So, it was my first attempt at looping today. Well, not exactly looping, but pretty close. I'll explain.

Usually, looping involves playing a musical part into a piece of hardware or software called a looper. The looper repeats the part, and you play a different part over that one, so on.

You might have a microphone, a guitar, and a keyboard, and add them, one by one.

I sort of did that . . .

Reaper Loop Recording

I opened up my recording software, Reaper, and found a drum loop I wanted. Is that cheating? I could play something in, but I don't have a keyboard (except my computer keyboard. So, I just chose an existing drum loop 🙂

I then put Reaper into loop recording mode. In this mode, Reaper records the same section, over and over again, keeping each take.

So, I rehearsed the different parts a while, tried a few times, and got a take I mostly liked.

So, the recording is all one take of a looped section.

After The Recording

I went back and processed the sounds differently.

• I took one track, and lowered it an octave, to cover the bass guitar part.
• The second track, I added some wah-wah pedal, and ran into an amp simulator for a little grit.
• Tracks 3 & 4 were mostly clean sounding.
• For track 5, I dialed in a lead tone and let it rip.

That's not the way traditional looping is done, as far as I understand it. But it's how I did it, lol. A little delay and reverb, and I was good to go.

Enjoy,
Keith