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Live Looping:
Live looping is the process of recording samples of sounds and having them play back in a loop. The technology used is called a phrase sampler or looper. Multiple layers can be added or taken away, providing for endless possibilities and creative opportunities. Importantly, live looping is generally defined by its live creation, meaning all of the samples are created on the spot; nothing pre-recorded is used to create the loops. I started looping a few years ago when I wanted to do a solo gig and still play sax. I used the loop to simply record a verse and maybe a chorus of a song on the guitar, set it to loop, then pick up the sax and play a solo. Later, I began to stack some saxophone parts on top of the initial loop, then started stacking vocals. Recently, I’ve been experimenting quite a bit with the loop. I’ve found a few ways to get percussive sounds out of the guitar body, and like to loop them sometimes. I’ve been adding some harmonica lately, and as my guitar playing has improved, I’ve started adding more guitar parts to my loops and building more and more complex loops. The loops I create are different every night, and it’s just incredibly fun and challenging to build a loop and integrate it into a song. Honestly, I cannot imagine a better practice tool than a looper. If you have the basics of guitar down, get a looper. In addition to providing a real time example of what your playing really sounds like, it’s a tireless practice partner and an endless source of inspiration. Looping Links: Looper’s Delight is a great place for all things looping. They have good reviews on most of the loopers available, both hardware and software, a good history of looping, articles on how to get started, tips from guys who really know what they’re doing, and an active mailing list with a huge searchable database. Hardware Loopers: I started with a Boomerang+ and it is a great little machine. Once I started to build more complex loops, I wanted the ability to undo layers and wanted better sound quality, so I began exploring other options. I tried the Boss RC-20 but it has only one loop capability. I owned the Boss RC-50, spent nearly a month with it, and found it to be very glitchy. So I bought the mother of all hardware loopers, the Gibson Oberheim Echoplex which was great, but I found that even it had some severe limitations. Then I learned about Mobius. Mobius: Mobius is a software looper. It is being developed by Jeff Larson and it is ….. FREE. As Jeff writes, “Mobius is essentially 8 synchronized stereo EDP's (Echoplex units) with the ability to copy loops and timing between them.” Being highly customizable, you can basically set up Mobius to loop just about any way you can imagine. I settled on Mobius because I could stack infinitely, undo and redo without limitation, multiply, have real time control of feedback level and run up to 8 separate loops (though I never use more than 2). It is a major understatement to say that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with Mobius.  Mobius runs very stable on any decent laptop or desktop computer running Windows, and it's functions can be easily carried out with a mouse or with keyboard commands. However, to really get the most out of Mobius, I suggest getting a midi pedal board to send signals to Mobius. I decided on a Behringer FCB1010. Both the Behringer FCB1010 and Mobius have very active user groups full of helpful people and answers to all questions. (Behringer FCB1010 Group & Mobius Group)While I often tell people that Mobius is overkill for my purposes, the truth is that there are no hardware solutions available right now that fulfill all of my requirements for a looper, so I run Mobius on a Dell laptop velcroed to my pedal board. The only real downside is the size of the board I had to build which you see here. Note that the looper is just Mobius running on the laptop, controlled by the FCB1010. The other pedals are for other things. One hardware looper on the horizon is the Rang III. I’m anxiously awaiting the release of this follow up to the Boomerang which I loved so much. The Rang III’s specs look promising. |
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