My Composition Idol: Phil Keaggy

Here is an older, short segment of an interview in which Phil Keaggy talks about his approach to looping. I like his approach of short loops interweaved within the tune, rather than treating the looper as a karaoke machine with a long, repetitive loop through the whole song:



I have an old Gibson/Oberheim Echoplex looper with the control pedal. This is the last version from early 2000s period, with all the hardware and software problems ironed out and max memory from the factory. I got it REALLY cheap through Craigs List a few years ago. Someday, I want to explore that same approach with short loops within a tune as a part of the tune rather than as accompaniment. Phil Keaggy is the master at that.

Just to be clear, as far as I know, Keaggy never used the Echoplex looper, but did use the original Jamman, which has similar loop time limitations of less than 60 seconds.

Tony