2 Boomerang III units or Ableton Live 6 + rack router?

[nashvillesteve]

What do you think? I'm glad they changed the rang 3 design to allow two of them to be used together. That was my original plan.

I have 2 electric guitars, 3 vintage analog synths, a midi keyboard that I use mainly for mellotron vst instrument on my powerbook, a yamaha 88-key weighted keyboard, a 50s german tape echo, an eventide h910, accordion, electric melodica, bullet harmonica mic, acoustic guitars (classical, OM-style and 12 string) and a glockenspiel that I want to work into one crazy looping setup... my guitar pedals are mostly all routed through a custom wobo unit for analog stuff with a couple inputs and outputs to my carmen ghia and amp driving my leslie cabinet (i have a bass amp in repair for the other stuff), a 4-looper from loop-master and a wobo prog-looper (i have about 25 or 30 pedals- oops)...

i was checking out the ableton live 6 site today. they have a bundle of live 6 (which would be good anyway because i lack good recording software) with 10 in/out or 26 in/out rack switchers... i think i could use about any control unit for mixing, controlling the loops and such and parameters from footboards, softknob/fader boards, etc...

I am leaning towards the latter solution, which is a ton more flexible (and a bit more expensive than the 2 boomerang III units), but offers so many options and software I can do anything with (recording, control options, synths, etc)... have i answered my question? is ableton live 6 the way to go for live looping with this many instruments? please don't make fun of my insanity...

[nashvillesteve]

nobody? i'm leaning towards ableton...

[GDking]

nobody? i'm leaning towards ableton...


I wish I knew man. Both solutions sound really interesting and beyond my technical knowledge.. Feel free to elaborate more while you wait for an answer how you would be using the two boomerang units! :D

[buddatron]

The new rangs wont be out for a while, Dec I think.
I don't know, your thing sounds pretty complex, so I would suggest going with the least complex setup. Especially live when you;if your anything like me, will most likely be pretty nervous anyway. why make it harder than it needs to be? I used to have Nine pedals and no pedal board. It was really difficult to hook it all up in the near dark of the stage.the impatient sound guy never makes it any easier. Me am much more smarter now ......
I digerss,....
The rangs, at least the old ones, are in my experience pretty intuitive, and easy to use/figure out.
The software soloution on the other hand,.........lots to learn and not as hit and run.
I was able to figure out what the rang did with out really having to crack the manual.
The boomerang people/guy seems nice and it is a good product.
I vote Boomerang....Whoopeee!!

[nashvillesteve]

Well, I was going to link two of the boomerang units and have one before my guitar amp and leslie amp in stereo and the other for keyboards/acoustic guitars/accordion and stuff before my keyboard/bass amp.

I will probably have to wait for my tax return before I can afford either solution... I would need another WOBO unit (the router-looper) to use my effects with everything... Here's a pic of the custom WOBO unit I made up that they built for me last year:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/stevepolcz/DSC00142.jpg

Here's some of the stuff (my tech and I still have to do a bunch of repair work on the tape echo, harmonizer and the analog synths):
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/stevepolcz/DSC00133.jpg
http://a484.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/124/l_32a1bb1a5b616f03fb09887b954fb3eb.jpg
http://a759.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/111/l_33eff353888ec621d291fb8303c5f04e.jpg

I was looking at the Switchblade rack unit, that might be able to receive commands from Ableton- probably the best solution, albeit pretty pricey.

[GDking]

That looks like a really cool rig man.

I messed around with looping quite a bit and bought a small "cheaper" single foot switch BOSS pedal and it is noisy with my rig when it is off plus I have another guitar player in the band so that is not good motivation either. The Boss pedal clicks when I start looping and makes all kinds of funky noise. I tried it with a "real" BOSS adapter as well as the conditioned power from my pedalboard. I never had a pedal do that before so I brought it back and got another one. The new boss pedal did the same thing. I ended up selling at 1/2 off just to get rid of it. Tried all different known good cables etc etc. Must be some pedal in my lineup it did not play well with. However all my pedals are not negotiable. The pedal still clicked and was very noisy direct into the amp but barely noticeable, would not be noticeable live for sure alone, but on the board with the other pedals it was horrible even last in line.

I got pretty good at starting and stopping the loop in step with the drums. I only dared use it as a live tool and not premade loops as the drummer sometimes starts a little faster or slower depending on his mood, he is a great drummer and its rock solid once we start but sometimes its faster or slower than the loop I recorded that was perfect.

That must be why the drummer uses click tracks with loopers? How do you get the click to the drummer?

I really dig the boomerang I tried with my rig (totally silent) but I want to wait for the new one to come out. Do you think it is going to be released by the december deadline?

I really wish there was a hi fi loop junky that did overdubs and like 2 minutes + of recording. That is all I would really need love the small size and I would only use it as a live tool song to song. I tried the lo fi one as well and it did not sound bad live but the recording time was too short and no overdubbing stinks.

At any rate free bump hope things work out for you.

[nashvillesteve]

Check out the E-H 2880 looper as well. You need a foot controller unit that is extra to use it live, but it's pretty cool as well.