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  #16  
Old 08-16-2012, 11:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Hotspur View Post

Something like the Boss RC50 is really designed for a complex set where you use lots of different prerecorded loops in succession.
it also works well for live "chaining". I was able to create patches where it would do things like record loop 1, play back loop 1 so I could play over it, then hit the button for loop 2, simultaneously ending loop one and starting to record loop 2, so I could then play on that. Worked well for doing things where it wasn't obvious that you're setting up a loop, so I could create arrangements around the loopers. I don't like the obvious "play a 12 bar blues rhythm part, then jam over it", I want the fact that I'm setting up a loop to be unnoticed, and just be part of the song. Keaggy's great at this, as are some others.

The boomerang, however, does this just as well, if not better, and is easier, no programming different patches, fiddling with menus to set system parameters, etc, to go between different sequences. Everything you need is right on the front panel, and accessible by footswitch. Every time I used the RC-50, I had to reread the manual :-)
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  #17  
Old 08-20-2012, 08:39 AM
pf400 pf400 is offline
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At church yesterday we had a guest artist who had a looper, although I couldn't see what model it was. For one song, he began by drumming on his guitar, then looping over that he sang a little harmonic phrase right into the soundhole of his guitar. Over this he sang and played a song, very very nice, and he got a big ovation. Now I REALLY want a looper too !
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  #18  
Old 08-20-2012, 09:00 AM
chinmusic chinmusic is offline
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I used to and really enjoyed the experimentation it lent itself to, but it got too confining. One the one hand, it was nice to be recognized around town- on the other hand, it got tiring being called "that looper guy". Not to mention that I spent a lot more time worrying about my signal chain and effects than I did just playing the guitar.

I now use it infrequently and rely more on my ability to pull different things from the guitar itself- which is much more gratifying. They're great and a lot of fun- but not for me anymore.
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  #19  
Old 08-28-2012, 12:11 PM
SteveHung SteveHung is offline
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I use a looping pedal only on a few songs in my live repitoire. It goes well with songs that have a simple chord progression and great to solo/jam over, like for example, the James Bond theme song, which has a constant bass line that repeats over and over, with the melody line on-top.

The disadvantage to using a looper is that you can't use it for songs where the chord progression changes during the chorus or bridge or whatever. The audience gets bored hearing the same chord progression being looped over and over again, so be sure to use to only for songs that sound good with only 1 chord progression.
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  #20  
Old 09-02-2012, 01:22 PM
Laughingboy68 Laughingboy68 is offline
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I use a JamMan Stereo.

I don't do a ton of loops but use it in many ways. On "Wish You Were Here" it loops the intro while I play the solos over top. For Cowboy Mouth's "Easy" I loop a bass line and tap percussion to simulate the drum part. On "All Along the Watchtower" I loop the bass line and a rhythm guitar part. For "China Girl" I just loop the drum part by slapping the top of the bridge and sides. On "Against the Wind" it loops the ride-out background vocal while I sing the wailing Seger part over top. I used to loop the harmony vocals separately but now I use a TC Harmony G-XT to do that.

I bought my JamMan second hand for $140. I've no doubt that the Boomerang is better in many ways for live use, but, I couldn't justify the cost for what I'm doing.

I like using gear to add variety to a solo show. Harmony, loops, harmonica and percussion are used in my act to spice things up rather than just have me playing guitar and singing for 4 hours. Still, I try not to let the gear dominate things and make sure that the vocal and guitar performance are strong on their own. I suggest using these extras as condiments - not the meat of the meal.

Mike
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  #21  
Old 09-05-2012, 08:59 AM
Joseph Hanna Joseph Hanna is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
it also works well for live "chaining". I was able to create patches where it would do things like record loop 1, play back loop 1 so I could play over it, then hit the button for loop 2, simultaneously ending loop one and starting to record loop 2, so I could then play on that. Worked well for doing things where it wasn't obvious that you're setting up a loop, so I could create arrangements around the loopers. I don't like the obvious "play a 12 bar blues rhythm part, then jam over it", I want the fact that I'm setting up a loop to be unnoticed, and just be part of the song. Keaggy's great at this, as are some others.

The boomerang, however, does this just as well, if not better, and is easier, no programming different patches, fiddling with menus to set system parameters, etc, to go between different sequences. Everything you need is right on the front panel, and accessible by footswitch. Every time I used the RC-50, I had to reread the manual :-)
Yea I'm in line with a lot of what you've mentioned here Doug. The whole "setting up" a loop and adding little scratches and blurbs as one goes (like the video posted earlier) is so enormously trite to me. Like fingers on a chalk board. Waaaay back when it was kinda cute to see a video and novelty of a looper. Now it's just mostly painful.

I attended a "looping" competition (sponsored by Boss) here in Los Angeles a couple of years back. Some really great singers and songwriters to be sure but in the end I came away with the very real impression that most in the competition would have been FAR better off just singing their tunes and getting away from all that stompin and scratchin and playin' lead lines over choruses.

I've always thought if someone was talented and clever enough to bury the looper where the player wasn't such a slave to the device it might be a great tool.

Do you have any clips that you can post using your looper Doug??
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  #22  
Old 09-05-2012, 11:13 AM
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Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna View Post
Yea I'm in line with a lot of what you've mentioned here Doug. The whole "setting up" a loop and adding little scratches and blurbs as one goes (like the video posted earlier) is so enormously trite to me. Like fingers on a chalk board.
Phil Keaggy is one who often avoids this. Not always, he uses obvious looping as part of the show at times, but a lot of other times, you don't even see it coming, and non-guitarists might not even catch that he's using a looper at times. I attended a looping workshop with Phil a while back, and one of the keys seemed to be that his loops are never long. So even when he's doing the set-up thing, it's similar to how a song would build anyway. 2 bars of a chord vamp, 2 bars with a 2nd part added, and bam, he's into the melody or song.

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Do you have any clips that you can post using your looper Doug??
No, I keep meaning to do some you tubes with a looper, but haven't gotten around to it. But here's one example of a tune I sometimes use a looper for when I play live.

http://store.dougyoungguitar.com/track/red-snapper

This is a studio recording with 2 guitars, no looper, and my goal with the looper is to reproduce this as well as I can. So for example, when I use the looper, the first verse only has 1 guitar, but on the 2nd pass, I can harmonize. With the multiple loops on the RC-50, RC-300 or Boomerang, I can also record something at any time during the song and bring it back in later. So the B section in this tune, the first time thru I play it with one guitar, and that's it, I go on to the next section. But while I'm playing that section, I record it, so that later in the song when the part recurs, I can bring back in the looped part, and suddenly have 2 guitars. My goal is to never have the audience say "he's setting up a loop", and this is one attempt based on an existing tune. It'd be interesting to create some compositions/arrangements based around a looper where you try to really make it 100% seamless, but I'm not sure I want to be completely tied to a looper.
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  #23  
Old 09-05-2012, 11:21 AM
adamtobias adamtobias is offline
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I recently added a Boss RC30 Loop station to my rig, and it works really well for throwing down backing tracks and what not when I play live. I'm still in the experimentation stage with it to be honest, but this video really helped me understand just how much you can do with one. Hopefully this will be as inspiring to you as it was to me!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV0TJZ7Kp40

Happy looping
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  #24  
Old 09-05-2012, 11:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
...I attended a looping workshop with Phil a while back, and one of the keys seemed to be that his loops are never long. So even when he's doing the set-up thing, it's similar to how a song would build anyway. 2 bars of a chord vamp, 2 bars with a 2nd part added, and bam, he's into the melody or song.
Hi Doug...

Yes, Phil Keaggy is the smoothest and most musical musician I've seen incorporating loopers into his music. Last time I saw him live, he still had his MIDI driven old-school Digitech rack mounted looper and a Line6 Delay (the green one) in his chain.

The longest loop he could even do is 32 seconds on one and 28 seconds on the other.

He is so skillful at using and varying his loops...I've wished for years that they'd video a concert of his with a second camera angle available of only his feet on the pedals. I'd buy it just to study his foot/looping technique.


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  #25  
Old 09-05-2012, 11:42 AM
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The longest loop he could even do is 32 seconds on one and 28 seconds on the other.
Yeah, in the workshop, he only had the DL4, so one loop, 14 seconds (or 28 in low fi mode). But he did amazingly complex stuff with just that. With the undo he was able to bring things in and out, and keep it from being just a jam over a repetitive loop. But I don't think he ever had a loop more than a few seconds long. He commented about the newer loopers with their tendency to use double taps and press-hold for things and how he couldn't use them. He said something like "on stage, 2 seconds is an eternity".
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  #26  
Old 09-05-2012, 12:42 PM
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...He commented about the newer loopers with their tendency to use double taps and press-hold for things and how he couldn't use them. He said something like "on stage, 2 seconds is an eternity".
Hi Doug...

That's encouraging. It means he's trying out current equipment and seeing where it may take him eventually, given that his particular DigiTech equipment hasn't been made for a few decades. Some of the features he uses (like fade and reverse loop are not available on the Line6).

I like my Line6 Delay for a couple features, and my Boss 20XL for others. The blend of the two in a single looper would be fun.

The strong point of the Boss two pedal units is better control over both input and outgoing signals, and longer loops. The weakness is the 2 seconds to kill a loop...

The strength of the Line6 is you can start a new loop which overwrites the existing one with a simple tap of the button. The weakness (for me) is the 14 sec (even 28 sec) limit.

There are times that as an accompanist for a singer I'll capture a verse on the fly, and then stop and hold it till later in the song to solo over (usually after the bridge and before the ending). The Line6 time limit is about 15 seconds too short for it.

The issue for me with the Boomerang is the size/weight, and price. You own one of the newer ones, have they solved the 'noise' issues in the signal chain. I have heard several older models and could always hear the self-noise of the units in the mix.

I should probably review the current crop and see if anyone is improving the 2 second kill issues. A two minute capable hi-res unit with instant kill-the-loop-start-a-new-loop would be about perfect for me.

I really don't need a multi-phrase unit, because I'm not doing multi-track recording demos. I'm just enhancing a song when I have to play solo instead of duo or sometimes when I'm a solo accompanist for a singer.

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  #27  
Old 09-05-2012, 12:54 PM
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Originally Posted by ljguitar View Post

The issue for me with the Boomerang is the size/weight, and price. You own one of the newer ones, have they solved the 'noise' issues in the signal chain. I have heard several older models and could always hear the self-noise of the units in the mix.

The new Boomerang is light-years better than the old one, completely new design. Usability tops anything else I've tried, short of the full midi programmability of the original Jamman or the Morpheus (?). The new one is also pretty small and light. Not as small as a single stomp box, but about 1/3 the size of the old one - about the same size as a DL4.
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  #28  
Old 09-05-2012, 01:36 PM
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The new Boomerang is light-years better than the old one, completely new design. Usability tops anything else I've tried, short of the full midi programmability of the original Jamman or the Morpheus (?). The new one is also pretty small and light. Not as small as a single stomp box, but about 1/3 the size of the old one - about the same size as a DL4.
Wow thanks Doug…
Once again you have clarified things for me. I've checked out a couple demos on YouTube and it is light years above the rolling switch, door stop model of the past.

This is a really serious contender...


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  #29  
Old 09-07-2012, 07:53 AM
71jasper 71jasper is offline
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If not, why not?
I had a Digitech that I ultimately sold to another forum member, but I did experiment with it.

I did not want to become a "looper act". Although I find those guys entertaining, it wears thin for me after a few nuimbers. I had the idea of using it just to playback chords over which I could play lead, and it is excellent for that once you get the hang of it.

However, although I don't think of myself as a particularly artistic guy, there's a bit of artistry in boiling down complex songs for one voice and one guitar. The idea is to maintain the essence and identity of the song yet make it manageable for a solo act and entertaining for the audience. I just felt I was cheating by using a looper and robbing myself of that particular sense of accomplishmennt. So the looper went along with the harmonizer, and it's back to just me and Mr. Taylor or Mr. Martin.
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  #30  
Old 09-07-2012, 10:15 AM
Hotspur Hotspur is offline
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The disadvantage to using a looper is that you can't use it for songs where the chord progression changes during the chorus or bridge or whatever. The audience gets bored hearing the same chord progression being looped over and over again, so be sure to use to only for songs that sound good with only 1 chord progression.
Not to feel like I'm evangelizing (for a product I don't even own) but the grace and elegance of how the Boomerang handles this is exactly why I want one.

Not only can you record multiple loops live and switch back and forth between them with a single tap, but you can even have it wait until the end of a measure before it switches - you can tap the button mid-measure, and it'll time it just right for you.

Pretty awesome, I have to say.
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