I love the "you don't even have to consult your band members". A couple of the other virtues of solo gigging: nobody is ever late to practice; you always agree about the song set. Great tips!

OMG SUCH GREAT TIPS BibleThump 😭 I'm going to try tightening up my loops and practicing the timing of my FX pedals. I use the RC-600 but honestly think it's time I added a midi controller so I don't have to bend down and sift through menus...

Brilliant video, I especially like the Dancing tip! I need to do this more! I also think that PRACTICING the song LOADS is really important too! Keep up the amazing work - you are a looping legend!

Wow! Very helpful! Every point valuable and applicable. Thanks. Keep up the great work!

I feel called out! I notice when I screw this stuff up every time I perform lol. My performance is all comedy though so when I fumble and start over I notice it just tends to add to the laughs.

Good Tips, especially the dancing. :D Many musicians (like me) are too focused on the music and forget to move haha

Great tips. I'm guilty of a few. However, 1 that I am NOT guilty of is taking a long time to layer the loop. I think I owe this to a heckler at a show in Arizona, when I was just starting the drum loop, & he yelled "I love this song" lol That taught me quite early on to get the loop going & get to the vocal part quick so that the audience knows what song I am actually playing.

Guilty! This is really helpful! Thanks

I haven't done any of those mistakes. But when I start looping I will look forward to them. This was very good. You sort of touched on my ambivalence towards looping. I want to do it - I get tired of watching almost all other loopers after about halfway through their first song. You are exactly right with the five.

Thankw fornthe video. Im guilty of all those 😂but im learning as i go

I just started looping and your vids have been a huge help, thanks a ton

Awesome tips! Thanks for this, do more videoossss!

I'm new to looping and this was very helpful. I definitely make these mistakes nearly every time I loop. Only way to stop is to loop even more though :D

Huge fan Emily! Love these tips.. tip number one is a huge one for me.. if I’m watching a performance , and 3 mins in and someone is still layering spoons and shakers and adding 6 layers of goofy mouth sounds.. then I’m out.. lol… the loop artists that I enjoy, are the ones that if you close your eyes, you can’t hardly tell they’re looping… artists like yourself, and Matt Bolton come to mind.. you guys are great at making us forget you’re even using a loop pedal.. so good!

This is really helpful. My friend and are are a two person band. They're on drums, and I'm on bass/guitar/vocals. I'm using a Boss RC-1 looper, and while it works for simpler stuff, the lack of ability to record multiple non-overdubbed loops plus the need to double click the foot switch is very annoying.

I am guilty of drums last in loop building - I will definitley try and add them first. I'm not currently using loop sync though so it might get a bit boring - might have to start varying my track lengths. Thanks for the great advice Emily!

I am just now starting out with live looping and really enjoyed this video! Something else that would be helpful for beginners that I haven't seen anybody else cover so far (or at least not simply enough for beginners to understand) and something I am struggling with is going over different ways to live loop, such as syncing midi clock to the DAW, syncing all tracks to the first track, or not syncing tracks at all (which I don't even understand how someone could have good enough timing to keep everything exactly on beat without some kind of sync). I'd love to learn more about this if you wanted to consider the topic for a future video!

I 100% agree with the first 4! Very SOLID tips! I hear you about #5 but that's one of my favorite rules to break. Not with 4 bars of guitar or anything like that, but laying down a short rhythm track with a non percussion instrument can be tons of fun.

Great vid! What's your advice on audio bleed getting into overdubbed loops in a live set?

Been looping since 2000. Those are a good 5. I'd like to add another. If you're performing and making it up as you go then keep focussed without tapping into the energy of your crowd too much. Once you have experienced the pain of allowing the audience way too far inside you that ends up changing everything you thought you might do and finding yourself in an uncomfortably novel situation you will know what I mean and that you do not want it anymore. So get to your groove quickly and then connect to the crowd quickly. The spirit of your new song will be established and the crowd will join along instead of painfully wishing you were doing something else. I'm a loopercussionist. . . I play percussion creating live loops to make people move their body then into ambience to stimulate the mind and back to beats! Thanks Emily.

Great Channel Emily and excellent concise points. My fave tip is to change up the Bass Line partially through the song especially if you can also switch the drum style too. It's great to not only 'middle 8' but also switch the dynamic of the song too. #ThingsThatMakeYourAudienceGoOoooh!

I enjoy how you show your process of looping and the tips you provide. Thank you! Any chance you could post a video on looping with just 1 track using some of your techniques? Many of us new to looping don't have the multi-track loop station like yours.

Thx! Great recomendations!

Learning so much from your vids...TY

Parabéns 👏👏👏. Adorei as dicas. Obrigado.

Yikes...guilty as charged...Great tips Em! 🤟

Great tips, i’m subscribing!

Hey Emily. I’m just watching your collab with JP and saw you used to do Cruises. Thought I’d say hi, from a fellow pro looper who came from doing cruises! There’s not many of us! I’m a headrush user now having moved over from Boss.

Great advice. Makes me realize that I need a better loop station. I have the RC-30 with only 2 tracks to switch between, and also they are timing locked so I can’t build in different phrase lengths. Also switching between the tracks is not instantaneous so I tend to have one layer that’s only percussion and then the 2nd layer builds up whichever section of the song needs it. I’ve gotten pretty quick at using it but building in a loop mid-song is an obstacle a lot of the time…sometimes I’ll add a few more layers on in the middle of the song (when I no longer need to switch sections I can add onto the percussion layer), but I have to build SOMETHING at the beginning or else I am asking for a jarring listening experience for the audience.

Great Video - i am doing Live Loops with an E-Cello - beside the Rhythm the Intonation is very Important :) But now I added a minikeyboard to my Loops and always start with the minikeyboard m Loops to be sure that the Intonation is correct for my Bass line 🫡

good points. my pet peeve is people thinking they can sing when they can't and proceeding to loop "4-part harmonies."

These are good tips. I've heard you say before about rhythm section stuff first and just one or two bars to keep it tight, and I've adopted that a lot lately. 4-8 bars of guitar and then even hitting your guitar body to it will speed up or drag if you aren't very careful. Two tips I would add: 1. Sound variety. Like Matt Bolton is awesome but it feels like he has the same drum and guitar sounds for the whole show. 2. Overlong guitar solos. I am very guilty of this. You don't have to worry about cueing in other bandmates so you just widdle for 16 bars, and then that you hold that last note and miss the singing cue, so you will in with more widdly for another 8 bars, and you didn't quite nail the idea you were going for, so you go around again. A key thing to do is record your gigs and listen back to yourself critically. I chop it into individual songs on the Video Editor and then I can see how long that 3-minute pop song actually lasted -- often 9 or 10 minutes in my case; 3 minutes of which is building, and 2-3 minutes is guitar solo. Then you have to give yourself a serious pep talk.

Love this video - great advice!! As most music skills go - “It just takes practice!” Thanks for this video!!!!! ♪♬♫♬♪♩♬♪

This is all very good advice that I'll keep in mind for my next videos. Regarding your 5th point, I'd argue that, occasionally, it can be interesting to record a guitar loop first and then add the percussion... It's certainly dangerous (especially if you do it in front of a live audience) but it's great if you can pull it off, and doing it with a short rhythmic loop makes it a little easier. It's something I'm planning to try in a future song.

Once I was at a gig and it took two minutes to build up a loop on my rc600 but then I had to redo it!!!😅😂

Toegazing (or looking back and forth/side-to-side at one‘s various devices and screens) really kills it for me. And like you say, slow build-up is the main sin. I‘d rather here a song with fewer layers in it that actually takes off and starts reaching me emotionally than a „perfect“ song imitating an entire band. Keep it simple for me, gals & guys. :-) Oh, and maybe aim more to loop original songs folks aren‘t already familiar with. It‘s excruciating to know a song and be stuck waiting for the initial vocal (signature melody!) for eons while the looper loopsterbates in a self-indulgent, on stage Orgy of One. ;-) Doing covers means needing to get all the „essential“ (?) parts down first…or does it, really? Just because it‘s possible doesn‘t make it desirable.

Really Good, i have done most of these !!!

Hello I'm really enjoying your stuff. Any chance of some more Tom Petty? Or anything Ska? Specifically sublime's ball and chain, i imagine the tempo change may make it challenging for the looper. Looking forward to more vids 😁

Pretty much all sound advice. Another one which I saw someone suggest was do not experiment too much without reading the room first. I like to try things myself if I'm feeling it but if the room hasn't shown you any indication that they're down for it then it might not be a good idea...

Great tips, thanks! Q: when you speak of not looping every part, do you mean that you pre-loop certain parts before the performance? I mean, for example, I was thinking about attempting to do Moondance by using a built-in or pre-recorded drum track and recording the bass and keys of the verse over this live and then playing guitar and singing over this live. I'd then have the bass and keys for the next two sections pre-recorded so I can get flow into these from the chorus. Is that cheating, or is it just pragmatic? Re. the advice to dance: I'm very aware that timing is my greatest weakness, musically. My pitch is pretty much spot-on, but I'll record what I think is pretty tight, only to play it back on go OMG! That's as loose as a goose! And, of course, as you say, timing is everything in looping. So I'm really going to try to be more aware of the moving my (slightly aging) body thing while I'm playing from now on, and I'm really hoping it will help. Lastly, I'm really enjoying your videos in general. You have a way of dealing with the technical without getting too technical about it, and you put it all into real-life, performing contexts. Thanks!

Good stuff! You just got a sub.

Great tips! Could you do one with two different parts (different chord progressions on each part). Would you build the chorus then live on the first verse while you build that or something?

Emily I love your videos and your Twitch channel! I wanted to give a shout to one of my looping inspirations if you have never seen him, Carl Wockner. He is Australian and now lives in Nashville. I think you will love his channel if you are not already familiar with him.

I make different mistakes. My loops are long because I want a chorus and a verse. By the time I have got to the end of the first loop it is a faster rhythm.

Yessss, I need to KNOW!

Hey Emily. I wanted to ask you what you do live against mic bleeding. I have a shure sm58 and it picks up soooo much from the speakers that the recordings are not clean and it builds up the more I record. Also Tambourine and snaps dont really sound that clear and crisp when I record them live. Do you have any tipps for that? Thank you for your videos and help!

As a drummer, I’d rather have the chords play first to get an idea of the song formate and style. I like to know when the verse comes in, the chorus, bridge, solo, etc.

Hi, I'm new at looping, but I have been trying to look into the tempos in the looper but they all seem to be in 4/4 time. Is there a way to put them in 3/4 time?

Awesome M8 xx one love xx

I agree and can be guilty of many of these but disagree on the last one. I often build a song with the opening chords and sign a verse and add a beat later in the song to build it up. In truth I play acoustic in a super percussive way that sort of has a beat but its something that works well for me. :)

Spot on. I’ve made all of these mistakes haha

Hi Emily. I have a question. In your experience, about how much time is too much time to build the loops? 1 minute, 2 minutes? What do you think?

So i hate the layers thing bc i do feel it takes time, but when you get asked to do creep the way you do every time and they want to hear the every note lol I hate the song but hey if they want it i gotsta do it. I never start with drums :/ i always feel ill be too fast with it or it wont match up and 95 percent of the time i can get it right with my guitar first. :/ i love the vary it up. I have never used my mouth as a a bass and the boss 600 is going to change that! And maybe even doing a kick and a snare from time to time lol im not confident in that. Can you show us how to do drums with your vocals?

No idea how I got here, I'll subscribe for the genius way of remembering people to subscribe 3:33 :D

Thanks!

AMEN!!

Thanks

I disagree with the "Don't start with guitar" Most people would rather hear what song you are playing rather than constantly starting off a rhythm section. I only loop rhythm guitar now so i can solo....Then maybe add drums and bass after the rhythm guitar is laid down and that is in the middle of the song so the solos sound cooler with a backing band sort of. Sometimes i don't even bother with drums. I only build short drums on a few select songs the entire night and that is it. I can't stand watching looping artists anymore and I've realized I was one of them. Totally different on stage than in the audience experience lol.

Have you tried Loopy Pro? Feel like it would gel quite well with your style of looping.

If you want to see some awesome loop building, check this guy out. I'm not sure the hand held percussion did much, but other than that, IMHO, this is awesome. It is deep, something like ten layers, but he moves it right along. His shtick is that he takes requests, and if he doesn't know the song, like this one, he listens to a bit, and lets fly. He is frankly (sorry, I know I shouldn't, you'll get that, a couple of sentences down) the best I have heard at doing this, although obviously I haven't heard all of them. I left about ten seconds of the listening in, so you can see what he's working from. Frank Tedesco: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/auB9f8Sa3Z6-pKM.html If you liked that, check out the Etude he wrote. You can hear the waves. :-) And it looks like a pretty good exercise, for someone like you, not me. :-/ Also his Wanderlust album has some good stuff in it. When I watch Frank, it looks like magic, to me. Crazy talented., and he's got a great quick wit. Carry on young lady, always fun to watch. Cheers.

What does 'Building the top' mean? I've seen this term around and I'm not sure what it refers to.

Neato!

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Hey I saw Mr. Jeff in this video! Woohoo Jeffrenerd!

i feel attacked by this video and i love it x)

Helpful

Hi Emily, my frind... Because I belive i`m making 5/5, of these mistakes, I have found a solution for all the problems. I have carved a nice box for my Boss 300. -If I don`t open the box, I get no problems... ;-) PS! Do you know that the two guys (1:57/3:53) in this vidio, is Thomas and Harald, and they had aTV show on Saturdays, in Norway for many years?

🥳🥰🥰

guilty of building first every single time... build the same win the game!

Hmmm!

BUSTED! I have definitely committed all 5 sins.

Cool.... I am the drummer... and the bassist, and the father with no time to play...

Thanks for projecting your shame and guilt on the 10.000 people who watched this video... wow. Embarrassing. ❤

... And please, please.... no more shaker and tambourine... We have heard that evil combo too many times. Every new loop artists does it in every song....

Thanks