Looper?

[superblonde]

It could be great to have a looper lesson in the beginner series. “Here’s how to play along with yourself, so you can play leads over your own backing”
I don’t have a looper (yet) and haven’t compared models. I just know in general how they work, and that reviews of different looper pedals complain a lot about the quality, hah. The drum pedal I just got is phenomenally fun.

Looping could be done with a DAW but there is just so much mucking about, compared to stepping on a switch.
Or maybe the lesson could be, using a midi pedal to start/stop loop functions in a DAW (but that is getting a bit techie already).

Ideally? Maybe a looper pedal would also record aux-in, so first, play rhythm along with GP6 drum+bass backing track, with laptop headphone-out connected to the pedal for recording? Then play the loop as complete backing track and practice the lead over top?

By the way, foot tapping is a great warmup practice for having to stomp a pedal too 😀

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Anonymous]

This is the one I have. Works great – pretty amazing what you can do with just one button! – and quality is 5 stars. Only problem, if any, is that due to it’s small size in can hold a 9 volt battery, but then these kind of pedals burn batteries really quick so maybe that’s why.

Later, TC Electronics came out with this one, and wish I had it as it sure open a lot possibilities to compose..

[Anonymous]

…and

[AlleyCatRocker1980s]

Loopers are a great tool!

Practicing Guitar

[superblonde]

I saw a similar Paul Gilbert video demo too and he mentioned one thing that seems very critical. He always uses two amps. One amp for the looping side and one amp for the lead/solo side. I guess this fixes the problem of muddy fuzzy sound when both signals are sent to the same amp. One of the youtube comments mentions this too. Tho I have no experience with these myself it seems like a good idea, separate amps.

I dont see the use of the ‘reverso’ function of some loopers, and that ‘half speed+1 octave down’, both seem like gimmicks to me?

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[Anonymous]

superblonde wrote:

I saw a similar Paul Gilbert video demo too and he mentioned one thing that seems very critical. He always uses two amps. One amp for the looping side and one amp for the lead/solo side. I guess this fixes the problem of muddy fuzzy sound when both signals are sent to the same amp. One of the youtube comments mentions this too. Tho I have no experience with these myself it seems like a good idea, separate amps. I dont see the use of the ‘reverso’ function of some loopers, and that ‘half speed+1 octave down’, both seem like gimmicks to me?

Honestly I never noticed signal degradation. Two amps? Sure, but if you’re going to play live, and even that if going solo… to play live with a looper in the context of a band where tempo can variate I’d say it’s pretty daring.. unless you’re using it for ambient sounds – and in that case I’d sure welcome the reverse function; imagine it coupled with volume swells, etc, and specially since you can multi-layer with it. For practice purposes (95% of it’s use?) one amp is perfectly enough.

The lower octave would be awsome if only keeping the same speed, like an octaver. Like that, to me, woudl be very much useless.

[ZUrlocker]

Using a DAW can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.  If you’ve got a Mac, you’ve got GarageBand for free.  All you need is a $30 USB guitar cable (which is a fraction of what a looper pedal costs) and you’re in business.  GarageBand also makes it super easy to realistic sounding drum tracks that are more interesting than a standard drum loop, with variations in fills etc.

[PaulWolfe]

I’ve got the original Ditto looper and it’s great… currently I’m using it along with a lesson on modes so I can play a progression and test lead ideas over it… at home in a practice setting, one amp is fine… once I pick up a Beat Buddy there’ll be no need to look for backing tracks ever again!

[Igglepud]

I would rather work with the DAW myself, but then I know how to and the looper I have sucks. I can’t change the tone of the live guitar without changing the looped guitar too.

 

 

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Author]

Posts