Any of you guys tried to make something presentable with harmonica and a looper? I´ve bought a delay pedal that has 40 sec of looping, and while I´m not terribly convinced that it will do nice things with harmonica in particular, even if I can produce a reasonably good bass with my Pog2, I´m still curious what one can do that would be usable live. Programming it, or whatever it´s called, isn´t that easy, I find.
At the 2013 World harmonica Festival a guy used a looper and a chromatic to perform Ravel's Bolero.
Catriona Sturton did some interesting harmonica overlays with a looper in a live performance of the folk song "Black is the Colour" (you can find it on Youtube) but later abandoned using a looper to work on what she could do live with guitar, harmonica, fiddle, vocals, and foot drum.
The important thing I've picked up from watching loopers is you have to make each layer sound interesting as you lay it down. I've seen people go up and basically all they are doing is laying down a few parts and then playing them together, with no concept of how the audience is going to enjoy watching them do it. Good loopers arrange the order of what they are laying down in a way that the whole song sounds good, not just the part where they finally have it built.
I watch Emily Wells, Kawehi, Dub FX, Brandon and Son of Dave. I've got a loop pedal but I haven't really played with it. I've done a little bit of harp stuff using tracked recordings but haven't mastered doing it live.
Here's a recent recording I made with an analog delay-- In some ways it is superior to digital delays for fun stuff, but I reckon you have to be into this sort of thing for it to be interesting. I have experimented with using my TC Electronic VoiceLive Touch for looping, but at gigs, the tolerance for this sort of thing is low--and I prefer to gig! Anyway here is the avant garde looping video . . .
There is even some rudimentary beatboxing at 3:12 . .
Last Edited by Gnarly on Oct 02, 2019 7:21 PM
Just an observation, but I think the same musician laying down tracks over themselves sounds homogenized. I want to hear the blend of individual musicians.
Last Edited by Thievin' Heathen on Oct 02, 2019 10:02 PM
It works better with effects processors, making the textures different. But yeah, there's nothing like the magic of individuals combining their talent. Noodling is fun to do, tho--but not as fun to listen to!
My comment was specific to a guitar player I was listening to last week. She would have had to cancel the show if she'd misplaced her thumb drive. She is a good musician.
