Looper's Lookout: Towards A Grand Unified Theory Of Looping

[la szum]

If you see someone using a looper get 'em!!

Haha! Just kidding.

As a long time looper user I thought it would be cool have a dedicated Looper Thread,
a place where we could share tips, motivation, clips, innuendo, opinions, reviews, and all
other kinds of Looper-centric content.

Personally, I use a looper at home, because I don't have a band here all the time, and I am
too damn lonely to play alone. It's also hella fun!

It takes some time, in my experience, to develop looper chops (still working on it). That is
mostly related to being able to play and/or sing, while also tapping in and out of time with
your feet to engage/disengage loops. I suggest chewing gum and riding a bicycle as a decent
form of initial practice.

I use a dedicated Vocal looper, too.... and then shudder when I hear it play my own voice
back at me. How dare you!!!

Anyways, we'll see if this has any legs. I hope so, because loopers can be a great tool to use for
us dudes who are often home playing by ourselves even if we have a band outside the house we
play with.

Loop There It Is!

 

[maguchi]

If you see someone using a looper get 'em!!

Haha! Just kidding.

As a long time looper user I thought it would be cool have a dedicated Looper Thread,
a place where we could share tips, motivation, clips, innuendo, opinions, reviews, and all
other kinds of Looper-centric content.

Personally, I use a looper at home, because I don't have a band here all the time, and I am
too damn lonely to play alone. It's also hella fun!

It takes some time, in my experience, to develop looper chops (still working on it). That is
mostly related to being able to play and/or sing, while also tapping in and out of time with
your feet to engage/disengage loops. I suggest chewing gum and riding a bicycle as a decent
form of initial practice.

I use a dedicated Vocal looper, too.... and then shudder when I hear it play my own voice
back at me. How dare you!!!

Anyways, we'll see if this has any legs. I hope so, because loopers can be a great tool to use for
us dudes who are often home playing by ourselves even if we have a band outside the house we
play with.

Loop There It Is!

Sometimes I use a looper for live performance as I couln't really use a laptop or tablet live. So I settled on the pedal format and have used the Boss RC-1 and RC-3 with decent results. The sound is fine but using it during live performance can be tricky. If I rehearse playing guitar with the looper pedals at home and practice the timing of stepping on the pedal to start and stop the looper and bring the loop(s) in and out it works good.

Depending on which looper you use, some have enough memory to do a complete loop from start to finish for several entire songs, essentially a backing track but played into the looper by me. So the backing track is recorded in time from start to finish, and there is no repeating hiccup from a timing mishap.

Also some of the current loopers can save many loops. The Boss RC-3 for example can save 99 loops for a total of 3 hours in stereo. If I'm going to use a looper in live performance, I'll arrange the pieces with a little one bar live riff or strum by me and practice to make sure to step on the looper on exactly the right beat. Even if I miss it by a millisecond as long as I can hear the loop I will play in time with it and use it as a sort of metronome. If I'm playing with other people, they know it is crucial to listen to the loop for timing.

I usually work out parts in my head (sometimes on paper) that I think will work with each other. Then try them one part at a time to see if they sound musical on their own. Then I will play the individual parts into my DAW (Logic Pro X 10.5) one at a time. I will listen back to all the parts playing at the same time, 2 guitars, or 1 guitar and keyboard, bass and drums. I will listen for notes that would sound better changed or removed and replaced with silence. Then i will listen to the changed individual part solo'd to see if it still holds up on it's own musically after the changes. Once I got that all sorted out, I'll figure out which part(s) I can play live with 2 hands and record the other part(s) into the looper for live performance. Often it's just one guitar part in the looper and another guitar part played live.

Hopefully hearing ideas and methods from others here might inspire me to plug into my looper and create some 2 part and even 3 or 4 part arrangements to play.

 

[hemmelight]

I love using a looper as I'm always alone while playing - it'd be nice to get one of those Boss units that has the rhythms built-in, those are intriguing.

The best tip I've found for getting used to using a looper sounds obvious, but it's so dang helpful:
Play the part you want for a few bars before hitting Record. If you start the looper already in-time it's way easier to get the timing correct.
When I heard that it was a real facepalm moment because I was trying to start recording from a dead stop every time.

 

[Whizzinby]

I’ve bought a looper pedal every couple years since I started playing guitar. I’ve returned a looper pedal every couple years since I started playing guitar.

I like the idea of using a looper more than actually using one.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Big time looper here, use live with band (instrumental 3 piece). Running an RC-500 (my bass player has one as well)

When this band first starting out, was rawdogging it on stage with an RC-1, as I'm sure many of you know, live looping with a human drummer can present some major challenges. Even the slightest shift of time from the drummer and you can end up in an unpleasant sounding mess.

What we are doing now is playing with a click in in ears (generated by the RC-500 serves as both click and midi clock)

 

[quadgear]

At the low end of the market the mvave/cuvave/lekato Looper Pro (also under other brand games) looper works extremely well for a very low price.

Seems like they are selling these now for less than $25.

There's a similar version with less slots to store loops.

This is one of the few loopers (especially at the low end) that automatically saves loops which means you can record and play a two (or more) part song without stopping to save.

 

[Sascha Franck]

At the low end of the market the mvave/cuvave/lekato Looper Pro (also under other brand games) looper works extremely well for a very low price.

Seems like they are selling these now for less than $25.

There's a similar version with less slots to store loops.

This is one of the few loopers (especially at the low end) that automatically saves loops which means you can record and play a two (or more) part song without stopping to save.

Downside of all one button loopers: To erase previous loops, you'll have to holdpress the button, which at first will trigger the old loop for a while. Renders them completely unusable for live.
Also, none of them features a "quick undo" or "cancel" function. We all know that the most important loop is the very first one, and in case you notice it might be messed up, it's great if you can just press "cancel" and that was it. The looper in the Zoom G3 allows for that and it's just incredibly handy.

 

[TubeStack]

I hear Ed Sheeran is great at it.

 

[la szum]

 

[TSJMajesty]

If I ever gigged again, since I just don't want to be in a band with a 2nd guitarist, and would love to have the lineup be- keys, guitar, drums, bass, and a singer who can play some acoustic, I'd explore using a looper to capture the rhythm parts of a song, that tend to drop out when a solo comes up, and send them through a 2nd channel on the Axe III, just to keep the sound full during those parts.

Kinda like being able to have the chords part start playing, while you finish that last high-note bend of a solo, sort of thing.

I've always wanted to try that.