What happens when you combine a laptop, a bass guitar and some Open Source software?

Over the last few years some of the music I’ve made was written on my primary instrument: electric bass guitar. When I look back on the experience of composing, arranging and recording a piece that comes from the bass I feel more satisfied than if I start out on piano or with a sound design of some sort. At the same time I’ve been frustrated with the logistics of managing even just three musicians in my jazz trio. How more simple could things be if the only person I had to worry about was me?

I’ve been following a few solo bassists on Twitter for some time. And my musical hero, Michael Manring, is just that. So I thought I’d look for ways for me to perform solo but still do things lyrically enough to hold an audience. While watching YouTube videos of Michael Manring perform I saw him using some sort of pedal board to use multiple looped samples. I guessed he was using a hardware solution but since my budget is limited I began looking for software solutions.

What I found was SooperLooper, a piece of Open Source software that works as a sampler that can be keyed by either other software or hardware controllers. I also found a community of SooperLooper users who use the Behringer FCB-1010 MIDI foot controller. And by using my M-Audio Firewire 410 interface I can get my bass into SooperLooper, record rhythm, bass and melody lines and queue them when needed after recording them live.

So there it is. Starting this week I’m going to begin composing using my first love, the bass. I’m going to sell my Roland Alpha Juno 1 synthesizer to finance buying a new or used FCB-1010 controller. If you’re interested in purchasing my Roland let me know what you’d like to offer for it. My hope is to have a small collection of my own music before the end of the summer and bring the rig out to a couple of open mic events or open for a local act.

It isn’t that I want to ditch my jazz trio or the format in general. But to do something that’s all me, just me.