New to looping - HELP!

[El Conquistador]

Not wanting to hijack another thread, I will start a new one.

I have always kind of looked down my nose at loopers thinking they were used only to make up for deficiencies in ones performing.

However, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my band mates in the small combo I inhabit and am now thinking I would like to provide my own bass lines, rhythm, AND harmony ala this video ;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dehtq...pN-g&index=134

I am thinking I would like to be able to store loops for each song I will be performing for a gig so that I am just ready to go on to that song instead of having to build each one as she seems to be doing in the video.

I am however, quite mechanically DEclined and fear that an overly technical unit will simply be too distracting to use and be yet another purchace gathering dust .

So I am looking for suggestions and directions for a unit(s) that will be both effective AND relatively easy to use.

Thanks,
Steve

[JonPR]

I have a Boss RC-3, which is a neat little unit (stomp box size) that can store up to 3 hours of stereo recording, or 99 loops.
I've used it myself for what you're planning - ie prerecorded backing, not for looping on the fly. You can download any audio you've recorded on computer, as well as just playing stuff in. I used it for bass and drums (playing guitar backing a singer). It was only for a few tunes, so I never tested that 3-hour maximum.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/BOSS-RC-3-Amplifiers-Effects-Loopers/dp/B004J27QXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378401670&sr=8-1&keywords=boss+rc-3+loop+station
As a live looper it's a little limited because it only has one pedal, so operation is bit trickier (getting everything in sync takes a bit of practice). If you can spend a bit more there's the RC-30 - and there are rivals too, but I haven't tried those.

[El Conquistador]

Thanks Jon,
No one else?

Steve

[Davis Webb]

The RC300 is what you need.

http://www.bossus.com/gear/productde...ProductId=1182

It has 3 loops, a built in high quality drum machine and tons of effects. You can easily do what you want with this. And store them and back up the storage. Yes its $500. But it will do what you want. I have owned a couple along the way and its everything I say and more.

Check it out.

[El Conquistador]

Thanks Davis,
I have looked at them. They do seem a little daunting. I don't want to spend more time playing with my looper than with my guitar. : )

Steve

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by El Conquistador

Thanks Davis,
I have looked at them. They do seem a little daunting. I don't want to spend more time playing with my looper than with my guitar. : )

Steve

Hi Steve...

If you ever sit through a performance by someone who is using a looper as canned music (to provide backgrounds) after about three songs it's not very entertaining anymore...even if they build the parts from scratch. The focus becomes the looper instead of the singer/player.

It takes some serious skills and ability to arrange on the fly to pull it off well, Phil Keaggy "well".

It might just be easier to find new band mates, or fall in like with the old ones.

[slewis]

What Larry said. Or another option is to just not go to that length and level lf complexity. I truly doubt most audiences (at least in the places I play) want to hear that level of complex build-up all night -- more like, "just play the song!" Record loops live, on the fly, at an appropriate frequency through the gig (and by the way, you'll see how it doesn't cover shortcomings in guitar ability, IMO -- quite the opposite: it reveals them, and even pretty simple looping demands an added level of proficiency. It does indeed take practice, but it's very doable and IMO, it adds a cool dimension to the sound of a soloist. (At least I sure like to think so!) And pre-recorded, canned loops to play over? Yeeesh... What's the difference between that and playing to a CD or an iPod?

[tbeltrans]

This looper thing is something I have been toying with and considering for some time. I have come to some decisions for myself, and sharing them here in no way implies anybody else should do likewise, but instead consider this as you find your own approach to looping and effects in general.

To me, especially with acoustic guitar, any effect, whether a looper or other effects such as chorus or delay, is another instrument that joins the guitar in making music. For me, that rules out the "set it and forget it" approach that many effects and loopers seem to have with regard to live performance capability, and instead means real time control over the effects. I have found that, for me, the effects useful for acoustic guitar are chorus, delay, and reverb (and maybe in some cases, compression). With this consideration in mind, I am finding that the Boomerang III looper pedal and their chorus/delay pedal are a perfect combination for my purposes. Boomerang's philosophy seems to be similar to what I have arrived at, with their pedals each being a real time instrument, and designed by a guitar player (Mike Nelson) for guitar players, rather than by corporate committee.

When you consider players such as Phil Keaggy and Trace Bundy, they do a lot with loopers, but their loopers have less than 30s of loop time and do not store loops for later use, instead being completely real time as part of their performance rather than as karaoke backing stored on flash cards.

We have an abundance of doodads available for guitar these days and it is easy to get caught up in all of it. What I am doing now is backing off from all that and instead taking the time to really learn to use my chosen effects as instruments that join the guitar in making music. Just as we have to devote time to learning to play the guitar and finding our own musical voice with it, so I think should effects be likewise accorded the same musical respect. A very few effects, used appropriately, can go a long way to enhance our music making.

I used to own the big Boss RC-50 and had previously owned the RC-20, and have played with the Jamman earlier model looper pedal. None of these seem to have that real time work flow that the Boomerang has. It isn't a question of bad vs good, but rather identifying what approach to these tools we want to take and then selecting the best fit for that approach. I am sure that all the recommended pedals and approaches in this thread are fine choices and suitable for various approaches. From what I understand, the Boss RC-300 is a huge improvement over the RC-50 and apparently addresses complaints that users of the RC-50 had with that unit. Digitech seems to continue refining their offerings, and now there are the offerings in ultimate simplicity such as TC Electronics Ditto. So, really, I don't think you can go wrong with any of the products out there now, but you do need to have some idea of how you want to use it, and then select accordingly.

Tony

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

...I used to own the big Boss RC-50 and had previously owned the RC-20, and have played with the Jamman earlier model looper pedal. None of these seem to have that real time work flow that the Boomerang has.

Hi Tony...

Great post...

I agree with you. I went through several loopers before settling on the Boomerang III, and I'd add to what you said that I didn't know what uses I wanted a looper for when I got my first looper.

Looping looked like fun, but I'd never really done more than goof around with one for an hour at a friend's place. At first it was fun to lay/invent complex layers of tracks and then play over them. That was certainly more fun for me than the audience, but great for coffee houses where players/singers are more often just live-muzak.

Some coffee houses or restaurants don't want a stage to feature musicians, so musicians are free to goof off more at these gigs. I still harness/use background music gigs for times to experiment with loopers. Or I'll drop the looper in my chain and at the beginning of the night when there is hardly anyone in the room other than the baristas and me and a single customer, I'll play with loops.

My gigging partner and I even had a game where one of us would play an 8 or 16 measure loop, hand the guitar to the other who had to add a layer, hand the guitar back. The winner was the one who played the last loop before someone screwed it up (usually the song right before break at a background gig). Then we'd erase the bad loop (undo) and walk away for coffee break and let the loop play a couple times. People like it, and it's good for one time during a gig. 3 or 4 layers was about our limit till it began to not sound so good.

After I began to understand loopers, and the various uses of them, I started using them to capture the chords of a verse, or chorus (or both) while accompanying a singer and then use that loop to solo over later as part of the arrangement.

So I am adapting loops to individual playing situations. Hardly ever in the duo, quite a bit at background gigs, often during song accompanying, and now trying to incorporate some into my solo settings.

Keaggy is about the best when it comes to harnessing small fragments of music and improvising over them. I've seen he is even experimenting with adding a second looper in-line with his rigs occasionally and using either/both - not to extend the time, but to add features.

Done tastefully looping can be nearly invisible, and/or quite fun. I've never seen Keaggy explain or defend his use of 'gear'. He just makes music and we enjoy it.

I'm half of an acoustic duo, and I'm in the process of learning both halves of some of our duets so that when I am playing solo gigs, I can use the looper to expand what I could do - using the looper to recreate a bit of the second part, or setting up sections I can play solo instrumentals over.

I also have used loopers successfully when leading worship alone with just a guitar to be able to add inversions, fills etc. Many contemporary worship songs are pretty easy to capture verse and chorus and then augment them. The focus is the singing in these settings, and a looper can expand my fun.

I don't use the loops in this setting for anything that the audience needs to be aware of. It's often for my enjoyment. And it sure cannot be distracting when I do.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Tony...

Great post...

I agree with you. I went through several loopers before settling on the Boomerang III, and I'd add to what you said that I didn't know what uses I wanted a looper for when I got my first looper.

[much interesting commentary deleted to conserve space]

Larry -

I have always enjoyed reading your posts, and this one was no exception to that. You have some interesting ideas. Having a long time gigging partner must be a really fulfilling experience.

With acoustic, I have played out solo and with my archtop, I play in a jazz-oriented group backing a really decent vocalist. My home setup has gone through many iterations, but is settling down to just a couple of components. I have a TV tray with a Tascam DP008-ex and a Tascam GB-10 guitar and bass trainer. It has a 32 GB SDHC card loaded up with pretty much everything I want to work with on it, including the complete David Burge relative pitch ear training course and lots of tunes to learn from by ear. You can get an amazing amount of music into 32 GB. I likewise have a 32 GB card in my DP008-ex. On the floor below this, I have the Boomerang III with Sidecar going into the Tascam DP008-ex, and the Boomerang E-155 chorus/delay pedal going into the Boomerang III. I plug my guitar directly into the GB-10. I can work out pretty much what I want with this setup and not have to bother with booting a computer and dealing with the undesirable aspects associated with that. Using dedicated hardware instead of the computer also helps to separate my internet activity from my practice time so I don't get distracted. My setup takes very little room and does all that I need for acoustic.

I like having as much of the same vendor equipment as possible because that makes remembering my way around the equipment that much easier, which is important as we get older. The Tascam DP-008ex and GB-10 have very similar workflows, being both Tascam. The Boomerang products have all similar workflows in their design too. The thing I really like about the E-155 chorus/delay pedal s that it has none of the frequency oddities that make a guitar not quite sound like itself through similar devices. This particular pedal is really two distinct pedals in one - chorus and delay, which can be enabled and disabled separately, yet their setups can be stored together. Mike Nelson is really quite the pedal designer, as many people can attest to through ownership of the Boomerang III. The chorus/delay pedal is just as well designed and implemented.

I just put on my headphones (Beyer Dynamics DT-770 Pro/80, which pretty much block out anything else as if I were alone in another room and are quite comfortable for longer sessions) and get to work. I really think that any of these tools requires a healthy dose of curiosity and willingness to experiment. Asking here what to do with it only takes you so far, but finding your own way around these tools is where musical growth really begins, and in your own unique way.

Tony

[callouses]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Steve...



It takes some serious skills and ability to arrange on the fly to pull it off well, Phil Keaggy "well".

Hey Larry, you had some interesting things to say, I always pick up something new when you post. I just wanted to interject, I saw Keaggy live a few years ago, and I agree, he is about the best with a looper. Its all seamless with him. But he takes it to another level, because he never forgets that he's there to entertain people. I think he's a true pro, because he made the audience feel like a part of what he was doing, not just trying to impress everyone with his ability, although he certainly did that too.

[Davis Webb]

The RC300 is not that hard to use. It takes about a half hour to learn and yer good.

However, having looped alot, I gave it up. I get very bored watching looper dudes and it has limited appeal.

What I do now is play and if I need a loop, I play the loop and weave solo lines through it. Lenny Breau taught us the way!

So, although it seems attractive, I bet that a loopless performance will work as well or better.

Why did I loop at all? I wanted to record complex parts based on improvisation. For live performance, I wouldnt use one and I don't.

Cheers

[Methos1979]

Great replies and opinions. I'll add mine. Keep in mind I'm relatively new to guitar and performing and looping, even though I'm in my fifties!

I started an acoustic duo several months ago with my wife on vocals, me on guitar. Originally I had a pretty large pedal board including a Jam Man II looper (the four-button model). It was great looper pedal, not too bad to learn to use and pretty powerful. But it quickly became apparent it was way more than what I needed for live performing.

All I really need is something to provide background chords so I can solo here and there. Slowly my pedal board shrank in size and now is quite small and my looper is the smallest, simplest one they make - the Ditto. Of the 30 or so songs we perform I use it on only a handful for just the stated reason above, to solo over. I do build a 'cool' intro to one song using the looper and an EHX Feeze pedal, but that's it.

I agree with others that playing along with a lot of canned loops is quite boring and 'sterile'. It's possible that is only to other musicians though. 'Regular' people seem to enjoy it, I guess.

[Irish Pennant]

I have the Jamman Solo with an auxiliary pedal. It will not do what you want. It will not play multiple stored loops at the same time, you would need to add more then one solo looper into your pedal train, which could be a good thing as you could label them, Drums, Bass, Keyboard, Brass or what ever and then mix and match to fit your needs.

[El Conquistador]

Thanks Guys.

I agree, looping my very well not be for me. I am just frustrated with the people around me and was hoping to get a little more creative control. I may purchase a Ditto and mess around with it to see where/if it fits into my act.

Steve