When it comes to looping, I’ve tried it all. From hardware (Boss RC20, TC Electronic Flashback x4, actual reel to reel tape loops) to software (Ableton live, Mobius, Custom scripts in Pure Data and Chuck) with every kind of controller imaginable. Hardware always ends up too simple and repetitive and software usually requires a lot of configuration, setup and takes the spontaneous aspect out of the equation (not to mentiuon requiring a computer, interface, etc.).

My idea is to create a hardware looper that truly feels like an instrument. With the same creative control you get with many of the software solutions, but the immediacy of a hardware and a small footprint that you can take with you (no laptop!).

I decided to call this project “Recursion Looper”, reusing a name a gave one of my old scripts. It is a powerful, minimal looper designed to allow songs to be built up from scratch by a single performer. It has only 5 buttons, 5 multicolored LEDs, Stereo In/Out and power input (no batteries).

Each of the 5 button/led combos represents a single loop. The first three loops are “serial” allowing for verse/bridge/chorus type switching. When one serial loop starts, the others stop. The last 2 loops are “parallell”, which means they can play at any time. This is great for drum patterns, drones, pads and ostinato song parts. Each loop can record, play, overdub, stop, fade out and clear to make room for new loops.

The loops currently only operate in “synced” timing mode, with smart tempo set and quantizing. This makes sure all loops stay in time with the first loop that is recorded and also eliminates the need for a click track. Just press the action before the next loop start and recording, play and stop all land right on the beat.

All other features have been elimated or stripped down to make the looping and performance more immediate. You can see some of my initial sketches and how complicated they were, both to produce, but also to use (forgive my garbage handwritting). Paring the idea down to a minimal feature set means this looper probably isn’t for everyone, but I hope it will empower a lot of individual musicians to make their looping performances come to life.

Looper Ideas and Sketches

My initial prototype can be seen in the video at the top of the post. It uses a raspberry pi and Chuck and Python scripts at its core. Hopefully I’ll have more updates as I add/imporve features. I also want to share tips for using the raspberry pi and linux for audio for other people that might want to experiment.