LOOPERS Anyone?

Thought I heard some Allman Brothers influence in once of those lead lines.

Interestingly, you're the second person who has said that. There was no intentional influence or even indirect from the Allman Brothers - I know almost none of their music (though I enjoy it when I hear it).
 
I use a looping pedal for only one piece (featured above) in my entire 90 minute show. So it's not repetitive or boring. It's often one of the most popular things I do all night. If you were to do multiple pieces with just a single function looper, then yes, it could get boring.

I never use a looping pedal to record, but I do use it for jamming all the time. It's great to be able to lay down a quick layer or two and then jam over the top of it without needing to call up backing tracks or even open a computer, smartphone, or tablet. It's very organic and I love it.

Armistace - With respect, my piece "Magick" is not a jam. It is note for note composition (with a repeated chorus) that I perform as part of my theater variety show. It is (obviously) a Joe Satriani inspired instrumental piece, composed specifically for a single function looping pedal. "Just a jam" it is not. Also, there are plenty of guys doing precisely what you describe and crazier: you just need to look into the campus entertainment circuit. I've seen INSANE looping at NACA conferences that are truly mind blowing.

Miroslav - You're right, to a certain degree. Everyone using a single function looping pedal is limited to just that: progressive building and layering of guitar tracks. Still, there is plenty of room for creativity.

EDIT: For the record, I'm not actually offended by either of the comments directed at my piece. Just responding to them!

Apologies BM - poor choice of words, perhaps - it's a nice ambient noodly piece which, for 3:45 of its 4:07 is just played against the initial chugga chugga chord - obviously with a single loop looper that's the limitation. As a piece of music, and as a looped piece of music, it doesn't really work for me, however. Your fans feel differently, obviously. Good luck.
 
That lick at 1:50 is reminiscent of the signature line in Jessica.

Absolutely, it is Jessica. I thought he covered the song intentionally.

I like what you did in the video, but it seems you're stuck with one chord. Is there a way to switch chords? Listeners would be looking for a change and a resolution back.
 
Absolutely, it is Jessica. I thought he covered the song intentionally.

I like what you did in the video, but it seems you're stuck with one chord. Is there a way to switch chords? Listeners would be looking for a change and a resolution back.

No way to switch chords without starting a whole new looping with the new chords (which could be done, mid song).

But I can tell you that I've been doing this piece for almost two years. As a solo act who has to keep an audience's attention for 90 minutes alone, this slays. Listeners aren't "looking for a change and a resolution back" in this 4 minute piece. I can tell you that as a fact. Even after 90 minutes of magic, comedy, mind reading, and a bit of music, nearly everybody who comes up after the show wants to tell me how great the guitar looping thing was - and it was less than 5 minutes of the whole hour and a half.

Regarding "Jessica" - it does seem to be very similar. Never noticed, and certainly wasn't intention. It's only been two musicians (both on this forum) who have ever pointed it out.
 
Listeners aren't "looking for a change and a resolution back" in this 4 minute piece. I can tell you that as a fact.

Well, this listener was looking for some chord changes. I can tell you THAT as a fact. :D But it's all good. If your audience like what you're doing then I think that's what it should be.


Regarding "Jessica" - it does seem to be very similar. Never noticed, and certainly wasn't intention. It's only been two musicians (both on this forum) who have ever pointed it out

Yeah, it's a great melody.
 
Well, this listener was looking for some chord changes. I can tell you THAT as a fact. :D But it's all good. If your audience like what you're doing then I think that's what it should be.

Come to my show, and I'll do a chord change for you :D
 
Miroslav - You're right, to a certain degree. Everyone using a single function looping pedal is limited to just that: progressive building and layering of guitar tracks. Still, there is plenty of room for creativity.

EDIT: For the record, I'm not actually offended by either of the comments directed at my piece. Just responding to them!

Yeah, that's all I was saying...and certainly wasn't looking to offend.

When I got the Pigtronix Infinity, I was hoping I could get something more out of it...it has some cool features.
TBH...it would take me an awful lot of time to really become exceptional with it, and I just ended feeling like my time could be better spent just recording...but, I've also been reluctant to get rid of it. I feel it could be used, sparingly, in some(?) live gig thing just to add another dimension to a gig, rather than just be another one of those guys who does nothing but the same old loop thing...
...,I've just not figured out what that could be. :D
 
Howie Day does that multi-instrument/sound build-up sound thing. he uses at least 2 loopers (one for vocals, one for instruments). I've seen some videos of others doing similar, some even switching between keys/bass/guitar.

A friend who does solo acoustic shows uses his looper with backing tracks he has recorded himself, usually for no more than 3 or 4 songs during a 3 hour gig. It gives just enough of an 'occasional change' to the set list to keep people listening.
 
Fantastic replies, everyone... I got the rc20 a long time ago, it was great on a gig doing Floyd's Wish You Were Here, I can't remember if i preloaded that 8 or 16 bar finger picking intro thing that I then did the solo over, my 3 friends at the gig were impressed...

The problem with that model was that I had to be exact on the loop timing end, which pretty much killed the idea of using it for live recorded looping, but nice that it ran on batteries, the comp click track sucked and no foot control of it.

A while later I got the jamman becuase it has "loop stitch" which is the timing quantizing / measure compensation and might go by another name also depending on the manufacturer. Requires a wall wart and once again, no foot control of the comp click "rhythm" track thing which is essential to me to live record a loop track accurately, yet I still need the quantize/stitch/compensate, because i refuse to have a glitch in the timing, it annoys the hell out of me and I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I have a feeling that even if the audeience doesn't know what's wrong, they can feel it and I would know it so it would be a fail for me....

Ok so now more friggin YEARS go by, and I find that the Jamman Stereo has a jack on the back that has the rhythm track able to be spit off the main when plugged in so this pretty much checks off another box for me, but of course not the battery issue.

So for the control of the rhythm track I use an old 2 channel volume control that I got for guitar volume on foot rather on the pinky if you have a strat, I saw someone use that for something cool, like fading up the level from zero as you unbend a string and other sutff.... So then I used a Roland multi-channel keyboard amp I already had for a mini-pa and I use a spare channel to pot up and down on the click/rhythm/comp track for timing coming out of the jamman stereo, this works well since I'm using this for my acoustic and the keyboard amp helps with the fuller sound rather than a guitar amp.

I turne down a lot and I can't deal with the potential for preloaded loops not being in tune with my current guitar tuning even if i am using a tuner, yes, most of the time it's fine, but having to remember what tuning I used and stuff and what number loop i have stored, etc., it's too much when live, i have enuf to worry about with mixing, levels, feedback prevention, etc., etc.

All this is fine if it's my gig, but one last thing I'd like to do is go to an open mic and just drop a battery operated looper down and I don't need a click track, but I do need tap on foot control and loop stitch, I can't seem to find this combination of features.

The amount of looping I use is minimal so it's funny how much effort I put into it, but it really helps me with my confidence in my sound and timing and I really just use it for a bassline, or a small comp part, or not at all, it's subltle and probably more for my own peace of mind, but when I do use it, it adds something massive to the sound, even without any additional layering, i can solo and it frees me up and lets me jam even if only for adding a minute to a song, if you add up ten of those that's a good chunk of time at a gig if you know what I mean, how much work we have to do finding covers we can do without making us ill from coving them.

And if it's an original song, then I can do whatever I want to it without ruining it for anyone. If it's an open mic, I can't bring a bunch of gear down, and I really want the ability to chill w/ the features I friggin need....
 
I have the Pigtronix Infinity looper [...] but now I find absolutely NO use for it. :facepalm: so it's been sitting on my pedal shelf for two years now.

I remember when I was interested in getting the Pigtronix and you told me this. I was like, well, I am certainly going to find use for it. So I bought it. It was fun for a while, but I soon realized it was way overkill. It's a great looper, but like you said, I ended up sounding pretty much the same every time. One cool thing about it was that you could sync it up to your DAW and play along/loop with drum tracks.

I'm still using a looper though for practice and jamming with myself. I've found the basic looper (Sound On Sound) feature on the DD-20 is good enough for my needs. It would be cool to have a bit longer recording time so I could go through a whole 12-bar, but I don't really miss the Pigtronix or any advanced looper.
 
I know what you mean about bringing a looper to an open mic and having to plug in - hosts hate that! But try it anyway, just bring a 12 ft extension cable in case the outlet is far away. Have everything plugged together, so all you need to do is plug in power and the cable to the PA, select your loop and go for it.
As to the whole timing thing - for sure that's where practice (or a quantize feature) is needed. I've found I do better if I play the chord pattern through once, then hit the record button, rather than trying to hit the button and then start playing.
 
So I'm gonna use my good looper for my own shows, and not at all at open mics, it's not worth the trouble, and I don't need to sound my best at an open mic anyway, not my gig, not my best, my best should be saved for my own show anyway. I can still do fine without looping for the few songs I'll be playing at an open mic. At the O.M., I can do whatever the F i wanna do and go nuts and be loose and chill out, and at the OM's with a full band, of course I won't need to loop to fill out the sound.

I still have 3 loopers tho. They def improved over the years, the jamman stereo is my latest and best since it has the up down buttons built on the unit, and of course quantize/stitch thing, and tap tempo.

I find that any little extra loop, like a bassline, or simple chords makes a huge difference on a solo acoustic sound. And totally frees up a little improv or sining to parts that are hard to hold down the time on certain complex rhythms, like Mellencamp's Rumble Seat has that little bassline, pop that in there and it totally frees you up. and turning it on and off helps to keep it from being the whole featured sound and monotony which over dependence on looping tends to do. Intro to Wish you were Here is great to loop, and some chord doubling on anything, and harmonica with 2 hands of course, those neck straps kinda suck....
 
Good evening all, I just joined recently and the looping thing was on my mind as well. My guitar teacher gigs out solo with the Boss RC-30 and it got me interested. He's never used the built in rhythm tracks that come with it but as a few have pointed out getting that timing just right takes some practice. He's a college level professor so he's got his music thing down pretty well. He does a lot of Brazilian, Jazz and some contemporary stuff, Beatles, U2 etc. and he's quite good with it.

I went full hog and got the RC-300 and quite honestly it's a challenge figuring it all out. I've had it nearly a year and I play with it usually a minimum of 3-4 times a week. It's a GREAT learning tool and as pointed out above it can be very handy for writing without doing a full on recording set up.

I was quite surprised at the lack of info out there on them considering how popular the trend is currently. So anybody that can contribute and knowledge about them, it's greatly appreciated. I'll certainly share any thing I come across as I explore this. I'm not sure about recommending/sharing clips from youtube but there's a guy named Andrew Bird and he does a lot of solo performances
 
Fantastic replies, everyone... I got the rc20 a long time ago, ...

The problem with that model was that I had to be exact on the loop timing end, which pretty much killed the idea of using it for live recorded looping, but nice that it ran on batteries, the comp click track sucked and no foot control of it.....

I WAS WRONG! I can't believe it, I got my old RC-20, put batteries in it, looked at the manual, tested it and guess what, it does have loop stitch, called, "loop quantize," why did I think it didn't?

( I spent a lot of money on 2 more loopers over the years.... )

So I tested how well the quantize works in a video
 
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