Song writing, Influencial Live Loopers and Recycling

When it comes to song writing I can find myself flogging a dead horse for days. Attempting to write song lyrics to fit a particular riff I've created on the loopstation or trying to create some sounds to go with some old song lyrics that I've dug up from the past. Often, after days of attempting to make something work, I scrap the whole idea, let go and move on. I'll leave the lyrics in my 'lyric note book', they may come in handy later and get re-used. I recommend having a designated lyric book for keeping ideas stored if you're attempting original music. You might not think they've worked now but they can always be recycled later. 

I avoided having a lyric note book for a while. It reminded me of the 'depressed' kid at school that wrote poetry and carried a tatty looking book with them, filled with pessimistic ramblings, or the ex female vocalist from a band, who, amongst her lyric ideas would have doodled in the rest of the bands horoscopes to be shared at the band practice in true spinal tap fashion. Once you get over the arty farty image associated with it, a lyric notebook is actually a very useful tool. After all, if you've gone to the effort of writing something that has meaning and rhymes, it's you're work and you shouldn't discard it altogether. 

I found that whilst attempting to cover some types of music like house, drum and bass and dubstep. Often the same couple of lines were repeated throughout the whole song. The theme and message is communicated just fine and sometimes it's those couple of catchy lines alone that make the song memorable. 

More often that not though, I want to create a vibe and a feeling. I may play around with bass lines, harmonies and drum beats until I've created a catchy and full sounding loop. That's when I capture it and take it away to consider lyrics to go with it. I use a BOSS micro BR for capturing and recording ideas.

The BOSS micro BR is a simple but useful piece of kit. This is actually a good few years old now and there are newer versions of it for sale. It's basically a four track recording device. You could record four layers into it and build a song using your guitar and vocals ect. I just have the headphone output of my RC-505 going into the 3,5 stereo input on the micro BR and adjust the volume output to avoid clipping, hit record and play around with the faders of the loopstation and record a couple of minutes of my latest loop creation.

Later, I listen back to ideas I've captured with a pair of headphones and begin creating lyrics. I'll see if I have any lyric ideas in my notebook that fit or begin writing new ones. I often use the website Rhymezone to help me structure the lines. When faced with a collection of words that all rhyme with or sound similar to the last word of the previous line, it's not too difficult to find a word that helps convey they meaning of your song.

Click here to visit rhymezone

The live looper community is growing fast and there is  a wealth of inspiration to be found online. I love watching other loopers and trying to work out what they're doing. I have a few favourite live loopers who inspire my work. 

Dub FX:

Dub FX is an obvious inspiration. I've found his use of layering hi-hats and harmonies has found it's way into some of my work. His lyrics have meaning and flow well too. It was his tasty bass lines that inspired me to buy the BOSS GT-10B.

Sam Perry: 

Sam is someone I discovered more recently. He takes looping vocal harmonies to the next level. He also uses raunchy bass lines and creates spectacular guitar solo sounds whilst remaining melodic. His songs are well rehearsed and designed to be re-produced and performed on stage. He has a great TEDX talk which makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck no matter how often I watch it. Furthermore, his voice is amazing.

Penkyx:

I discovered Penkyx through watching the Swissbeatbox Grand Beatbox Battle. He's a very tech orientated performer. He knows the RC-505 inside out and makes full use of the on board effects. He inspired a lot of my house and electro compositions and helped me learn how to drop like a beast. His videos will show you ways of using the RC-505 that you never dreamed possible.

Just Alliance:

Just Alliance makes great use of the GT-10B. He covers many songs from all genres of music and often cleverly merges well known songs together. He's got his own unique take on covering songs and engages his audience well because their ears prick up as they realise 'I know that track!' He's a good performer to watch and learn from if you're thinking about taking your loops on stage.

Recycling

I've shared with you my influences to try and convey that it's ok to be inspired by others and adopt their ideas. I want to share my knowledge with you to make live looping more accessible. I could hold all my cards close to my chest in the concern that someone might pinch my ideas but at the end of the day, live looping is a niche genre. There simply isn't overwhelming levels of competition in this scene as found in most other areas of the music industry. In the UK at least I've still yet to meet another live looper in person. All my discussion and interaction with live loopers is done online and often with performers in the US.

If you're still convinced that adopting ideas and looking to others for inspiration is cheating, I've got a little example for you that may change your mind. Listen to the guitar riff in the following three well known tracks and tell me it's not the same riff...

Bring on the night - Police:

  

Destiny's Child - Bootilicious:

Edge of seventeen - Stevie Nicks

There you go, three very famous tracks by three very different artists using the same guitar riff. In fact, Destiny's Child even sampled the riff directly from Stevie Nicks 'Edge of Seventeen'. Stevie even appears in the music video playing a guitar. 

I often have difficulty reproducing my own songs exactly the way I performed them before, so the chances of you sounding like your influences is slim. There are so many variables. Mainly your voice. Your voice is unique to you. I'd love to sound like Dub FX or Sam Perry, but I never will. I'm stuck with my voice, so I have to make the most of it.

I also think that the very essence of live looping is based on the sounds and loops you create right then and there. By strictly setting yourself the ambition of performing your song exactly the same on every occasion, sets the goals very high and you're likely to disappoint yourself. Become comfortable with the basic layers of your live loop and enjoy the song. Try doing it a bit different sometimes.

At the end of the day, you're only racing with yourself. No one else is going to know if you sing the last verse first, or forget to layer that tasty rim shot sound at the right moment. The less stress you create for yourself when performing, the more you can emerge yourself in the song and enjoy it. Furthermore, your audience will enjoy it more too.

Everyone knows that practice makes perfect and the best practice you can get is by performing live. Take the risk and take your music to the people, who knows where your music will take you!

Adding some bass!

In December 2014, I finally purchased the BOSS GT-10B. I'd wanted the bass processor for a couple of years and now I finally had one. In terms of bass sounds, the RC-505 is pretty limited. There's the 'guitar-bass' track effect, and the 'flanger' track effect is pretty bassy too. The GT-10B however, has endless possibilities!

I googled and browsed the web to try and find a bit of guidance in using this bass effects processor as a tool for voice manipulation. I couldn't find anything really, apart from an interview with dub FX where he simply mentions that the unit is great for delays and reverbs. Knowing myself how frustrating it is, having to work it all out for yourself, I want to help others using the GT-10B for live looping by sharing my experiences.

I got stuck in straight away. Firstly, flicking through the 200 pre-set effects whilst humming low noises into the mic to listen to the sounds created. 

These pre-set effects are intended for bass guitars so most are irrelevant in my opinion when it comes to vocal live looping. That being said, many of the pre-sets created interesting sounds and with a little tweaking could be impressive in live performance. I found a handful of pre-sets that nearly matched the sounds I was looking to create. One pre-set is the 'HEAVY T-WAH' effect. I was eager to start making original tracks with more impressive bass lines so I began creating a song straight away, without altering the effect at all.

'Throw a little whisper'

'Throw a little whisper' is the first song I created using the GT-10B. The lyrics in the song a recycled from an older, unfinished song that I wrote a good few years back. I build up the hi-hats and harmonies to give myself a sense of timing before bringing in the bass sounds. After kicking in a basic drum and bass beat, I then add a second layer of bass over the initial 'HEAVY T-WAH' bass riff. Don't get confused here, the second bass effect is the 'guitar-bass' effect from the RC-505. I wanted the attack of the GT-10B, but I also wanted a more subtle bass-line in the background to fill the sound out. 

  

You may notice as well, that once I have both the bass lines recorded on one track, I add a filter and merge the bass sounds together into a slightly deeper sound. That's the bass sorted.

There's always room for improvement and there are always things that irritate me about a recording once it's finally up on youtube. The HEAVY T-WAH effect has a tendency to feed back terribly. When I lay down the first bass sounds you can hear the squeaks and tinny squeals. This is due to the OD/DS (overdrive/distortion) settings mostly, and partly the T-WAH effect. If I'd tweaked the OD/DS before recording this track I probably could have got rid of the nasty squeaks and feedback. Or I could have turned off my speakers whilst recording. Duh! The OD/DS is responsible for the attack I wanted in the effect though, I can't just remove the effect so it requires some finer tuning.

Turning the speakers off if you're performing on stage isn't an option whilst it may be when recording. So, well worth playing around with the settings and getting your sound just right. I often position my speakers pointing at me or close by whilst adjusting effects so I can judge the settings for a live performance. It's one thing being able to record a song in a controlled environment, but my intention is to be able to recreate my tracks on stage. Getting your effects set up on your GT-10B or other processors therefore, is essential.

A good way to get the sound your looking for just right, is to loop your bass line into your loopstation using NO EFFECTS whatsoever. Have the output of you loopstation go into the GT-10B and plug some headphones into the GT-10B. Now you're free to play with the sound for as long as you need to without making noises for ages and risk loosing your voice. You'll also be fully focussed on the effect and get it exactly how you want it to suite your voice. 

Button layout is also due some consideration. You have 50 banks of customised effects, within each bank you have 4 effects and within each effect you have the ability to add more effects. For example, the CTL1 and CTL2 can be designated and pressed to apply some delay or OD/DS to your pre-existing effect. The options are as endless and as complicated it sounds. I've found there's often more than one way of achieving your desired outcome on this piece of kit.

Much of the time you will want to bypass the effects unit altogether. For example, often when singing I'd rather just use a bit of reverb on the RC-505 itself. You can bypass the GT-10B by simply pressing the tuner/bypass button or programme one of the numbered buttons (1-4) to simply have NO effects. I find using the tuner/bypass button quite comfortable. Just make sure you have it set to bypass and not mute. It's easy to forget that you have an effect selected to when layering so many aspects of a live loop. Having a simple layout of the effects you use can help avoid mistakes and make building a song a faster process. When you're hitting a loop button over there, choosing an effect over here and then going back to the loopstation to adjust the reverb, it can all be a bit chaotic.

I'm still in the early stages of learning what this tool is capable of. There's loads of things I haven't tried yet. Such as linking the RC-505 and the GT-10B together via midi lead. I found a nice lead guitar effect in the pre-sets that I'd like to use in a future performance. Again, with this effect there is a lot of potential for feedback on stage so I'm going to have to have to do some tweaking. Lots to be getting on with! I'm sure future posts in my blog will cover more of the GT-10B. It's difficult to judge how far I should drag you down the rabbit hole so I'll leave it here for now.

Britain's got talent...

Now timing is everything in looping. Sadly that appears to be the case beyond the pedal. Britain's got talent were in town scouting for talent for their new series. The timing for me wasn't great. I wasn't yet entirely discharged from hospital. Although, I was allowed considerable lengths of time off the ward. 

On one such occasion I was sat at the bar in my favourite quirky pub, enjoying some Jamaican cuisine when a reporter with a camera ordered a pint next to me. The landlord was explaining that he was sure some people would turn up for the photo shoot. The venue I was in had advertised in the local press that Britain's got talent were coming to town and if they wanted an opportunity to audition they should attend that day and reserve a spot. The local press had sent around a journalist to get some snaps of performers to make a story of it. 

There I was. The landlord had seen me attempting to live loop a couple of nights previously and encouraged me to take part. Furthermore, I should go and get in the shot with the other candidates. I think he asked me out of concern that nobody would turn up for the photo shoot. 

TIMING IS EVERYTHING!

I was hardly confident at getting up in front of a few customers, never mind auditioning to go on national TV professing to be Britain's most talented person. I wasn't going to have any part of it. The timing was wrong and I wasn't ready yet. I couldn't help being tempted to photo bomb the picture in the local press though. Even if I didn't take part... so I jumped in with the rest of the guys.

A quirky looking crowd to say the least!

 The seed was planted in my mind, maybe I could get a couple of decent tracks together in time for the audition. I never expected to get anywhere in the competition. But if I learned anything from my days playing in bands, it's that live performing is far more valuable than practising in a room by yourself. You need to expose yourself to the pressures and complications of live performing to become competent. A real audience teach you far more than you realise too. I wrestled with the idea for a week and before I knew it, the day was upon me and I'd not found time to practice a note.

I turned up to the venue at 9pm, an hour after the auditions had begun. The place was rammed. I'd brought my RC-505 in a bag with my mic. Half heartedly convincing myself I could pull some amazing performance out of the hat. Everyone had turned up to see the auditions, including many acts that wanted to try and get a last minute slot. There was a small man on stage singing... This guy was the male equivalent of Susan Boyle. You'd never guess by looking at him but he had a vocal range men don't tend to have. His choice of song was far more classical than you'd expect too. 

The acts were diverse and amongst them were some gems. To be honest, I put my loopstation out the way, grabbed a pint and settled down to watch. I didn't think much about getting up, I probably had decided not to bother any more. That was until a friend of mine got up. He had decided to do stand up comedy. I don't think he even had a joke planned but he got up.

His act was called 'Things you've always wanted to ask a black man but shouldn't'. I think the audience participation part was the low point, when of course people started asking things you shouldn't ask a black man (or anyone for that matter in civilised discussion). The act finished after a thorough discussion about penis length. I was on my 5th pint of real ale by this point and tipsy. My friend came off stage and asked if I was getting up. 

''If I can then you can!''

He was right, if he had the balls to get up and have a crack at stand up comedy with no previous experience and probably very little planning. Surely I could at least have a crack at looping. Either way, I was drunk enough not to care so much any more and I'm pretty sure the audience were too.

I pulled a table round the back of the stage and began to set up my loopstation whilst the next act before me played on. Then it hit me.. what was I actually going to play... my mind was blank... then I looked into the crowd and saw the huge camera lens pointing at the stage. A huge HD camera poised ready to capture me making a fool of myself...

Too late, the act before me finished and the audience applauded. Time to drag this table on stage and fumble about getting plugged in. It proved to be easier than expected. A simple task of handing the sound guy the ouput lead and flicking on the power. I introduced myself, explained the loopstation and began...

I began with the hi-hats... so far so good, looped in time, no feed-back. I added a couple of bass drum beats, a snare, a rim shot. Now for some reggae synth sounds, layer them up and create a harmony. So far so good. Just as easy as any other time I've improvised and played about. Now I want a nice fat bass line. I use the guitar-bass track effect. Anyone who's used the RC-505 will know, the guitar-bass effect is NICE! It suddenly fills your track out with a fat, full convincingly real bass line. As long as you sing or hum in tune with this effect you can't go wrong. It achieves more than the desired effect. I hear noises of excitement from the crowd. People who were chatting turn their heads and take notice. The bass line demands attention. The group of audience members to stage right shout compliments to me over the music and start dancing. That's all well and good but a performance without lyrics is pretty empty. It's just music... I need to perform... so what lyrics can I think of?

I don't know why it came to me but I knew the lyrics to a silly little song by Syd Barrett of the band pink Floyd. The song was "Effervescing Elephant". As far as I can tell Syd was off his face when he wrote and recorded this track. I heard the original undubbed version once and at the end of the track there's an eerie silence, before you eventually hear Syd asking if the producers are alright. You can imagine their confused faces trying to comprehend what they've just heard. This was supposed to be the next big hit... have a listen and you'll see what I mean.

Regardless, the lyrics came to mind at the time of needing lyrics and so they were used. They work really nicely in a reggae track with a fat bass line. I'm also sure I left my audience less confused than Syd's.

Now I had some confidence I finished with a house track I'd being jamming around with previously. The talent scout began dancing and so did the camera girl. That was good enough for me. I figure if i've made people dance, I've done the job. After leaving the stage the talent scout ran after me asking for my details in case they wanted to get back in contact. I had the most unnerving time for a while after, that they may actually get back in touch and I'd have to put some serious work into making a real act fast. Luckily for me they haven't. 

This being said, I realised then and there that I needed to build up an act. Whether I decided to do covers of songs or create my own originals, I needed to know the structure of the song, be confident of the key, know the lyrics and be certain that I could re-create the song on any stage. 

Time to put some hours in.

Like I said in the beginning of this post, timing IS everything. If this Britain's got talent opportunity had come later, who knows, I may have had an act ready and maybe got through a round or two in the competition. But nether the less this experience encouraged me to put in the ground work required. Like I said, live experience is worth way more than practising in your bedroom.

Returning to the Live Looping Scene...

I'd been at university studying nursing for 4 years. During that time I'd tried not to allow my interest in live music distract me too much. This proved quite difficult. Within 5 months of being at university I had helped organise a music festival, a second was organised in the same year. As time went by I became more involved and set up musician's jam nights in the centre of York city.

 The festivals grew and so did the responsibility. Through attempting to distance myself from playing music to concentrate on saving lives, I found myself organising music events instead of playing them... well, sometimes I would play at them. I also found as I attempted to drag myself out of the rock and metal scene, I fell straight into the electronic scene. Drum and Bass, dubstep, techno, deep house. I'd realised the sexiness of house music and well produced electro.This would prove to massively influence my original material later.

In these years of study I also found myself distracted by a couple of characters on youtube. Dub FX and Beardyman. The RC-50 was out and being used to it's full potential. Beardyman was also using chaos pads that blew my mind when I first saw them being used. Someone was using the loopstation in the way I had imagined! It was possible, this guy Dub FX was doing it in the streets!

I also wanted to get my hands on the BOSS GT-10B. This is what Dub FX uses to make all his tasty bass sounds and delay/reverb voice effects. I'd played around with the RC-2 so I had a good idea of what the RC-50 was capable of having multiple loop tracks but the GT-10B bass processor was new to me and I couldn't wait to get one!

By spring 2014 I'd finished my studies and landed myself in a chaotic but exiting job in A&E. I was organising music festivals still and ran a weekly jam night, but I wanted to get back into performing. My drums had taken a beating at the pub I held the jam night at. Skins smashed, bolts missing... Each week I went back and more damage was done. It was depressing. I couldn't find the energy to save my much loved drum kit. They'd taken a decade of beatings but drumming in itself wasn't as exciting as it had once been. I wanted to try something new, something I'd been thinking about for years. I had a secure job now, I'd worked hard for the past few years, I felt I deserved a reward for my slog through university. So with my first pay packet I did just that. I bought the latest of the loopstation series, the RC-505

It didn't take much working out. The day it arrived I plugged it straight it and started attempting covers of songs. I tried classic tracks like'Voices inside my head' by the police and new house music like 'Jasmine' by Jai Paul. Anything seems possible.

I plugged the RC-505 into a roland cube I'd bought a few of months earlier. I'd bought the cube because I wanted a decent speaker that was battery powered to take to BBQ's by the river or camping at festivals. It works quite well with the loopstation but lacks the bass.

Obviously I needed a decent microphone. I called a friend at a music shop and asked what microphones he had in stock and what he could recommend. He said the best mic they had in was an AKG WMS45 perception mic. Now here is when I made one of my first big errors. The AKG WMS45 is a wireless mic. 

There are pro's and cons with a wireless mic:

Pro's:

• No cable getting between you and the loopstation
• On-mic gain adjuster
• More freedom to move around a venue to sound check

Cons:

• Probably not the most robust mic
• probably not all that good for beatboxing
• needs power supply for reciever
• needs batteries
• potential loss of signal or battery power during performance

It doesn't cause me many problems but if I wanted to perform outdoors like Dub FX, I have to now cater for more power consumption. On two occasions I've performed in a venue and the battery has died resulting in me using the plug in mic that was offered to me in the first place. I know what you're thinking and yes it's my own fault that I didn't use fresh batteries before a performance, but the fact remains that it's something else you need to worry about. My advice... GET A PLUG IN MIC.

I now had a basic set up. Mic, loopstation and speaker. Here's a video of me using the loopstation that first week. The track is 'Jasmine' by Jai Paul. Rough but please forgive me, I'd only just got my hands on the thing.

Don't worry I've made some progress since then.

Discovering the loop pedal...

I first discovered the looping concept back in 2009. A guitarist in my band bought the BOSS RC2 loopstation to experiment with. I think he wanted to attempt some of the impressive work by Tom Morello from Rage against the Machine. The pedal was hardly used and more appropriate effects pedals took its place swiftly. I however realised quickly that I could have a lot of fun with this disregarded toy. Whenever the band were taking a break, I'd plug a microphone into the pedal and begin building soundscapes, much to the irritation of my band mates. I'd grab tambourines and cymbals, often dangling the mic from my teeth in order to capture sounds and build layers in my soundscape. I loved building harmonies and choirs, then came trumpet instrument sounds which when harmonised built up convincing full brass sections. 

I think a lot of lads my age had experimented making silly noises at school. I certainly had and so beat boxing was already well rehearsed, although, I'd never considered myself able to beatbox. I'd played drums since the age of 12 however, so the structure of drum loops, and sections came easy. Most importantly drumming gave me a good solid sense of timing and tempo. This is crucial when using loop pedals because if you get it wrong, you have to start again otherwise everything from the first bar onwards will be out of time. My guitarist friends seem to struggle with timing and I'm sure the frustration they felt when the drummer could use a 'guitarists' effects pedal better than they could led to the loop pedal being discarded.

I was hooked. I wasn't allowed to jam on guitars much at band practices. This was frowned upon and I was instructed to stick to drums. The same went for singing and bass, so naturally I found it difficult to get my hands on the loop station. Every opportunity I got I'd tuck myself away, building crowded soundscapes that were completely crazy. Made worse by the fact I was probably playing through a guitar amplifier. I was so addicted that even at a house party whilst everyone else was downing shots in the kitchen, smoking in the garden and flirting with girls, I seized the opportunity to hide in the garage (which was our practice room) and play for hours building my own mad music. When a loop became so crowded I couldn't even hear another layer, I'd simply discard it and begin a new loop. 

I've touched upon the main problem with the BOSS RC 2 there. Once you've added layer upon layer to your track, music becomes too crowded. You can't add structure to a song. It can quickly become too busy and complicated. You can't take away the brass section or change the bass line, It simply builds up and builds up until you think ''ok! that's enough of that''. So, my interest in looping couldn't progress from there. It was fun and novel but not appropriate for live performance. Shortly after this fun period of time, I moved away for university, leaving the band behind and dedicating myself to my studies. I never stopped thinking about how to take looping further though. There had to be a way to add structure to a loop. Having 5 or more RC 2's linked together might help, but it was a messy concept and would have taken an almost impossible sense of timing and tempo to sync multiple loop stations. My looping ambitions would reside in my imagination for a while longer yet.