Loopers

[warmstrat]

A little while back i saw this guy by the name of Dave Ferguson doin' his thing in a club. In terms of gear, he had an old tube microphone, a pedal board with an octaver, a chorus pedal, a delay (i think), a nice big fat Akai LOOPER, and a beat-up old Fender amp.

It's really hard to describe what he does, you really should check out www.myspace.com/lonesomedaveferguson to read what he says about himself and hear a demo track...

Essentially though, using the looper, he records a layer or two of himself, either making vocal noises, stomping his feet (or anything) to make a rhythm track. He then plays the harmonica (yes, the good ol' blues harp) in more layers and layers, even using the octaver to make a bass sound with the harp. seeing this guy live is like something from another planet, I tell you. IF you've read this far, you now HAVE to hear it at www.myspace.com/lonesomedaveferguson

My question is: what is there to say about loopers? I think i want one but having very little experience of what they can practically do, it's hard to tell whether it's the thing for me. I'm thinking of a similar concept kinda act but with guitar as well... So yeah, fire away.

Any feedback, any and all, would be greatly appreciated...

[UnklMickey]

loopers are pretty cool as performance tools. But more commonly, inexpensive models are used to record a phrase you are trying to learn, and play it back repeatedly. At least that what the kids are doing, these days.

cheers,
Unk

[warmstrat]

I don't understand how that helps you learn the phrase though... Maybe I'm just too much of a noob...

[sumgai]

warmy,

I don't understand how that helps you learn the phrase though... Maybe I'm just too much of a noob...

Repetition. Massive repetition. So much so that your fingers twitch on an imaginary fretboard while you're sleeping. A looper has to be able to start and stop when you say so, so you plug in an audio source (such as CD player or your iPod), set the start/stop points wherever you wish within the tune, and then work on learning just that portion of it.

Or it could be that the looper has a circuit to let it slow things down while keeping the same pitch. That's a valuable training tool, if it sounds half-way decent. (Some devices made to do that particular trick sound pretty bad if you slow down more than about 10 or 15 percent.)

HTH


sumgai

[reeced]

Hi warmstrat,
The device you describe is probably the Akai Headrush E2 (cost about $200). If you've ever seen or heard K.T.Tunstall - she uses one for similar purposes to what you described.
I've got one, and it's great fun. You get about 32 secs of recording only on a single loop, but you can loop on loop to build up, and then at the push of a button return to your original loop.
On top of that it's got a decent digital delay, and a 4-headed tape simulation echo, with separate outputs for each head. Unfortunately you can't use the delays at the same time as the looper. Nevertheless it's good for the money, great for a live situation and great for playing at home.

[warmstrat]

ah... thanks, sumgai, makes more sense now

receed, i think thats exactly the thing he had, but he said it was out of production. wanna sell me one? anyone?

[reeced]

warmstrat said:

receed, i think thats exactly the thing he had, but he said it was out of production. wanna sell me one? anyone?

I don't think it's out of production - my local store UK has it - www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/e2-headrush/67361

also Google shows up several other sites.