What's the "best practice" for using looper (with pitch block) as a "2nd guitarist"?

[Eric T Amble]

Hi everybody,

The nice, long title says it all:

If I use the looper to play back recorded stuff--and I want to transpose the recorded stuff's pitch while I play over it--what's the best way to do that?

The first example I can think of would be "Lay it Down" by Ratt. The rhythm lick under the solo is just the main riff, but transposed. Of course, there's no way for me, on stage, to record it at the proper pitch... but I could have the loop for the main riff in the memory and then transpose it when necessary.
Another example would be "Aces High" by Iron Maiden. Under the solos, there are some chords that one Axe-FX player could get by looping the chords under the chorus, and then playing back the looper with, say, a pedal controller to flex the pitch into the desired chords.

...and maybe I could jerry-rig something together to do that, but what's the "best practice" that people have found?

Eh, I really just want to keep all the gig money for myself and not pay a rhythm guitar player :lol

Thanks,
Eric

P.S. My MFC is set up for looper control at the same time as scene changes.

 

[paranoid]

I myself do not use looper mode much. I prefer record and play on IA's. in order to transpose the loop put the looper in a second row on the grid after your amp and effects with a volume block before it and a pitch block after it. control the volume block and the pitch block with a ext controller, allow signal to the looper to record, then mute the volume block and turn on the pitch block to play. I hope this make sense!

 

[Eric T Amble]

Cool, let me try that! I have a feeling that there's lots of trickery that can be done with this technique.
Let me try it with "Aces High", and I'll post the preset along with an explanation of how to loop and real-time-transpose the loop.