Beat Buddy, Boomerang III and I may be back here...

Hey Guys!

After a much needed brake from playing guitar (6 months) I may start playing again.  I was at a bar in Florida on vacation listening to a guy playing by himself.  He was using an acoustic, through pedals and a looper playing through a 1x12 amp.  It sounded okay but the looping got really redundant after a while and he wasn't using a drum machine.  I'm sitting there, enjoying my second Mai Tai thinking to myself - I can do that, and better with my H & K!

So I ordered the above pedals for drums and looping and thought I would give it a go.  If you guys have any pointers you want to share then I am all ears.  

This is my last chance stab at this "guitar stuff" since the last band I was in was a total let down so I think I am done with bands.  I'll do a One man band at this point or hang it up for good.  

It's good to be back in the fold!

I may enlist a bass player down the road but I saw this guy playing an 8 string, with a beat buddy and it is so cool!

So, how's it going with your looper and beat buddy?

I did a few shows around 2007 with a looper and some of my original material.. it was fun!

That video ^ with the 8 string and the beat buddy was pretty awesome

Hey Rick!

Both pedals went back.  The more I though about using a looper; after it arrived from Amazon, the more I decided to not even open the box.

The Beat Buddy was very cool.  But for me and my use I found it to hard to focus on playing and pushing the correct buttons at the correct time.  The BB would be great if the switch pedal had more switches:  Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Outtro, crash and pause.  It was to distracting to try and run through a song with only 2 switches.  I had to think to much about what the next part was going to be then hold and push, or push.  I am a K.I.S.S. kind of guy and I dislike hidden controls to get something done.  Time for a verse, press the verse button, chorus - chorus, etc.  Thanks for asking!

Nate Lopez is "the real deal!"  I don't play his kind of material but what he does play is kewl.

Hmm yeah - those switches sound pretty complicated to me as well. In the heat of the moment you just need to be able to stomp on the function you want - not be navigating a lot of virtual menus by switch holds and double clicks!

When I did my looping stuff I used my laptop running Digital Performer and its POLAR (Performance Oriented Loop Audio Recorder... I think.. phew!) This was great as it allowed unlimited "tracks" and I could program a MIDI footboard's switches and expression pedal to control any function - mute of a loop, volume / pan of a loop... I could also use a sampler within the software to trigger off extra backing vocals or noises.

It was good but laptops can be unreliable live.. it used to crash from time to time (usually after the second song... lol.. I got used to rebooting it whilst I was introducing the next song)

All the hardware loopers I've ever looked at are limited compared to this - even the boomerang.

Maybe I'll try again one day - I've not gigged any of my original songs since then.. and it's getting on for 8 years ago