performing with a looper

Doesn't work. ? When you "start verse loop, sing verse 2 over it" the looper will be playing the intro.
But my looper is simple, maybe yours does special stuff.

I use 2 loopers and a switcher to "kill" one if necessary. Live it's easy to start wrong etc. I need a second to save me! Or I can use one for an intro only.

 

All songs can be built differently
Check out the YouTube Channel of "I Am Kawehi" .... The Gal is really impressive. She knows how to break down a song for looping while keeping it interesting.

She does so much with so little.

I have a Boss RC300. Think about getting another one to daisy chain.

FG

 

well this is not much help but I would just play the song, record the loop at the end then jam it out, then stop. But I just have the simple ditto looper and this is about as good as I can get it

 

I can undo / redo last overdub live with mine.. (Boss RC). Handy. So add a layer, then remove it, add another layer, remove it etc. all while basic pattern repeats. Not risked more than that.

more sophisticated ones store them to jump to.

 

For live, it's pretty lame to play the song with intros and chorus' before you actually start singing etc.
If you can structure the song with something like Verse -chorus, and repeat that throughout, (v-c,v-c,v-c ) it works and you can sing through the first verse and chorus while looping. You better get the "start loop" and "end loop" exact though!

The second looper is nice because you can loop the song last verse or etc and the jam out on that loop or something similar. It allows you to do instrumental outro's or intro's and kill with one clik if you have a kill switch also.
The "kill switch" shown just kills either loop without killing the play through.

 

I've dabbled in live looping at a bar open mic, and the one thing to make sure of is that you can hear your guitar once the loop has started. Room echoes, people talking, and general ambient noise can make it difficult to hear both your looped and live guitars. And if you're out of sync with your loop, it's a disaster!

Most people I see do live looping mainly use the looper to create a simple chord pattern they can jam over. Of course, the pros can do amazing stuff, but at least initially that's how I'd deploy looping in a live gig. There are some songs that are great for easy loop jamming, like Neil Young's "Cow Girl in the Sand". Just play it solo until you get to the Am-F jam part, then use your looper to create a background chord sequence for the 20 minute guitar solo!

 

@ndcaster : If this vid is accurate, looks like the T-Rex Image Looper can do mulitiple layers.



Have one friend who does a lot of solo performing and busking and he uses one frequently. Just simple approach, as you have outlined. I see no problem with what you have in your numbered sequence. You're not recording the intro, just the verse chords which you then could add alternate grips to a second verse, being your own 2nd guitar.

Had another friend who experimented, and maybe got carried away with soloing...or not. getting the timing down so you stab the button on cue may take a little practice.

I've heard some really interesting things via looper and some not. Like anything else, got to put a little time into it.

 

If you get one of the fancier loopers which can play the phrase in reverse, you could do a live looper version of Bach's "Crab Canon"!

 

using a looper live

 

There are a lot of different ways to use a looper live and a lot of different types of loopers to do it with. My advice is to start simple and then build from there. A looper is not a pedal in our way of thinking. It is a tool that requires lots of practice. You will quickly find these issues quickly anyway, but just to let you know that it is a learning process. The main thing to remember is that you will probably need to change up the format of an existing song to make it work well and entertain with a looper. It actually becomes it's own form of creativity.

 

I mainly use loopers so I can play lead over a rhythm. If I'm singing I would just sing and play live.

Loopers are cool for building up layers. If you have a 2 or 4 measure vamp you can quickly build up 3 or 4 layers without boring the audience. Zillions of examples on YouTube so you can get the idea.

 

I found some explanatory posts by @James Knox helpful, and he might chime in here if he sees this.
I was asking about signal chains but he filled in more details of how he performs in a duo with his wife, guitar bass & vox plus drum machine & looper.

Seems there are a lotta ways to use a lotta kinds of loopers...


https://www.tdpri.com/threads/drum-...ne-powered-speaker-or-what-rig.1059725/page-4

 

I assume you are playing alone with no drummer? Loopers are great for that, but it's tough for a lot of drummers to hear the loop clearly enough to lock to it. Although I hear the new TC unit actually can listen and adjust to the beat it 'hears'. THAT would be cool if it works. Anyone tried one yet? Probably not a lot of actual band rehearsals going on these days tho

 

I have a looper pedal. I have limited experience with using it live for this kind of thing (playing the rhythm part so I can play over it) mostly because it's really hard to do. If you make a mistake, you're doomed to repeat it - literally - or completely rearrange the song to fix it. You may have to sync with a drum machine - or even worse, a live drummer. I totally respect the people who put in the time and practice to do this live. That said, if you're playing pop songs in front of people, using pre-recorded (by you) tracks to perform with is 1000% easier and more reliable.

 

Yes, that's the issue. Loopers do many things... but a sequence of up to three pushes you cant do live , especially while singing! For instance; "Restart" on my Ditto is "two fast taps and a quick third". That's the main reason I use two loopers and kill switches... one tap and it's killed! I still have one to loop for a solo or etc.

The world really needs a dual looper that:
-One push at loop 2 starts recording and switches loop 1 off.
-One push restarts from beginning when you have had a loop stopped (or went to the other loop)