adept256 at 7:46 AM on July 2, 2019

The description of the video gives technical notes. Says, ‘Live looping triggered through Ableton Live using the internal IAC MIDI driver.‘

Very cool.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:46 AM on July 2, 2019

Live looping triggered through Ableton Live using the internal IAC MIDI driver.
'
Thanks! Googling to find out what an IAC driver is ("Inter-Application Communication") leads to this video , which discusses 3 ways to do this.
posted by thelonius at 7:56 AM on July 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

Beardyman seems to enjoy himself more, though.
posted by Devonian at 11:04 AM on July 2, 2019 [2 favorites]

thelonius: “this video , which discusses 3 ways to do this.”

I knew that was going to be my man loopop. It's really a pretty neat trick. This inspires me to try and set this up with my own gear.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:01 PM on July 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's fun to watch when Metafilter receives a post with something so clearly amazing but it takes about 8 hours for anyone to think up anything beyond holy crap UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG.
posted by anarch at 11:32 PM on July 11, 2019