The Simplest Guitar Loop EVER!

This is the simplest guitar loop ever, suitable for beginners and still useful to the most talented... hehe. Ok here are the links i said I'd share - SPD1: amzn.to/2Zw7Rbh
Big Foot: www.wilddogsto...
1st link SPD1: I have friends that use this and it's on my radar because of the digital options (volume and it's gate level built in) - which makes things effortless in plugging it in as the 3rd instrument to the VL3 or plugging into another loop pedal that has no volume control. Just to be clear at the time of writing I do not own this personally.
2nd link: Big Foot Thylacine (now the Wild Dog Dingo): These pedals have such a nice deep tone to them that can really drive a crowd - I know there are lots of options out there, but this is the only one I would recommend that isn't digital. I spent quite a bit of time testing various ones before going for this. And yes this is the one you are seeing in the video that I have used for so many shows and do own. The one downside is that because there is no noise gate on it, you can often pick up sound from this pedal via your own feet dancing around when near to this pedal - and dependant on what floor surface you are on etc. It works amazingly on any floor surface (has lil rubber feet), but on particularly moveable floors it often picks up vibrations and makes a few unwanted thumps from time to time. Hence my recommendation and personal interest in the SPD1. - Biggest downside of the SPD1 is the foot angle - but also, there are ways around that haha! (always will be something though right?)
Ok, the actual info - this loop is the simplest ever simply because it is putting a '4 to the floor' kick drum sound under your tunes. It makes it super versatile, and if you create a really loud and strong bottom end using the boss oc3 to get that octave down on your guitar it works superbly, or if you're struggling to get that nice rich and deep sound from your guitar, I highly suggest the pedals above. Again, these don't need to be looped, and initially I never looped them, simply stomped on them all night long really cranked so I got the dance floor going while I played!
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[@davidshanhun]

Too simple.. or super useful?

[@dookie84]

Hi David, wanted to ask you something different: Are the problems of your Voice Live 3 solved? Or did you get again issues on stage? If it is solved, when did it happen? After an update`?

[@davidshanhun]

Yes the problems are solved - it basically needed a good clean out! (but it does get a lot of use). It happened just pretty randomly - no idea why, expect it was simply from a lot of use. Have you had an issue just after an update yourself?

[@MatONeill]

The year is 2013. I'm playing an acoustic show and three or four kind people have been up dancing for the first 20 minutes, while the rest of the room politely watches. At my feet is an RC-30 I've been playing through for weeks withouth the courage to actually stomp on a single pedal. I suddenly realise Rhythm Is A Dancer is just the same four bars for the whole song, so I close my eyes and hit record on the downbeat, and again on the next one, and suddenly the chords are playing themselves. My confidence boosted, I wait till the next downbeat and thud out a four to the floor kick, closing my eyes and praying that my timing is good. It works! I reopen my eyes to see the rest of the room rushing the dancefloor... and they stay there for most of the show. A few years later and I'm obsessed to the point where only folks like yourself really get what we're doing with all the gear, and I constantly have to remember that that first, simple lift from nothing to something has the most impact... after which, the returns begin to diminish. :) So yeah... super useful indeed.

[@davidshanhun]

Ah dude this is the best story!! I love it! ...I’m going to make a video on my first looping gig and it is the opposite of this story! I’m amazed sometimes how singing the chorus of somebodies favourite song can really make the night at a covers gig, even though we would often cringe at how badly we did it if it got recorded. An odd balance of working on something amazing versus being able to meet a desire in the moment on the fly! I’m sure you’ve also had the experience of working on what you think is an amazing loop cover and spending aaaages on it, to play it live and have someone say ‘yeah, that was ok’ 😂🤷‍♂️ or maybe its just me? 😝

[@MatONeill]

@@davidshanhun Oh absolutely, in fact I'd say that's pretty much the norm, now. It's unusual for people to even notice that we're looping, let alone comment that we're doing it well. I tried performing with only the Voicelive3 a few days ago - never used the looper, but decided to figure it out as I went along. I'm sure you can imagine how that went... but it was nice to be forced back into just selling the song, rather than using the tricks we've created over the years!

[@davidshanhun]

I liked this comment but it also makes me wanna cry sometimes! A friend of mine gets asked quite a few times 'where do you get your backing tracks from?' .....and he's doing it all live!! ...oh that's Lee actually - did you guys connect? Haha I've done a few gigs all of a sudden without a loop pedal, and it's made me realise how much it's become part of my show/set.

[@MatONeill]

@@davidshanhun Yeah man it's the hardest part of the whole process: Putting hours and hours into the finer points only to realise that the majority just want to plug their phone into your speakers. 🤣 Yeah exchanged a couple of Emails with Lee - he seems like a nice chap. All the lighting is provided by the videographer so I wasn't really able to help much, but it's nice to say hi! Also I should add to the original story - That was the total extent of the looping for that gig. It took many months and lots of heartache to even get a basic show together with the rc300s, and now we're so sick of people not caring that we're actually trying to scale down the show a lot... the balance of effort vs. reward has been skewed for a long time!

[@davidshanhun]

bahaha - the classic 'hey can you chuck this on'. One of my favourite gigs was actually a wedding where I played about 5 songs then the bride asked if we could put on 'Jump Around'. like sure haha so we did that and then they were like ok back to you! hehe. They were amazing though and we had so much fun! Ooooh... I need to share a beautiful piece of live wisdom from a friend Sam Ness... might make a video on it though soooooo.... suspense! haha. what could it be? 🤔

[@bernietmusic]

Awesome video David.... thank you! I've been doing lots of solo gigs the last 15 years and using a foot stomp box the last 12. Similar to what you used to use. Very effective to this day. Only bad thing is I need to sit to do this for long periods with my 60 year old body. But I love your looping tips and all of your performances! I've also been looping some for last 10 years and am doing it more and more now. I've just recently started to explore just laying down a simple beat as you showed us as a beat track and am really enjoying that. I used to only start loops with guitar progression and then maybe build some percussion on. That is fine but gets limiting as I was just using a one track looper. Starting with a simple percussive loop has been challenging at times with establishing a good tempo for the song. It is getting better with practice and is opening up endless possibilities. I find listeners some intrigued as you just start with a little loop beat and they watch you lay and really wonder where you are going with it. Great videos, thanks again!

[@davidshanhun]

hey Bernie thanks for sharing mate and so cool you are exploring looping! Hope you keep enjoying creating and playing with it all!

[@jeffreyepsteinseggshapedpe143]

Man I'm just starting to consider getting involved in busking, and watching you , effortlessly use a simple percussion beat you made too jam over multiple tunes, makes me feel heaps motivated to get my own sound happening. Thanks brother, hope too see a few more tips at some stage!

[@davidshanhun]

awesome! Busking is a lot of fun 👌

[@drewdietz2115]

just recently purchased a ditto X2, will definitely use this one, thanks my man.

[@davidshanhun]

nice! You'll have a lot of fun exploring the world of looping with that! 😊

[@nicholasinnorthcarolina1918]

Great video, man. Easy loop and your mash-up cover songs had a cool vibe: 1. Castle on the Hill. 2. Where the streets have no name. 3. September. 4. Wake me up. 5. Cake by the ocean. 🎼🎸

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks! You got em! One more in the list though :)

[@pat34209]

OMG.....this was the most important video I've watched all year!!! I was so worried about bringing the looper out on stage that I bought the RC300 and started pre recording loops just so I wouldn't screw up a loop live, after watching this video I realize all I need is a kick drum!!!! K.eep I.t S.imple S.

[@davidshanhun]

aw Pat I love this comment! I still put a simple 4 to the floor loop under many songs haha! It's super effective 😊

[@devanhansonmusic]

These bass pumping songs get everyone jumping!

[@robjelley1138]

Awesome place to start learning to loop and play, keeping it simple is actually the best way I found to get better (and more confident) with live looping

[@davidshanhun]

nice!

[@ZachOry1985]

The song 'About Big Bounds and Magnum Rounds' is also very easy to loop 😁 i wrote it these days, it's KZbin too.

[@davidshanhun]

Nice 😊All the best with your song 👌

[@kincovers6242]

Thank you again for all this🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼

[@davidshanhun]

most welcome!

[@lannyfuller8367]

As I understand it, this was the original use of "loop pedals" before they were even called that. The Headrush delay pedal let you use ALL 28 SECONDS on a loop as a practice function, so street musicians started using it for backing percussion. Then artists like KD Lang picked it up and popularized it. The rest, as they say, is history.

[@davidshanhun]

I love that this happens so often - gear is designed for something, and someone creative realises they can use it for something else haha. Then it opens up this whole new world of music and live music creation!

[@lannyfuller8367]

@@davidshanhun, oh and to answer your question, the simple "four-on-the-floor" is incredibly useful. Although when I doing it on my main "pedal" these days (Ableton utilizing the Mobius plugin) I've referred to it as "Rube Goldberg metronome." =)

[@wallacenock7423]

Love this man, i started my playing career with bass pedals and tr 606 and prior to that a Korgi drum module. Then landed up using a Roland MC300 sequencer, painstaking hours of converting 4 track tapes that were stretched to sequences. But this technique that you have just put forward is so nostalgic as i clearly remember asking a one man band when i was learning my trade what gets people dancing and his answer was the beat ie the kick drum. So this just confirms that. Thanks Dave once again for a great video, keep em coming.

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks Wallace! It's so cool hearing these stories about how we all started. love that you used the 606 :) I wish I had some more video from some of my earlier shows haha. Would be hilarious to be able to share!

[@wallacenock7423]

David Shanhun Yea i hear you, its something that many of the younger up and coming musicians don’t get to see or hear. For years i played with tapes and they all use to stretch wa ha ha what fun suddenly retuned 🤣🤣

[@davidshanhun]

haha that's classic! retuning to match tape stretch! :)

[@dovane9932]

Useful and right in target for me because that is the main issue i have because i want to have the two loops free on my ditto but have some groove behind at the same time! Sorry for being slow to understand, but can i plug this into my ditto and start my song free? Your videos are never useful, they are practical and fun.

[@davidshanhun]

Adding in the stomp pedal would use one of your loop inputs on the ditto :( But you could totally stomp on this separately. Eg run it into the mixer on it's own channel, and simply stomp on it with your foot in time with your loop.

[@rafmis7660]

Very nice Dave!

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks Raf!

[@MarkAndrewHansenMusic]

Simple is very useful. 😎

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks Mark!

[@kieranbrennanmusic9261]

Brilliant. Dave what pedal and settings do you have to get that guitar sound? Sounds great. First I taught drop D ..

[@davidshanhun]

Hey Kieran - I have a vid I made on my settings - it's not super exciting to watch but the info is all there haha! kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5uolH2cbNGDbJo. I'm using a Voicelive 3 pedal which you'll see, and the original AD1 preamp that my Takamine came with. A lot of video's I'm also running through an AER amp which is definitely a secret weapon for tone! Hope that all helps info wise!

[@kieranbrennanmusic9261]

Thanks Dave. Much appreciated..

[@Williampreza]

Thanks! Exactly useful enough! ;) Any tips for getting a good high hat sound just from the guitar? My looper lets me either loop vocals and guitar simultaneously OR one or the other and it's a PITA to switch. Since I don't always want my vocals looped (I usually start singing as soon as possible in the song), I generally keep that switched off. But that means I can't "Tsss" for that really good cymbal sound.

[@davidshanhun]

Haha awesome! You’ve hit upon one of the things i just cant get soubdibg anywhere near decent (so far at least) from the guitar! The closest i’ve toyed with is a semi string scrape but it still doesnt have the sizzle and as a result i dont really use it! Which looper are you using btw?

[@Williampreza]

The one built into the VL Play Acoustic. I don’t recommend it for looping if you like longer loops though. For example, I can’t fit a full 12 bar blues on it for practicing/soloing. May have to just run a mic into the aux port for sounds I can’t get from the guitar. Enjoying your videos BTW! Cheers!

[@davidshanhun]

@@Williampreza yeah that's a good way to go using the Aux :) I'll update you if I come up with something that I think works! And thanks appreciate the comment! :)

[@toobspark]

@@Williampreza Hey Will (and David) sorry to crash this, (and I'm a little late... oops) but I too have the TCH Play Acoustic and ironically, recently tried my 'Lil Monster stomp pedal into the 'aux in'. It works through to the outputs no prob... but sadly there's no way of routing 'aux in' through the looper. None that I could find anyway. So ur still stuck with banging ur foot / 'Tsssing' ur cymbal sound for three hours. Collective 'Bumma'!

[@Williampreza]

toobspark There’s a page in the setup menus that will let you activate looping for Aux as well. Have you updated your firmware recently? If not, try that, lots of cool stuff shows up. That’s exactly what I’m doing, running a mic into a little Yamaha 2-channel mixer, then into the aux input. PS, to get longer loops, I discovered I can change main output to mono and fit full choruses in one loop.

[@harveykilgour4056]

Super useful . This vid was great

[@davidshanhun]

Glad it was helpful man!

[@Paulmccarthy6801]

Hey David how you doing. I have a question. Would you know how I hook up a voice live 2 and a boss RC-202. If you do please let me know. Thanks David

[@davidshanhun]

hey Paul - I would always put fx before the loop - so in this case put the Voicelive2 first, and then it's output from the mic into the mic input on the 202, and guitar output of the vl2 into the guitar input on the 202. Hope that helps and enjoy!

[@Paulmccarthy6801]

@@davidshanhun I forgot to let you know I wanted to put an overdrive pedal in there also. How would that go in there.

[@davidshanhun]

@@Paulmccarthy6801 nice. Before the VL3 would be the most likely choice. Check the gain into the vl3 with overdrive on and off to make sure you aren't clipping into the unit.

[@scrivmusic453]

Hi @david shanhun Admirer of your videos from afar for a while. Can you please explain to me how you strum in time? Is this something that came easily to you. I can do the beats on my looper but riffing melodically in time is causing me issues. I have been an acoustic soloist for 15 years without ever paying to a metronome and I think the way I have learnt to strum is wrong and embedded into me

[@davidshanhun]

heya! Thank you and appreciate the message. You will likely just need to start building a new habit and practise of strumming in a new way, connected to the beat. Like everything it can absolutely be learnt, just need to be patient with yourself and realise you are learning a new skill or ability. Start with something simple that still challenges you and really get it to a really confident comfortable level. Then repeat with another strumming pattern or rhythm. Building up one skill really well will be better than trying to do lots and move on too quickly. Hope that helps!

[@scrivmusic453]

@@davidshanhun thanks for the message mate just playing along to backing tracks seems to be getting my strumming more in time now. Can you advise of the quickest way to learn how to add lead lines and bass notes to loops now? How do you know what notes to play and where to find them. Good on you for helping others out mate!

[@davidshanhun]

to start with for bass notes I would simply use the note of the chord you are playing. Actually not quite sure the best place to start beyond that - otherwise choose one song, and search on youtube for a bass tutorial and learn the original bassline. It's more work, but as you learn various basslines you will end up getting more ideas that you can use for other songs down the track too! Glad things are improving for you :) @@scrivmusic453

[@bluzikmusic]

Thanks!

[@davidmorris1677]

What guitar model is that? Its awesome! Good tip :) Subbed

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks David. It's a Takamine ND 15c. :)

[@davidmorris1677]

@@davidshanhun Thank you its awesome, will be keeping my eye out for one :)

[@gilmourpm]

Hi David... Do you know Beatbuddy Pedal? I really like it...

[@davidshanhun]

yes! Awesome! :) Superb little pedal!

[@briankeithwaters]

Is that you playing that opening riff? What song is that from?

[@davidshanhun]

not me playing it - it's the start of a track that I really liked (hence using it as the intro). I use music from Epidemic Sound often behind videos, but here is the link to the track and artist etc. soundcloud.com/epidemicsound/urban-transitions-2-remix-by-1

[@briankeithwaters]

@@davidshanhun I actually HAVE that track in my acoustic playlist! I thought it sounded familiar. Love Jimmy Wahsteen. Cheers!

[@gerimayawhyte154]

No sarcasm implied but why not just use the kick sound in the metronome of the VL3? Does it sound better?

[@ewanlockhart3943]

Dharma Bums it’s better to be able to do everything yourself.

[@davidshanhun]

Hey Dharma - that would be an awesome idea, but I simply don't like the sound of the metronome kick sound in the VL3. Because you could use the 'tap tempo' then have the metronome kick it would mean all of your loops would lock in really nicely in time too! But simple answer is that I didn't like the tone of it!

[@gerimayawhyte154]

@@davidshanhun I figured that was probably the reason. I does sound canned...

[@bobreynolds4321]

Nice! Thanks!

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks Bob! :)

[@Popcorn-ue9qp]

I realized u have a Takamine guitar. Nice.

[@davidshanhun]

yep - love it! It just got new strings today too so even happier!

[@Popcorn-ue9qp]

I’ve always thought that adding too many loops makes the whole thing sound too dense. On the other hand, ur super simple loop is just enough to make a great performance.

[@davidshanhun]

Thanks 😊

[@wardy2c]

1:30 you remind me of Jez from Peep Show 😂

[@davidshanhun]

Is that a good thing? 🤷‍♂️

[@wardy2c]

I think it’s a good thing, Robert Webb the actor, check out the show, hilarious. Excellent vid and playing btw

[@MattBrodeurMusic]

Super inexpensive alternative to the two pedals mentioned. www.rondomusic.com/stompbox.html

[@davidshanhun]

nice one Matt. Have you tried it to see what sound it puts out?

[@MattBrodeurMusic]

I have a BeatBuddy, so haven't had a need, but for that price I'm thinking of trying it out for those gigs where you want to keep equipment pared down.

[@rafmis7660]

Just like Stompin Tom Connors

[@AbuBakarZahid]

Sir, i make guitar videos. I see you’re very good at making content. Could you check mine out and suggest me how to improve?

[@davidshanhun]

Hi Abu, my best suggestion is to simply keep making content - every time you create something you learn something new, make a few mistakes, and learn from what you created last time. Scroll back to my earliest videos and you'll see how much things improve as you go along. Next year i'll be even better same as you will be - just keep at it! 😊

[@AbuBakarZahid]

David Shanhun thank you! I will keep making content frequently. But how do I show up in people’s feed? Do i need to spend?

[@davidshanhun]

@@AbuBakarZahid don't need to spend money - two things I would recommend though to have people start to find you. Search for groups on both Reddit and Facebook that people want to learn what you are showing in your videos. Don't spam people, but they are two great places that you can share your useful videos - to people who are specifically interested in what you're making. The second is - make the video as beneficial for others rather than being about you :) Hope that helps on your journey - feel free to stay in touch and chat :)