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Comment by UncleEntity | Hacker News Reader

During one of my daily perusals of the YouTubes I came across KT Tunstall[0] going into detail on how she does live looping for her shows. Apparently, I'm not up on the pop scene, she's pretty well respected as one of the best 'loopers'.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liOOHp61nZE

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I don't want to be dismissive of any musician's practices and work, but I couldn't really see much evidence in that video or a quick YT search for KT Tunstall as a really good looper.

If you want to get an idea of how far you can go with live looping, this is one of my favorite videos (Rico Loop wandering around Berlin with looper, a mic and not a whole lot more).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWc3W8WgFWw

I built a homemade multitrack looper using Ableton and a custom Max4Live plugin. It works similar to a looper pedal, but (1) it gives you random access to all loops instead of just the top of the stack; and (2) it keeps every audio stream on its own channel, so you can route drums to a PA system, guitars to an amp, etc, instead of having everything go to a single output.

Here's some riffing I did on the Stairway to Heaven solo that showcases it: https://freerobby.wistia.com/medias/vcajgqerla

http://essej.net/sooperlooper/

If it appears "dead", that's mostly because it's essentially finished. It has all the features you've mentioned above, and then a whole lot more. All open-source and GPL'ed. Also fully controllable from e.g. MIDI pedal boards or OSC applications.

I've used SooperLooper too! It reminds me a lot of (and seem to draw a great deal of inspiration from) the Gibson Echoplex.

I like working within Ableton for a few recording workflow-related reasons but agree SL is fantastic as a standalone tool.

Playing around with a RC-20 it's pretty easy to get good at 2 bar loops and building a great texture. The problem I find is you inevitably reach a climax and then just stop. This is probably one of the most impressive loops I've seen in terms of the layering and length:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GyoUmhKU0&ab_channel=Casey...

Her track "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree" live showcases it a lot better - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp0Pt-VFe_g

This is what I like

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwb6wPStEpY

Nice decision to use a much longer basic loop (12 bars?) which avoids the "this is obviously a live looper" syndrome. Thanks for the link.

Mark Rebillet is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRpUr5iQPIY

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