Ed Sheeran

This is the new loop station that Ed Sheeran will be using on the Divide Tour. It's an enhanced version and second incarnation of the original Chewie Monsta that he and his guitar tech Trevor Dawkins created using a program called Mobius (a looping plugin). This version also includes an input for a keyboard for songs like "Shape of You." The "Chewie II" logo lights up and changes as Ed presses certain pedals on the board. On the display, 4 channels can be seen, labeled on the screen as GUITAR, BOOM, RC20, and VOX. The RC20 likely refers to the Boss RC-20 Loop Station, which is integrated into the Chewie 2.

In an interview on the Today show, he explains that the BOOM channel is the drums, or in his case him beating on the body of the guitar for percussion. He also demonstrated the guitar and keyboard channel, and layers them all together.

While the Chewie 2 is a custom piece of gear and not available for purchase, if you're interested in using a looper like Ed Sheeran here are the 5 of the best looper pedals you should look at.

Ed Sheeran is using the custom Chewie Monsta looper pedal on his 2014 "Sing" album. In this Tweet from June 2014, Jim Shearer shares a photo of it and confirms:

"Ed Sheeran parts w/ his Boss station for this custom-built mothership. No compression, every loop is crystal clear."

In an interview, Sheeran said, "...I'll see where the next album takes me. This album was all written around the loop pedal. And most of it recorded with the loop pedal. I'm gonna be using it for a while."

The Chewie Monsta is a custom built Midi Foot Controller (made by his guitar tech) that controls a Roland FC-300 Midi Foot Controller off-stage for his guitar tech to control (incase of mishaps) off-stage. Ed's loop pedal has 4 tracks which he can loop onto. Ed's guitar, looping mic and the off-stage Midi controller connects to an audio interface (off-stage) which connects to both a laptop and FOH (front of house) where each individual loop track gets treated at FOH. The laptop runs a looping software called Mobius & the laptop monitor feeds the monitor to show the Mobius User Interface on the Chewie Monsta screen so that Ed can visually monitor his loops. The Pedals on the Chewie Monsta itself are Boss twin pedal recycled onto the Chewie Monsta unit. All in all, Ed could easily just use the the offstage Roland FC-300 as the loop pedal onstage but uses the Chewie Monsta instead as its pedal layout is to his preference and can see what he is doing with the loops. The signal chain would go:

1. Guitar>Boss TU-3>Audio Interface>FOH and
2. Looping Mic>Audio Interface>FOH and
3. Chewie Monsta>FC-300>Audio Interface>FOH

Audio Interface connects to Laptop running Mobius via USB, Audio Interface outputs for guitar, looping mic and Chewie Monsta goes to FOH sound desk, Laptop connects to Chewie Monsta screen via VGA or HDMI cable.

And finally his main vocals mic goes separately to FOH.

In this video, Ed Sheeran gives a lesson on building on a looper using the Boss RC-20XL pedal. The pedal is visible at several points in the video, and can clearly be seen at 3:14.

In this YouTube video, Ed Sheeran is using the Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner for his acoustic guitar. The pedal makes a brief appearance around the 3:13 mark.

In a performance video uploaded by Sheeran Loopers on YouTube titled "Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You - (Sheeran Looper X performance)", Ed Sheeran is seen utilizing the Sheeran Loopers Looper X Workstation. This session, filmed at Q Division Studios in Boston, showcases Sheeran's use of the Looper X Workstation, as credited in the video's description by Sheeran Loopers. The live session, which includes the song "Shape Of You" written by Ed Sheeran among others, is part of a production led by executive producer Johnny ‘Drum Machine’ Jenkins and a team comprising directors Liam Pethick, Will Lepsyk, Chris Seremetis, with Rafi Sofer as the recording engineer. This source provides direct evidence of Ed Sheeran's use of the Looper X Workstation in his musical performances.

In a performance video uploaded by Sheeran Loopers on YouTube titled "Ed Sheeran - You Need Me, I Don't Need You (Sheeran Looper + Performance)," Ed Sheeran is seen utilizing the Sheeran Loopers Looper + Pedal. This session, filmed at Q Division Studios in Boston, showcases Sheeran's use of the Looper + Pedal, as credited in the video's description by Sheeran Loopers. The live session, which includes the song "You Need Me, I Don't Need You," written by Ed Sheeran, is part of a production led by executive producer Johnny 'Drum Machine' Jenkins and a team comprising directors Liam Pethick, Will Lepczyk, and Chris Seremetis, with Rafi Sofer as the recording engineer. This source provides direct evidence of Ed Sheeran's use of the Looper + Pedal in his musical performances.