Have you ever had issues with
recalling the wrong loop?
Not really, because everything is
created right there. I’m not really
going back and doing verse and
chorus with different loops—it’s
a little simpler than that. I’ll just
play the verse and the chorus.
My looping comes in for jam
sections. Once they’re all synced
up and I have a loop going, I’m
able to work that whole DJ formula with all the samples that
I’ve created. I can drop out the
bass, or I can have the drums
play, or just let the bass play.
youtuBe it Though Keller Williams jokes about how the new Korg Kaossilator is “a poser’s dream,” the following You Tube
clips quickly prove how self-deprecating the multitalented man truly is.
Williams performs his hit
“Freeker by the Speaker” at the
Hard Rock Café in New York
City. Looping madness—includ-
ing bass, beat-box, a guitar
synth solo, and whistling—be-
gins around 4: 43.
You Tube search term: Keller
Williams - “Freeker by the
Speaker”
The loops must have to be
pretty tightly controlled. Can
you really get into the music,
or do you have to constantly
be alert to make sure you get
to a particular loop in time?
There’s a lot of starting, stopping,
and starting over. But it’s all
done, hopefully, in time to make
the first-timers think I meant to
do it. The people that have seen
me before kind of know what’s
going on, like where I wasn’t
quite satisfied with a loop so
maybe I’ll start over, maybe do
it in real time. My three loopers
are plugged into each other and
are all synced together, and 90
percent of the time they’ll stay
synced but sometimes they’ll
drift. That’s where the trickiness
comes in and you have to start
over again in the middle.
Here’s a clip from Keller’s perfor-
mance as the Super Music Friend
from a live Yo Gabba Gabba!
show in San Francisco. Although
it’s from a kiddie show, it’s defi-
nitely not child’s play. This clip is
a magnificent example of how to
build a loop from the ground up.
You Tube search term: Keller
Williams YGG Super Music Friend
11-21-10 San Francisco, CA
In this clip from the 2010 Summer Camp Festival in Chillicothe,
Illinois, Williams is road-testing
the song “I Am Elvis.” Compare it
to the full-band version on Bass.
You Tube search term: Keller
Williams - I Am Elvis – Summer
Camp 10
got to figure out where your
one is, no matter what time signature you’re doing. Then you
have to forget about the loop
and concentrate on hitting the
[record] button with your foot
when you want it to start and,
after you’ve played the phrase,
you hit that button [stop]—but
you just keep playing as if you’re
not looping at all. After two or
three seconds, you slowly stop
playing and it should be in time.
can kind of create things over
top of it and start them in different times. You’re kind of making
your own click track.
Let’s talk about your other gear.
What are you using to cover the
new bass-centric material?
On Bass, I used two Fender basses, both Mexican-made models.
One’s a Fender Jazz fretless, and
the other is a Road Worn P bass.
I use it as a synthesizer guitar
with the new Roland GR- 55,
which is insane. I used the
GR- 33 for years, and the technology involved in the 55 is
unbelievable. I use the same
pickup that I used with the 33,
and with the 55 there’s no laten-
cy. It’s like real time. The stereo
effects are just insane, too—the
way you can mix and match a
vibraphone on one side and a
flute on the other side, and have
that coming out in high volume
in stereo is pretty interesting.
You’d think all loopers would
stay perfectly synced, but they
do drift.
Yeah, you’d think, “This is in
time and this is in time, and they
should be playing together.” But
they definitely drift. The problem
with the new loopers is that you
can’t really sync them together.
So keep playing—even when
you’ve disengaged the original loop?
Correct. It’s kind of like golf—
looking down at the ball and
not looking up to see where it
went. My problem was always,
like, “Here it comes, here it
comes.” Then I’d hit the button
and I’d stop, and that’s where
the issue would happen—if
you hit it too early or too late.
Just keep playing, and you’ll be
exactly where you want to be.
One of the trickier aspects for
people just getting into looping is getting the loop to stop
and start exactly in time. Is
there a trick to that?
Here it is: It’s all on the one [the
first beat of a measure]. You’ve
What if your figure doesn’t start
on a downbeat—for example,
if it comes on the and after the
one? In that case, you wouldn’t
be playing on the one.
It’s all about the initial loop—
the start and stop of the first
loop. Once you have that, you
And what about your main
guitar gear?
My main guitar is a Martin
HD- 28. I also use a synthesizer pickup on a Gibson Chet
Atkins SST, and that’s my
backup and my carry-on—I
always get off the plane with a
guitar. Nine times out of 10,
all the other guitars show up,
but there’s the one time that
they don’t—so I always make
sure I have a carry-on, and it
has to be one with a strong,
thin body. The Chet Atkins is
definitely not the finest of guitars, but it’s a block of wood,
it fits in the overhead compartment of a small jet, and I don’t
have to gate-check it like a big,
bulky Martin.
What about amps?
There are no amps. It’s all
plugged in direct. The stuff I
bring around is the outboard
gear that I use for looping. I use
an Allen & Heath Mix Wizard
soundboard, which acts as
the brain. I also use a Korg
Kaossilator—the handheld Kaoss
pad that’s now updated with
synthesizer sounds. It’s really an
incredibly fun toy. You can set
the key and the scale, and there
are literally no wrong notes. It’s
like a poser’s dream [laughs].
What are you running the
synth pickup into?
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