Oliver Keys - Free Fallin' (TUTORIAL live looping cover of Tom Petty)

This is my first attempt at a bit of a tutorial on what I'm doing when I'm looping stuff. Free Fallin' is a good song to loop because it has the same chord progression throughout, gives you a lot of time to experiment with different layers and using different channels of your loopy.
First of all, I play this song in D rather than Tom Petty's key of E because it suits my range better. And I prefer to do a Tom Petty version rather than a John Mayer version - John Mayer adapts the chorus melody to suit his style and goes to the 5th degree of the scale for 'freeeee' rather than jumping the octave up to the 3rd. He does that right at the end for great effect, and uses falsetto to do that. I prefer to bust it out in a key that suits my biology, which is a tone below Mr Petty and a minor 3rd below Mr Mayer.
Now I know that there is a lot of text going on in this video and it's hard to catch. That's because when you're looping there's always a lot going on. And what I try to do when I'm looping is to cut down the time it takes to 'set up' the loop. So rather than setting up all of my loops at the start of the song, which can take AGES, I get some loops happening and then jump head-first into the song. This means I have to create some pivotal loops on the fly - like the bass line or the keyboard part, or building extra layers of guitars so that when I drop out of playing to do a vocal loop (where I can't be playing so the vocal is isolated), the arse won't drop out of the song.
Let me know in the comments if there's anything you'd like to know more about, or if you think this is too simple and would like to see something more complex annotated, or if you'd like to know how I set up the Loopy to isolate each channel for multitrack recording in my DAW, or even how I mixed it to get the effect I was after.
Thanks for watching and I hope you get something out of it! Whether you're a beginner looper or someone way more experienced than me, perhaps I've done something you haven't thought about before!

[@freddie1818]

this should be millions of respect!

[@oliverkeysmusic]

Thank you so much!

[@thatbrad]

It’s a bad day living in risotto…. Nice loop work mate… esp liked the vocal harmonies

[@oliverkeysmusic]

Thank you so much :) Last time I tried to live in risotto it didn’t go well for me. I much prefer to eat it.

[@kellermax]

Wow, that was really amazing! So good with your explanations what you are doing when. I'm just starting with live looping and this is very inspirational and helpful! Thank you!

[@ashleighchristie3383]

First heard you up at Noosa-Tewantin RSL on Monday. Absolutely amazing, my daughter loved dancing to your music. Can't wait to catch one of your gigs again.

[@oliverkeysmusic]

Thank you so much Ashleigh! Thanks for the kind words!

[@melanigaster]

You grabbed a tough one here and did good by it. Good job...I really like it. Thanks for hope.

[@localotoko9611]

Good harmony, great performance!

[@JohnPaulMusicUK]

Great work. 👌 Keep it going. 👍🏻

[@zoedalton5078]

What an artist!!!

[@keithrisk5476]

Now that's a really excellent way of showing what's possible for a looper, for relative beginners like me (guitar, not years!), as well as illustrating how to develop layers to give it more depth. And a great song well sung and played to do it with. All-in-all delightful and a very useful lesson. Can you share what pedals you used? In particular how to get both mic and guitar on the looper. Mine (Boss RC3) will only take guitar. Thank you.

[@morgs1]

Hi Keith, thanks so much for the kind words. I'll have to do another instructional looping video soon because people seem to find it really useful. I initially started learning looping guitar and vocal on an RC30, which has an instrument input and an XLR input. Sadly it won't be possible on an RC3 unless you get some kind of Y splitter for these, which isn't ideal. The pedals I used are: RC300 looper (I've since upgraded to the RC600 and I love it!). JHS Whitey Tighty for gentle compression. Boss OC3 for bass octave drop. Digitech Bad Monkey for electric overdrive (not used in this video). Earthquaker Devices Arrows for clean boost (not used in this video). Keeley Caverns for delay and shimmer verb. Neunaber Wet reverb. TC Helicon Harmony Singer for auto vocal harmonies (you plug your guitar through it and it analyses the chords you're playing to pitch-shift your own voice and create auto harmonies). Loopi Pedals Mic toggle to switch the mic from straight-to-desk to straight-to-looper. That has been my configuration for a while now and I'm very happy with it! Cheers!

[@keithrisk5476]

@@morgs1 Thank you very much for taking time to reply in such detail. Really appreciated. As OAP on limited budget all this kit is a bit much for me, but think I can do something similar but simpler. Encouraged by your demo of what's possible.

[@morgs1]

@@keithrisk5476 No worries! Yes I collected all those pedals over a long period of time, and in many cases started out with lesser quality pedals before committing to the expensive ones. But yes it's all possible, and you work out what you want to achieve and find the equipment to make it possible :) Happy looping!

[@UncleDanBand64]

That was great

[@KevinORourke25]

Oliver! thank you very much for the information on how you use that magic board. It was extremely informative and also shows that it's not easy to put these gems together. I'm still working on chewing gum and walking at the same time. I listened twice. Once to try and learn something and then another time just for the sheer auditory sensations. Time well spent both times. Another great song. Thank you very much. kevin O'Rourke

[@oliverkeysmusic]

Thanks so much - I know it’s a lot to take in all at once, the fundamental though is to time your ‘in’ and your ‘out’ to be perfect - I’m not sure where you’re at with your journey :)

[@KevinORourke25]

​@@oliverkeysmusic In terms of my overall journey Oliver, being an avid coffin dodger, I'm nearly at the end of the the "BIG JOURNEY". Lololol. However I live vicariously through musicians like you. People like you keep me young in mind and heart. Music today is a fascinating to me as it was when it swept over me at about age 14. The first Record that moved me in the way only music can, was a song By Del Shannon called "Run Away". I was hooked. Thank You for what you do and know that I am lifted to greater heights when I watch your videos. kevin O'Rourke

[@oliverkeysmusic]

@@KevinORourke25 I used to play ‘Run Away’ in my sets many years ago. I wonder if I can play a game of ‘Will This Loop?’ with it :)

[@thatbrad]

Yes! It IS a long day if you’re living in risotto…

[@oliverkeysmusic]

🤣 and a big clean-up afterwards 🤣

[@katherinecolmenaresguevara4798]

Hi Oliver , You use some preamp

[@oliverkeysmusic]

Hey Katherine, at the time of this video I didn't use a pre-amp. But since then I've been using a Fishman Aura on my pedalboard to increase the quality of my acoustic sound through the PA. In this video I used a compressor, the JHS Whitey Tighty, and the signal was sent straight to my computer through a Focusrite Saffire Pro40.

[@katherinecolmenaresguevara4798]

You use amplifier or speaker ?

[@oliverkeysmusic]

When I play live I use an Allen and Heath mixing desk into EV powered speakers. For this video I went straight into the computer with no external amplification.

[@isatartt7104]

👏 ƤＲＯ𝓂Ｏ𝕤ᗰ