Any Bass Looping Tips and Techniques?

[light blue bass]

Any Bass Looping Tips and Techniques for a great sounding loop?

 

[JIO]

 

[bholder]

Jaco quoting Hendrix (Third Stone From The Sun). Most excellent!

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

It’s usually best to have your initial loop be set at a slightly lower volume so that any solos you play over it aren’t competing. Similarly it helps to use a different tone for each loop. The same bass tone and volume stacked over and over gets monotonous very quickly.

 

[JIO]

Jaco quoting Hendrix (Third Stone From The Sun). Most excellent!

No looping involved but a BA bass & drums solo by Scot Sutherland, quoting Jaco quoting Hendrix. (and '70s Miles replete with bass-wah)

 

[monsterthompson]

It’s usually best to have your initial loop be set at a slightly lower volume so that any solos you play over it aren’t competing. Similarly it helps to use a different tone for each loop. The same bass tone and volume stacked over and over gets monotonous very quickly.

Agreed. The looper placement in the signal chain is key.

Looper first - Any and all effects after it will change the tone of the loop.

Looper after dirt/EQ/filter - Allows you to create layers with varying textures.

Looper before time based effects (reverb/delay) - All elements of the loop will get the effect treatment.

Looper after time based effects (reverb/delay) - You can create a textural pad to loop, and then turn off the time effects and play a lead line over it without some/all of the effects. Be careful about how you close the loop so there isn't an obvious start/stop point, unless that is what you want. My Pigtronix Infinity 2 always seems to have an obvious start/stop click if I try to create a sustained pad across the loop (there are settings to minimize this, but they haven't worked for me).

MIDI sync loopers are nice for keeping your loop in time with a click.

Something like the Boredbrain Terminal will allow you to create a signal path with multiple FX Send/Return inserts.
Terminal - Boredbrain Music
You can use this to configure where your looper is in the chain without reordering your whole board.