many brains thought about the principles and effects of repetition, before and after the creation of the brand LiveLooping and the electronic tools that spread the idea. It helps to create better music and trust its effect on the listener.
When did it all start?
Almost with the invention of the magnetophone. Scissors were used to chop out loops, splice them and repeat them (sample approach) or the tape was unrolled on one recorder and passed to another where it was played back and rolled up. The played back signal was recorded again on the first recorder, so the sound kept circulating for a while more was added (Terry Riley time lag accumulator and Robert Fripps Frippertronics). The loop length could only be changed by changing the tape speed, which also causes a pitch change…
In the 80ies, digital delays like Roland SDE 3000 (1981), PCM42 (1982), t.c. 2290 (1985) took over the tapes function. It became possible to change loop length, but still not intuitively. It was difficult to match a rhythm precisely into a long loop so they were rather used for a-rhythmic textures and experimental clusters.
With the Paradis Loop Delay (1992, became Echoplex digital pro in 1994), Lexicon JamMan (1993) and Boomerang (1996), the first dedicated loop machines hit the market. They finally offered the Record function which allows instant and rhythmically precise loops. It may be hard to imagine how awkward it was to create a loop before 1992 (except for me since I built the Record and Multiply functions into my PCM42 in 1988, with big help from its creator Gary Hall)!
Those pioneer Looping Tools had a hard time to find customers. There was no name for what we call now Livelooping, musicians did not understand what the units where good for. Shops did not know how to sell them. Looping tools neither fit the category Effect (because they do not change sound) nor Instrument (because they do not create sound). The user (and seller) needs to study the tool: After understanding the functions and learning to tap in time, discover which patterns sound good when repeated and which become annoying. May be like life itself: start in chaos and repeat it until a pattern stands out and can evolve.
The main promotion core of Livelooping was the Loopers-Delight site and mailing list which Kim Flint started in 1996 and created the community which exchanged the technical, musical and philosophical discoveries with the new tools. The chain tape collection, which started in the Loop Group as soon as the LOOP delay became available, evolved to Compilation CDs.
Around 2000, Loopers-Delight had a huge discussion about what we are doing. Some felt that we created a musical style, but since most existing styles can be looped as well, the majority agreed that it was an Art Form. And out of the never-ending search for a name, Rick Walker picked Livelooping and spread it with much more power than anyone else and succeeded to establish it world wide, mainly through the many Festivals he organized or stimulated.
Matthias Grob, 2003, edited 2025