youtu.be/3WlFW07sL2U?si=WaCjCFY1Ia49th2G
I was watching Melissa Etheridge construct one of her hits in her home studio with a looper. Then I remembered the post covid trend of folks posting their tunes. This sort of morphed into folks playing with either backing tracks or loops. It took me along time to make friends with a looper. But I wanted a more organic form other than a backing track. 80% of the time, there wasn't a track. So, after many iterations I settled upon this Yamaha PSR keyboard. I hated it and had it in a box for ten years. I learned to make friends with it too.
Edited by - farmerjones on 07/17/2024 05:37:53
LOOPS!!!! I used to be a LOOPER. Just wanted to share one from way back before I discovered the Fiddle.
quote:
Originally posted by ErockinLOOPS!!!! I used to be a LOOPER. Just wanted to share one from way back before I discovered the Fiddle.
Wow! You got it!
Pre-covid I was talking to a young Vegas lounge lizard. I'd been watching and enjoying him through my meal. He took a break, and we talked. I said it's a good way to make a 4 or 5 minute song last for 20 minutes! He had a string of pop ballads and stuff to eat and visit by. Y'know, sort of background music. I exclaimed I was having trouble looping. He said start slow, and build slowly. Eventually I got frustrated and put it away for about three years. My best jamming buddy moved away. So I began to mess with it again. Watching YouTube instructional vids. Indeed the faster the tune, the harder it is to make the perfect loop. Some tunes are meant to be slow, but you don't want to drag on Honky-tonk Women. Or Cajun dance tunes. You can see where I really like it for fiddle backup. Playing with someone or something is what I have to do. Peace!
Edited by - farmerjones on 07/17/2024 07:19:52
Yea there is only so much 2 people can do or even 1 for that matter. When we started off, we can make a lot of sound with 2 voices and 2 instruments. But when I discovered looping, I was able to play "solos" or jam between verse and choruses. There are many progressions that work and let me tell ya, the longer the loop, the harder it is to match up when it comes back around. These days, I have a mic in my guitar so looping is harder because it's mic'd. So when recording the loop, it records all the sounds and noise so I'm rather limited. Back when this video was made, I had just a saddle pick up which is better for this kind of stuff...and like you said...this made a 3 hr show go by a lot faster. Plus, people dug it and it made me a better "jammer"
I just watched a guy named "Dixon" the one man symphony...check him out. Mind blown...master fiddle looper!
So fun, guys!! 
I promise I didn't mean to highjack this one....lol...but when someone said "loop" I got a little excited!
Great explanation, Steve.
I have a newish looper pedal and back when the electric guitar was my thing I used a DigiTech pedal with great success. That one was cool, had tap tempo, delay setting like triplets, a limited loop length (not like these newer ones) and could be manipulated in real time: reverse, double speed or half speed depending on where you start. That last capability, speeding up or slowing down, created a faster and one octave higher or slower...you get the picture. I used it for both rhythmic looping and just ethereal back of the mix sorry if things. It eventually took a crap due to the rigors of the road.
If anyone is thinking about getting into this, I've used a quite a few loop pedals beyond the ones mentioned, and my biggest take away is every pedal has its quirks as to setting up the seamless loop. They all got the job done once I figured them out. Play with it a lot and figure it out. Practice is the key to every new task.
Edited by - ChickenMan on 07/17/2024 14:41:43
My only experience with a looper was providing sound reinforcement for harmonica virtuoso Mike Stevens when he was playing with Raymond McLain. It took a bit for me to understand the balance he wanted, but he's a master of this technique, in addition to being an amazing harmonica player. I'm sure there must be examples of his playing online.
Edited by - DougD on 07/17/2024 15:33:04
You can set this Boss rc1, 2 ways. Mode 1, records on push 1. Then plays back on push 2. Overbud on push 3.
Mode 2, records on push 1. Overdubs on push 2. Plays back on push 3.
In other words, you need to push twice quickly to immediately here the playback. Initially, my unit was set on Mode 2. It was nice when I figured out how to change this to mode 1. One can also add an aux. footswitch, for stop and delete. Without the aux. pedal the track burps before it deletes. This sounds terrible live.
Nuts and bolts aside, I'm glad the drums in these samples are mixed fairly low. On the other side of the coin, samples like Dixieland have a ridiculous horn vamp on the first beat of 4. Bluegrass has a ridiculous fiddle vamp. But there's about 80 more samples. Also, about a half dozen strictly piano backing samples. All at any tempo! In any key! If it's a six chord tune with a sus9, just play it into the looper. If the tune doesn't lend itself to looping, the unit acts like recorder too. If there's two verses followed by a bridge, then a place for a solo break, then another last verse, it's easy to just record it linearly.
Sounds like I'm selling something. But if I didn't have the keyboard, I would have to put each instrument on the track. I have an extra input if I want to put stabs in with a telecaster, or double up the bass. Or a banjer roll. But elaborate production doesn't replace good clean playing. This is my millstone. If I ever made a fiddle track that was every stroke in place, and clean as country water, I recon Kenny Baker would roll over in his grave.
Looping reminds me of Bryson playing; he's from Alaska and used to see him busk like this.
I tend think of looping as more like that, as well Erockin's example... live loop layering.
For curious folks, there is an alternative to getting a pedal, if folk want to try out, play around with... just using computer and DAW, one of the cool aspects of playing with DAW. Can do a couple of different ways. You can also just use the timeline, setup how many measures, have it loop record with overdub on (all on one track) or have make new track for each layer of sound. Many DAWs have live looper function/plugin, works a bit like pedal in that can use controller, or just keyboard to play different loops and layers.
But if just making more of a backing accompaniment loop like Steve, less live looping, DAW might be a little easier. Can just take the output of the keyboard accompaniment and record audio into the DAW; can even record it as MIDI input, which can more easily later edit/change. Can also import from existing loop/sample library (both audio or MIDI). Of course can record own backing parts (audio or MIDI) create own groove, or add to existing. This is a little different workflow than the live loop pedal. At first might seem time consuming, but as use it it becomes fairly quick to make a basic back up loops. For any of these, gives a little more control for editing and arranging; and easy to expand in making different sections (verse/chorus/bridge).
While I don't have a DAW(worth talking about), I do have hardware: Fostex mr8.
If I was going to make demos (audio) that would be the ticket for sure.
Now that you mention it Geo., I think I do have a looper app or two on my tablet. I think there was a monitoring problem, I can't remember?
All good things to consider. There are a few ways to skin the proverbial cat. Geo., I'm glad you checked in!
Newest Posts
'Have you tried...' 2 hrs
'Coda Luma Violin Bow' 1 day
'Coda Luma Violin Bow' 1 day
'Child busking' 1 day
