Dub FX

From street loops to festival sets

Dub FX built his reputation by making the process visible: voice, beatbox, bass, harmony, effects, and loops stacked into a full performance in front of the audience. That background still matters, even as the rig around him has become much more capable.

The early version was direct and physical. Start with a beat. Add a bassline. Build the groove. Try songs at different tempos and in different keys. Stretch one idea until it becomes a whole moment. The machinery was part of the appeal: the crowd could see the music being made in real time.

“I use beatboxing as sound design but I’m a music producer. I’m a vocalist. I’m a songwriter.”

Why the rig changed

For years, Dub FX toured with a hardware-centered setup: loopers, effects pedals, drum machines, backing-track hardware, cables, mixers, and the usual touring sprawl that comes with keeping a live rig powerful enough for large rooms.

Moving to Loopy Pro let him pull a scattered hardware rig into one place. Live looping, prepared stems, tempo handling, set flow, controller mapping, plugin processing, sends, clicks, and routing could all live inside a single performance system.

That matters because his songs do not all need the same kind of live behavior. Some need old-school looping. Some need stems. Some need sections to jump around. Some need live vocal processing to stay locked to tempo. Loopy Pro lets each project behave the way the song needs to behave on stage.

“It’s so much more flexible.”

The iPad as the center of a touring rig

Dub FX’s current setup puts the iPad at the center of a serious connected rig: Loopy Pro, an Akai APC40 MK2, Line 6 Helix, Allen & Heath Qu-Pac, vocal mic, studio-quality AUv3 effect plugins hosted inside Loopy Pro, and guest inputs when he performs with other musicians.

The important part is that the system talks to itself. Loopy Pro can send tempo to the Helix so delays stay in time. Controller buttons can trigger patches or song behavior. Projects can be organized into set lists. Stems, live loops, plugin chains, sends, effects, and click tracks can all go where they need to go.

The iPad becomes the brain of the show. The rig stays portable, while still carrying the sound design, plugin chains, routing, and control depth he needs on stage.

A producer’s approach to live looping

Dub FX talks about looping through the lens of production. The goal is a live show that already sounds shaped, detailed, and record-ready. He can import stems from studio productions, adapt tempos for the stage, shape individual elements with studio-quality EQ, reverb, delay, saturation, and other AUv3 plugins hosted in Loopy Pro, and bring production-style processing into the live performance.

His template reflects that. Drums, percussion, bass, harmony, one-shots, slicers, sends, filters, reverbs, delays, and saturation can all be mapped into a playable surface. He can build a track with foot control, shape it with faders, or move through song sections using timeline actions.

“What I love about Loopy Pro is how modular it is”

Structure without losing the live feeling

A Dub FX show now blends live looping and prepared material. Prepared stems give the large-stage show the weight people expect, while Loopy Pro keeps the material playable: parts can be turned down, sections can be jumped, effects can be performed, loops can be built on top, and improvised moments can still happen.

Set lists are part of that reliability. He can keep one project per song, move through the show cleanly, and handle transitions live. Projects can blend into each other, letting effect tails, reverbs, delays, and atmosphere from one track carry over into the next instead of being chopped off.

That flexibility also matters when touring goes wrong. In the interview, Dub FX describes running a stripped-down show when gear did not arrive. For a professional live performer, resilience like that is what makes a rig feel trustworthy on the road.

“I can’t live without Loopy Pro.”

What he values most

When asked about favorite Loopy Pro features, Dub FX ranges across the whole rig: set lists, individual recording, time stretching, tempo rounding, auto loop detection, click routing, controller flexibility, and modularity.

That range says a lot. For Dub FX, Loopy Pro becomes the system around the loops: the sound source, the router, the controller target, the plugin host, the set-list manager, and the place where prepared and spontaneous performance meet, with sound quality that can stand up in a serious live show.