Even though I wrote this post forever ago, I wanted to come back and explain it in a little more detailed manner.

I had heard of a few guitar players who would make ambient pad sounds on the fly live and loop them. Pads are great for transitions and just filling up the mix as well. I knew that I could make these loops on the fly or record a bunch of presets and use them live in different keys, running my guitar through my effects and running the looper into an amp. This is what I had heard and seen some other guys do before, but it just didn’t make sense to me.

I would have to buy another amp to run the pads through (increasing my rig to three amps with my stereo amps) and would be another pedal to put on my board and so on. But if I got rid of the amp, then the tone of my guitar alone with the pedals would not sound near as good.

I thought I could record some keyboard pad sounds from Reason into the Boss RC-20XL Loop Station and only have to run an output from the Looper. The Boss Looper allows you to record into it and save it and loop it. I chose the Boss RC-20XL over some other loopers simply because Chris Orr already had one and gave it to me. It’s got eleven presets and I just use each one for a different key of pad (although I really only use 6-7 of them). I found a few good sounds in Reason, ran an output from my computer and into the Looper and recorded the pad holding the I and V in every key we play in on the Looper. I only record about ten seconds of pad sounds and cut off the recording while I’m holding it the keys still, so that it loops cleanly. Because I play the I and V, there typically aren’t any times that the notes sound dissonant (you have to watch it in different chord progressions though…and be sure to watch it during any key changes as well). I will play a few different octaves for some of the keys, depending on how they sound, but I typically play the I on two octaves and the V just on one.

Live I just run the Looper into a volume pedal and into a DI. This lets me control the volume without bending over and twisting the knob. I still run my stereo amps and then get another line ran for the pad. We mix it very low in the house so you can hear it during transitions well, but it doesn’t cut through the mix while we’re playing very much at all. Because it’s really there to fill the mix just a little and help during transitions, make sure you don’t go overboard in making the sounds or mixing them in the house. By itself, it gets boring, old and doesn’t sound good playing by itself for a long period of time. I will usually pick through some clean, delayed chords or make other ambient noises using my volume pedal, delays and reverb play some partial chords to add variety (pulling your tone knob back on the guitar and turning up the repeats has a nice effect as well).

I haven’t heard of anyone else doing it like this, but have found it to be the easiest and cheapest way for me. I hope this helps and y’all can take it and run with it. Let me know if you have any other questions…