A Pedal every guitar player should have

[Mincer]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

Well, honestly, every pedalboard should have a clock on it with a big enough display to see when standing. I hate seeing musicians look at their watch or worse, their phone, while on stage. I bought a battery powered digital clock that uses velcro to stick on my pedalboard.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

Line6 M13 and two Expression pedals (or the ART X-15). It's got all your importante pedals.

Audition 3 has a "repeat" function, so I don't follow this "looper" logic. I can select a range or just let the whole thing repeat while I noodle out a solo section or breakdown. I can slide stuff around to get alt beats/tempos, or snap it back in place without stopping the playback.

[Mincer]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

Well, I tend to use the looper for composition...my loops rarely have rhythms, and I use several at a time that aren't synced up.

[Jacew]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

The thing about a decent looping pedal is that they can be used for composition as well as practice. I am not talking about the standard 'loop a rhythm with backing tracks and play over it' pedal, but one that actually allows you to manipulate and combine loops in weird ways. When I work on my ambient stuff, these sorts of pedals really get some ideas going, especially when a few loops are going at once and they are not synced together. The music constantly evolves and is never the same.

What kind of looper(s) you're using? Seems very difficult keeping on track with several loops going on at the same time... While I had that looper, I only had about four loops in the memory, and was struggling trying to find them, or stop the correct one, in time...

It's one reason I prefer Audacity, I'll always have visual info about the entire "landscape", and there's no need to dance with pedals. As an added bonus, it makes you to repeat same passages over and over while composing, so it's great practice at the same time.

[Mincer]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

I am using a few:
A Boomerang Phrase Sampler, which allows 4 loops to play at once.
An Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro, which is about the best looper designed to create new music, ever. You get one loop at once, but you can redefine start and end points, multiply loops, drop in new slices of audio, etc. It is a serious composing tool.
A Line 6 M9- great for basic loops.
Software-wise, though, I have used Mobius, which is a crazy VST looper based on the Echoplex, with 8 loops at once.

Sometimes I use them at once, sometimes just one unit will do. It isn't difficult to keep track, any more than it is to be a bandleader listening to live musicians.

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

With a DAW and sample blocks, you can easily drop in and spread out different blocks. If your DAW can support unlimited tracks, and if either your PC is strong enough or the blocks are "lite" enough, you can easily compose a full arrangement in one sitting, or at least flesh it out enough that you can go back later and beef up what needs more beef (i.e. MIDI loops that call higher-quality sample banks, add or adjust effects on a given block, etc).

As well, if each track is a separate instrument, rather than a separate instrument class (a single horn vs a gaggle of horns) you can tweak each one individually for maximum anal-retention and overdose on the whole Control Freak thing.
I typically dump my BFD tracks as separate drum pieces per track, and even front/back or top/bottom mics for each piece, as well as the Room, OH, and Ambient mics. I can go back to the master BFD file and replace any given kit piece and then re-export that piece's track, and either replace the original completely or layer it in with the original so I have hybrids you'd spend thousands to have built in real life, or that just expand on the capabilities of the main program or cut down on post-production, like adding more beater snap/click to a deep kick, or more depth to a tight snare. This also keeps me out of the FX panel where things can get permanently messy if the EQ isn't right or the Reverb is too sloppy. Not to mention being able to A/B drum tones in the full mix (do I want the chrome or the maple snare here?)

[Lampy H]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

Well, I tend to use the looper for composition...my loops rarely have rhythms, and I use several at a time that aren't synced up.

I use mine for writing harmonies.

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

Killswitch....SILENCE!!!
Haha

[Securb]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

A gas pedal so you can drive yourself to gigs and practices and not be a burden on the other guys in the band.

[ehdwuld]

Re: A Pedal every guitar player should have

I just bout a Kick drum pedal to irritate the drummer

naw I got a cajon and wanna get my Mumford/Reignwolf/Jack White on