What is a looper?

A looping pedal is a recording device which allows you to record tracks of various lengths. Those tracks can come from an MP3 player, keyboard, microphone, or guitar. Here comes the neat part. Once you record a passage, you can then record multiple times over that passage, to build a back beat, or a simple to complicated multi-line guitar part. I found this to be an interesting way to make a bigger 'sound' as a solo/duo. Acoustic guitar was an easy choice for me to integrate into this technology. As a drummer, everything seemed logical since my mind is wired to keep time. There are several challenges to building tracks

properly and it comes down to timing - when to tap 'in', and when to tap 'out'. A lot of the higher end looping devices offer a 'quantizing' feature, which will knock a lagging beat onto the measure so it sounds right to the ear. The last cool feature of these devices is the ability to record separate tracks which you can then turn on and off with a foot pedal. This allows for triggering multiple parts for the various passages in a song, be it the verse, chorus, or bridge. There are some insanely talented looping pedal users out there, utilizing the newest and most robust looping pedals - mine is above basic, but not so involved that I require a Phd in eye-hand-foot coordination.

Check out this link for further explanation. It's a bit of a commitment to read the whole thing, but it's pretty comprehensive.

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