In the Loop
A looper pedal could become an essential part of your acoustic rig
You don’t need a band to deliver full, multi-layered performances any more; the looping revolution has changed acoustic gigs forever. The likes of Ed Sheeran have brought loop antics to the mainstream and anyone keen to expand their sound or find a new songwriting tool will find a friend in the looper. The concept is simple: a looper records part of your playing, then loops it over and over, allowing you to play on top and deliver a one-man guitar orchestra. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, so join us as we get a little loopy…
The basics
Loopers come in many shapes and sizes but at their most basic they allow you to play with yourself: press the pedal’s record footswitch to begin recording, then press it again to stop recording and start playing your loop back. Just employing a looper as a simple ‘rhythm and lead’ device will make your live performances a lot bigger. It allows you to lay down a rhythm bed on the looper, making room for an arpeggio or lead line over the top. Many digital delay and multi-effects pedals have built-in loopers that can handle these basic uses.
Going deeper
Once you’ve got your first layer down, you can add additional overdubs using the record footswitch, eventually building huge walls of sound. This is where undo/redo functions come in, allowing you to remove the last recorded layer and subsequently bring it back in. It’s not only handy to remove a flubbed overdub, but can also be used to bring parts in and out for choruses or climaxes. On larger pedals, you might get a footswitch dedicated to undo/ redo, but on smaller pedals, it usually requires holding the footswitch for a second or more. Stopping and starting the loop entirely will either entail stomping on a dedicated footswitch or pressing a single footswitch twice in quick succession. Investing in a larger looper may even secure you multiple ‘tracks’, which you can switch in or out of at will, whether they were the last dub you recorded or not.
Songwriting
Besides playing live, loopers are handy tools for home practice. Trying to figure out what melody
will work over that prize-winning chord progression you just came up with? Stick it in the looper and play it round and round until you figure it out. The same goes for writing solos, or even practising technique: a looper is seriously handy for nailing a scale or lead run over a progression. Or, you can go the reverse route: if you’ve got a sweet set of notes that need a progression to keep them moving along, loop the melody, then lay down the chords afterwards. You’ll find your songwriting coming on just by understanding what notes work over what chords.
Timing
No matter how simple or complex your loops, good timing is essential: unlike real musicians, a looper can’t speed up or slow down to compensate for faster or slower tempos. So make sure you get your first layer recorded at the right speed, or your entire song will be the wrong tempo. To make this easier during a live performance, play the opening part a few times before you start the loop; this will help you adjust to what feels natural to play. Tapping your foot can also help to keep the rhythm steady throughout the recording. Some more complex loopers have metronome-style rhythm tracks and quantize functions, where the recorded track is automatically synced to your desired tempo.
Get creative
Since you’re creating big layers and textures, you can afford to be more creative with external effects and playing styles. Bring an octave or pitch shifter pedal into play, and use it to lay down a groovy bassline to cycle throughout the song. Or keep certain parts dry and lather others with lashings of reverb for emphasis. Of course, loopers and percussive playing are natural bedfellows – you can build up the sound of an entire drum kit on a guitar by looping each part individually, before laying regular chords and leads on top.
Special FX
Many loopers have their own built-in effects. The most common are reverse and half-speed – the former plays your loop backwards, a nifty trick for middle eights and outros, while half-speed cuts your loop’s tempo in half, doubling its length and, in many cases, dropping the pitch an octave. So, if you loop your desired bassline at doublespeed on your guitar, when you kick in the half-speed, you’ll get a proper low-end line ready to play over. Larger loopers also offer the ability to plug in SD cards, so you can trigger pre-recorded audio files and easily replicate your recorded tracks onstage.