Hi Adam
Good idea for a thread - the way other people use gear can influence our practice.
I have written about 200 voices all of which are quadraphonic and very flexible (two stereo volume pedals and two expression pedals + mod wheel and sliders) so I too found the playlist function to be very useful as I am not familiar with which voice is which.
Last Year I took Cassandra (my P12) on a ‘Pilgrimage’ playing in ancient churches along the Pilgrims route from Bangor Cathedral to Bardsey Island (Ynys Enlli). There is no electric on Bardsey and a dodgy sea crossing so I started at Aberdaron and worked my way back to Bangor over 7 performances spread over 3 months. Each live (Improvised) performance became the backing track for the following performance and so the music changed radically along the way. I used a ‘time based’ score so I would know when to expect key changes, but I didn’t rehearse it between performances.
I have been using Cassandra in Quad (2 stereo outs A and B into 2 stereo volume pedals with L and R options from panning to expression controls) so I was able to fill these extraordinary spaces with sound that varied with ones position in the church/cathedral. Sometimes the music was melodic and/or harmonic and sometimes I would use a more noise based approach. The Prophets expression controls enabled me to respond expressively and instantly to whatever occurred on the backing track, and the process worked so well that I am now mixing unrelated performances together and have found that they fit each other exactly creating new ‘works’ from the existing material.
For me, the only disappointment was that I failed to get any funding and could not afford to make microphone recordings - my recordings are straight from the multitrack and do not include the unique acoustics.
My multitrack/Quad tip is to use (if you have them) 2 ‘effect send’ channels alongside the main L and R outputs on an old Multitrack recorder, but since there is no standard Quad CD format. . . .
So, a great time was had by all ; well, me anyway and maybe the audience when there was one (3 churches were empty at 2pm on a weekday) This is not my usual musical practice - I don’t have one - I think I will be doing polyrhythmic dance music next.
(These tracks are both 52 mins long)
A straight recording from St Beunos in Clynnog Fawr (with backing track from St Aelhaerns)
https://soundcloud.com/andy-15-3/01-st-beunos-clynnog-fawrA remix of St Aelhaerns (Llanaelhaern) with a live performance from St Marys (Felinheli)
https://soundcloud.com/andy-15-3/01-mary-to-aelhaern