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OT: any looper musicians? Advice needed, please
A friend of mine wants to close his show with a looping song, building up a track with different vocal bits and pieces. He'll have his hands full so it has to be a pedal. The problem is, he’s not a musician, although he'll practice very hard until he's learned what he needs to do. To make his life easier, I’ve been trying to find a looper that can use pedals (or is already a pedalboard) which allows you to preset the tempo and the length of the loop. Needs to allow one level of undo so he can redo a loop if he messes up.
And it needs to be easy to use on stage, as he'll be doing six other things at once!
Any ideas, loop experts? Thanks!
Comments
As with everything, a lot comes down to how much you're willing to spend. Getting a flagship Boss RC-30/RC-500 will do everything
Looping on stage is a learned skill - it's more than pressing a button. It takes a lot of practice. I would start with a smaller looper to get started. Something like a Ditto X2 or X4. As a beginning looper, he MUST get a looper with separate start and stop buttons. (X2) Do not get the one-button Ditto unless he wants to be embarrassed on-stage.
If he's building up loops with different instruments, having more than one loop is important. However, I would suggest starting with something simple like an X2 to learn.
If he's going for multiple loops, of all the stage (performance) loopers I've used, the Boomerang v3 is the best but it is pricey.
Loop multiplication is a key feature for doing multiple instrument looping. With multiplication, he can do a one-measure drum/bass pattern and that pattern will be multiplied by the length of the other loops. Otherwise, he'll need to create a drum (or bass) pattern as long as the song. The large Boss loopers, like an RC-30s. Another option is a Pigtronix Infinity that has 2 loops. I'm not a fan of the electro harmonix stuff - although some like them.
Another option for a killer looper is the Singular Sound Aeros. Expensive...but there's nothing like it. Of all the pedal loopers, this is by far the best.
FWIW - I've sold all of my pedal loopers and have moved an iPad setup:
To me, this is the ultimate setup. It's completely hands-free and has none of the limitations of a pedal looper. It completely blows every other loop setup I've used.
Loopy with a BlueBoard is a good pedal-driven looper
Very well put, ljholland. One of the great strengths of the Pigtronix Infinity, the EHX models, internal ipad apps, and very few others is that they have midi clock awareness - you can jump in with a tightly synched loop at any time in the context of a larger musical event. This is amazingly fun, and I really don't understand why so many looper pedals exist without midi clock sync! The large Boss pedals had severe issues with clock in the past, I don't know if they've improved (and the small ones have no midi at all).
Pre-setting the length of the loop might cause more harm than help, unless your friend puts some kind of click track or equivalent on there first.
Other than that, you can do all of what you want with a Ditto. I learned to loop guitar on the bigger ditto x2, which is mostly the same but with more buttons. Anything more complex is just more to go wrong on stage.
Oops. Thank you all, you really know your stuff! I should have been more specific. He needs an idiot proof setup, hence the fixed bar length and the ability to undo one take if he screws up. It’ll be one song per night, always exactly the same. Once I’ve taught him the song, he'll rehearse until he knows it backwards, but as he’s not a musician, I want to make it as easy as possible for him.
@ljholland , if it was just the pedalboard and group the loop, could that do what I’m suggesting?
We'll need more info. What instruments are being connected - just a guitar? Keys? Microphone? If it's keys, is the keyboard just a controller or does it have sound built in?
It would help to explain what the song is, what parts he plans on playing, and what gear he has already.
vocals only - and mostly silly noises. He's a comic.
Got it.
Boss RC-30. It has an XLR input and a start and a stop button.
Thank you, will get onto it
Check out the YouTube demos. It’s a solid little box.
Just popping into the new looping thread as I've been enjoying running guitar loops along with synthesizers at the moment.
Anyone have any thoughts on the AudioKit L7 app?
For $3 on sale, maybe it's worth a try.
I'm a huge fan of Group the Loop - it's the app that lets you put together groups of loops - which for creating songs, is killer.
L7 only seems to have MIDI bindings for delete/overdub/re-record which is rather limited. Group the Loop has MIDI binding for everything - I'm controlling mine with an Airturn 6 button Bluetooth switch.
IMO, harder to work with than Loopy or Group The Loop and not as reliable as Loopy or Group the Loop.
I’ve taken to L7 as a recorder for MPE instruments (SWAM in particular). I like that I can have it as an AUv3 on an AUM send channel with several different apps routed to it. The midi assignable controls are fine for recording a few live clips into a session (4 mostly more than enough for me). It’s good to see the waveforms of recorded clips big and clear. If I’m adding guitar I prefer Enso for that (set on 50% decay so I can enjoy my mistakes slowly fading away).
For more traditional looping (voice and guitar) I’d favour Quantiloop or Loopy or Group the Loop.., still can’t decide which one I prefer, but that’s not complaining, I get a lot from each one. I use a foot switch for all the above, but if my fingers were free and I was just using a mic, then I think for me Loopy would be the most pleasing and straightforward to use.
As a guitarist nothing quite beats QuantiLoop. But I'd say if Jimmy Fallon can be taught how to use Loopy HD that your comedian friend will probably get along with it just fine, assuming you give him some instruction on hooking up a MIDI pedal, like the iRig blueboard.
That’s a very good point. I’ll experiment with that. Although Fallon is a pretty good musician
Good reference, I think he uses a boss looper.
As a guitarist, I’ve used Quantiloop and found it rather disappointing. So far, Group the Loop has been my favorite.
I'd go with one of the following 2 options.
The new TC Ditto Looper +
It's simple. You can load 99 loops into it. So he could load one with the lowest level starting point and just layer until the cows come home. Nice easy to see visual screen on the new model for stage use. I think double tap is undo.
Full blown option would be a Pigtronix Infinity
I won't explain it but just rest assured it does whatever the Ditto does and a lot more. Plus it has 2 loops which can be run in series or parallel and saved for export back to the desktop. Ditto might have that as well, not sure sorry.
My personal favorites are Group The Loop and Loopy HD, both run well on the iPhone. (Didn't get along with Quantiloop either, had to dig in the manual all the time.)
Has anyone tried GTL or Loopy in a simple footswitch controlled live setup with an iPhone?
Loopy is brilliant with phone and footswitch, Bluetooth or other. Depending on the controller it can respond to ‘long press’ so you can do a lot with relatively few buttons.
Feeling emotional now because that’s the app that started it all for me. If I hadn’t got so distracted by all the other ones that came after I might have managed to become a competent looper. When masterpiece comes I vow to dedicate myself to that and perfect the craft.
🙏🏼
Yes, you’re right, he uses this one
https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Boss-RC-505-Loop-Station/QOO?origin=product-ads&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1PSDBhDbARIsAPeTqregs1ILC9tAj0V4X5jyo2kjdwGjMLZcFlDMRLXchfRlc2lRqYYS3L4aAn3gEALw_wcB
Enso is a lot of fun. So are the “looping” features in Kosmonaut.
My BOSS GT-1 has a small bit of their BOSS Looping stuff built in, but I’ve never used it.
I’ve never tried GTL, but always hear good things about it. Might pick it up next time it goes on sale.
Just like the other guys never got along with Quantiloop, I never got along with GTL despite trying and retrying many times. Plus I found it greatly annoying to be locked into certain time signatures for the different styles, though I think that was fixed some time ago with an update.
I should try it again, but as of now I really dislike it despite many attempts to get to like it.
Thanks for that. That actually helps a lot. Pass!
Edit: Just kidding! I don’t see anything in any of the updates that mentions addressing time sigs, but I still may pick it up anyway. Looks kinda cool honestly.