For some, being a solo performing songwriter is tricky.

On one hand you have the freedom of not having to compromise with other band mates. You also get to keep all the money from gigs. Less scheduling conflicts and less gear to haul around.

On the other hand the style of gigs you can play may be limited. For many singer-songwriters it can be a challenge to hold the attention of an entire bar, restaurant, or loud club with earnest songs and an acoustic guitar.

The only solution - other than a band or duo - used to be playing along with a laptop of pre-recorded tunes. We’ve probably all experienced the solo bar performer strumming his guitar and singing along to his MIDI-programmed Margaritaville and Brown Eyed Girl backing tracks.

Enter the Looper

For guitar-based singer-songwriters, one solution is to work in a looping pedal. Many songwriters have honed their chops and live performance skills on looping pedals and created spectacular live shows.

Not sure what I’m talking about?

Check out the clip below of K.T. Tunstall performing “Black Horse In A Cherry Tree”.

Take special note of how she weaves vocal harmonies, guitar, percussion, and hand claps into a great live, organic, yet invisible band. My favorite part is around 3:45 where she adds on even more vocal layers into a final chorus refrain. You can tell the crowd feels the excitement too!

Making sense yet? It threw Ms. Tunstall for a loop (no pun intended) when she realized what she could do with it. She says in this interview:

“It was a moment of realization, understanding that if I hit the guitar, I can get drum beats. Suddenly I had a drum machine—it was brilliant. I can’t tell you how excited I was—and still am—to go into the rehearsal room or soundcheck and come up with new beats. Thanks to the looper, my coffee-shop shows were kick-ass. I’d end up with a nice little crowd, and people got into it. Now I’ve integrated looping into my music, even when I play with a band.”

Many other artists take advantage of creating an organic live backing track via looping pedals. Keller Williams, Howie Day, DJ Williams, and others. Check out this guy playing the jazz standard Autumn Leaves through a looping pedal.

Read on for more looping info

Songwriting Loops

As you watch some of these video clips, you recognize how a looping device works as a great songwriting companion. Imagine being able to lay down a chord progression and have it immediately available for working out melodies, harmonies, and other instrumentation - without even taking your fingers off the fretboard.

Downside of Looping

There are some caveats with live looping. If a musician is not careful they can ruin their stage show by spending to much time staring at their shoelaces fiddling knobs and hitting foot switches. It also takes some thought preparing your songs for live shows. You want to get the live loops up and running as quickly as possible so the audience isn’t left to suffer while you build your tracks. There are ways to work this out and we’ve provided some online resources at the end of this article.

What Looping Pedal Do I Choose?

In the last 2-3 years scores of mainstream manufacturers have been creating live looping pedals. These pedals run the gamut from extremely complex to very simple.

On the simple end are pedals like the Line 6 DL-4 (used by Howie Day and DJ Williams), the Akai Headrush E2 (used by KT Tunstall). On the complex (and more expensive) end are the Boss Loop Stations and the Gibson Echoplex (used by Keller Williams). Here is an example of someone on YouTube improvising with the more technical Echoplex.

If you would like to be able to include your vocals in the looping process, you will need to also get a small mixer or adapter to convert your mic signal to line level. I use a small Behringer Xenyx, which does the trick nicely. Run your guitar and vocals through the mixer for a single out to the looper. The looper output can then go to the mixing board or amplifier. It might take some experimentation to get the right setup for your particular style - but that’s part of the fun. The notebook sketch shown to the right is actually from Ms Tunstall’s notebook and shows her looping setup, which she elaborates on in this interview.

One trick I like to do is add a octave pedal in my signal chain, and use that to lay down a bass loop on my looper. Then I turn the octave pedal off and I am back to guitar and building my guitar loops.

Fun stuff!

Looping Resources

Loopers Delight
This is the most popular place to learn all things looping. You can also join their very active email discussion list, where you can ask experienced loopers for tips and tricks on live performance technique.

Looping on YouTube
A simple search on YouTube pulls up tons of live loopers - including most of the artists listed above.

Check Looper Pricing:

All the major manufacturers carry a majority of the generally available quality loopers. There is even a good amount of used and discounted loopers on eBay

Here are a few affiliate links:

Loopers on Zzounds.com
Loopers at GuitarCenter.com

Loopers on Music123

Do You Loop?

If so, what is your looper of choice? What style of music do you play? Do you have any music online we can hear? If so post your links and feedback in the comments below.

Give it a try, and happy songwriting!