The Looper Handbook

A looper records what you play, then plays it back on repeat so you can play along with yourself. One button does most of the work — it just means something different each time you press it.

5 tracks · 90 seconds max · 99 memory slots · no prior looping needed

On the free tier the looper gives you three tracks, 30-second loops and three memory slots. Five tracks, 90-second loops and 99 slots are RigShed Pro features. Everything else in this handbook works either way.

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Before your first loop

Open the Looper tab. It switches itself on when you arrive — the Engage toggle in the top right is already on. Turning it off makes the looper invisible to your signal without erasing anything.

Get your guitar sound right first, on the Rig tab. The looper records the finished sound — amp, pedals and all — so whatever you hear is what gets baked into the loop. You can’t change a pedal after the fact and have the recording follow.

Play a few bars and watch the big ring in the middle. That’s your loop: the number in the centre counts the seconds you’ve recorded, and the ring fills as the loop plays.

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Four presses of one button

Everything below happens on the red Rec button, far left of the transport row. Its label changes to tell you what the next press will do — so if you’re ever unsure, read the button.

1. Rec → Recording. Recording starts the instant you press. Play your part — a chord progression, a bass line, whatever you want to play over.

2. Close → Playing. Ends the loop and immediately starts playing it back from the top. Press exactly where you want the loop to restart — usually right on beat one of the next bar.

3. Overdub → Overdubbing. Adds a new layer on top while the loop keeps playing. Play a melody over your chords. The loop length never changes — you’re stacking onto what’s already there.

4. Close → Playing. Stops adding and just plays what you’ve built. Press again to add another layer, and again to stop adding — presses 3 and 4 toggle back and forth as many times as you like.

The timing that matters

Press 2 is the one to practise. The gap between press 1 and press 2 is your loop, so a late press leaves a hiccup at the turnaround. Count yourself in, and hit Close on the downbeat rather than after the last note.

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The five tracks

Above the transport are five track strips. Each one holds its own recording, and they all play together, locked to the same loop length. Tap a strip to select it — the selected strip is outlined, and it’s the one Rec writes to.

The point of separate tracks is that each keeps the tone it was recorded with. Record your rhythm on track 1 through a crunch preset, switch the Rig to a lead sound, select track 2, and record your melody — the rhythm keeps its crunch while the melody has its own voice. With five tracks there is room for rhythm, bass, a pad, a lead and a harmony without bouncing anything down. Each strip shows the preset it was recorded through, so you can see the arrangement at a glance.

1. Lay down track 1. Record and close as described above. This first pass sets the loop length for everything that follows.
2. Change your tone. Go to the Rig tab and pick a different preset. The loop keeps playing throughout.
3. Select track 2 and record. Tap the second strip, then Rec. Because the track is empty, Rec records it rather than overdubbing — the button label switches to tell you so. It records in time with the loop already playing, and stops when you press Close.

Control	What it does
Level	Each recorded strip has its own slider, so you can sit the rhythm back and bring the lead forward without re-recording anything
Mute	The speaker icon silences one track while the others carry on — handy for dropping a part out for a section, or checking one in isolation
Bin	Erases just that track and leaves the rest. Clearing the last remaining track releases the loop length, so the next recording starts fresh
Overdub	Still works per track: select a strip that already has audio and press Rec to stack another layer onto that track specifically

Track 1 sets the length

Every track shares one loop length, fixed by whichever track you record first. Tracks 2 to 5 record straight into that grid, so they can never drift out of time with track 1 — but it does mean the first pass is the one to get right.

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When it goes wrong

Stop twice erases your loop

The first Stop fades the loop out over about a tenth of a second and parks it at the beginning — your recording is safe. Pressing Stop again while it’s already stopped wipes the loop, and clears the undo history with it. If you only meant to halt playback, press Stop once and leave it alone.

Control	What it does
Undo	Removes the most recent overdub layer. One level only — it remembers the state from just before your last overdub pass, not the whole history
Redo	Puts that layer back if you undid it by mistake. Both buttons grey out when there’s nothing to undo or redo
Pause	Halts playback where it stands; press Play to carry on from the same spot. Pressing Pause during recording closes the loop early and rewinds it to the start
Clear	Wipes everything immediately, with no fade and no confirmation. This is the deliberate “start again” button

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Playing in time

Three features help you land loops cleanly. All three depend on the looper knowing your tempo, so start with the tempo.

Control	What it does
Tap	Tap the button in time with your foot, four or more times. The BPM appears next to the status pill at the top. Taps more than three seconds apart start a fresh count
Count In	Plays a metronome click before recording starts, so you begin on the beat instead of scrambling. The first beat of the bar is pitched higher so you can hear where “one” is. Choose 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 beats from the picker beside it
Quantize	Rounds your loop to a whole number of beats when you close it, padding with a sliver of silence if you pressed slightly early. This is the fix for loops that drift a fraction out each time round

Set a tempo first, or these do nothing

Count In and Quantize both need a BPM to work from. With no tempo set, Count In is skipped entirely and recording begins straight away, and Quantize leaves your loop exactly as you played it. Tap a tempo before you rely on either.

There’s a shortcut: after you close your first loop, RigShed estimates the tempo from its length and fills the BPM in for you — provided the loop is between roughly a third of a second and sixteen seconds long. So record one loop by feel, and Count In and Quantize are ready for everything after it.

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Once you’re comfortable

Control	What it does
Loop & Live	The two sliders at the bottom. Loop is how loud the recording plays; Live is how loud you are on top of it. Pull Loop down if your backing is drowning your solo
1/2 Speed	Plays the loop back at half speed — an octave lower and twice as long. Useful for learning a fast phrase, and for bass-sounding parts you never played
Reverse	Plays the loop backwards. Both of these can be switched on and off while it’s running
Mode	Loop repeats forever. Single plays through once then pauses at the start — good for a one-off intro or an ending
Loop FX	Lo-Fi, Filter or Phaser applied to the loop playback only, with a Depth slider that appears once you pick one. Your live playing stays clean, so you can wash out the backing and still cut through it
Auto Rec	Arms the looper and waits. Recording starts by itself the moment you play — no press needed, so you can start with both hands on the guitar. Press it again while armed to start recording immediately instead

Two things worth knowing

• Recording pauses any backing track you have playing, so you don’t accidentally bake it into the loop.
• If you record right up to 90 seconds, the loop closes itself and starts playing rather than cutting out.

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Saving a loop

Loops don’t survive on their own — record something you like and it’s gone when you clear it or close the app. Save it deliberately.

Tap Memory Slots (99) at the bottom of the Looper tab. You get a list of numbered slots, each marked Saved or Empty. Hit Save on any slot to store what’s currently in the looper; hit Load on a saved slot to bring it back; the bin icon deletes it.

A slot holds all five tracks, so your whole arrangement comes back together. The Save buttons stay greyed out until there’s actually something recorded, and there’s a search box at the top for when you’ve filled a few dozen.

What a slot does and doesn’t hold

A slot stores the audio of your tracks, not your rig. Because each track was recorded through its own tone, those tones come back with it — but the preset labels on the strips don’t survive a reload, and the Rig tab stays on whatever preset you’re currently using.

Loops saved by an older build still load; they come back on track 1.

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What the colours mean

The pill at the top of the screen always tells you what state you’re in. It’s the fastest way to work out why a button isn’t doing what you expected.

State	Means	Rec button will
Idle	Empty and waiting	Start recording
Recording	Capturing your first pass	Close the loop and play it
Playing	Looping what you recorded	Overdub the selected track — or record it, if it’s empty
Overdubbing	Adding a layer as it plays	Stop adding, keep playing
Paused	Loop held, nothing playing	Record a new loop over it
Count In	Clicking you in before recording	—

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If something seems broken

Symptom	Cause
No sound at all	Check Engage is on, and that the Loop slider isn’t at zero
Loop vanished	Almost always Stop pressed twice. There’s no undo for that — only a saved slot brings it back
No count-in clicks	No tempo set. Tap a tempo, or record one loop first and let RigShed work it out
Loop drifts out of time	Turn on Quantize (after setting a tempo) and concentrate on hitting Close right on the downbeat
Overdub sounds muddy	Layers add together, so four or five passes stack up fast. Undo the last one, or pull the Loop slider back and rebuild with fewer, cleaner parts
Undo won’t go further	Working as designed — it holds one level, the state from just before your last overdub
Rec overdubs instead of recording a new track	The selected strip already has audio on it. Tap an empty strip first — the Rec button’s label tells you which it’s about to do