Looping: January 2026
05 Feb 2026Here are the loop jams I captured from the month of January.
Loop 1 ⭐
I like how laid-back and slow this one is. And the simplicity of that extra single repeated note in the empty space. The whole thing’s pretty understated, mellow, and groovy.
Loop 2
Start with a simple percussive organ part and then give it a little more motion with the bassline. But the thing I really wanted to do here was make use of this cool drum that I was gifted. That requires that one be in a compatible key, so I had to plan ahead for that a bit. I like using the guitar as a rhythmic element to give a little bit more pulse, a little bit of sizzle.
Loop 3
Sometimes the bass takes center stage, and this is one of those. The starting guitar part and the treble chords played on top fade to the background by comparison. I was pretty happy with the lead part on this one, being a little more aggressive. You know, for me.
Loop 4
It’s not a complicated riff that the second-layer bass puts on top of this, but it is the thing that gave this loop its personality. The way these loops are put together, I might try a couple of elements together before I restart and hit record, but mostly I’m figuring it out as I go. So it’s interesting that something that can be the identity of it doesn’t arrive until much later.
Loop 5 ⭐
Another example where I felt like I needed a second line for the bass to add some harmony. For some of these parts, they could’ve been played at once as “double stops”, but that would require me knowing what I wanted from the start. The end result created a tune that I felt very happy to put a lead over. This was one of my favorite lead phrases of the month. The full version is in the long video above, not in the short, as I try to keep those under one minute.
Loop 6
That high reverb guitar part doesn’t move. The bass does move and creates the motion and harmony. I never tire of that trick.
Loop 7 ⭐
I decided to pull out the Strat for this one and put it in a different tuning: FACGCE. And since I was actually recording in the middle of the day and didn’t have to worry about waking up a sleeping family, why not a little bit of trumpet too? The horn is pushed to the background quite a bit in the mix, but I like that it’s there. The resulting groove had a great pocket to play in. I remember grooving on this one for quite a while, just getting lost in it.
Loop 8
The way the lighting changes in this recording, you’d think that I spent the whole day filming this. But no, the light just changes very quickly in January in the PNW. Clearly, my goal here was to play some acoustic instruments, as I frantically moved between them.
Loop 9
Since I was in the mood to go acoustic, I wanted to try something different by not actually using the drum track on my Boss RC-10R looping pedal and building my own instead. Of course, the problem was I was set up to run silent because it was late at night and I didn’t want to wake anyone. So that limited how much I was willing to go bang on random things to make some drum sounds. So what we get here is some bouzouki and then some shaker, and then I wasn’t really willing to do anything muchg louder after that. But I want to return to that idea later.
Loop 10
Somewhere in the back of my head for this one was Santa Fe by Beirut. I wanted to do something with the square wave tremolo below, and a simple happy chord progression.
Loop 11
So I definitely wanted to go with some messy vibrato, seasick slightly detuned vibes. I didn’t actually mean to leave it on when I started doing the bass. And I remember being confused as to why the bass sounded just slightly wrong. Yep, it was getting very slightly detuned. Oh well, I still enjoyed the overall warbly groove.
Loop 12 ⭐
This one comes into its own with that high guitar part contrasting with the swimming main chords and bassline. I’m not using harmonics in there, but it sounds like it? And maybe I should’ve? Eh, it sounds good. The jam over top of it is nice and melodic, which is what I’m always happiest with. Where it sounds a little bit like singing.
Loop 13
Sometimes it doesn’t come together. It felt like I had created a workable groove here. Guitar part with a bunch of phaser, a bassline that felt like it was moving, and a little keyboard because why not. I spent a while trying to jam over this one and it just never turned into anything I found interesting. I included one bar of solo over this in the recording you see here because it felt weird not to when every other loop I post does that. But I wasn’t happy with it. And in the end, I just turned it off instead of my usual “that’s the one.” That’s okay, it happens, and the practice continues on.