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I’m hoping someone can provide me with information or a recommendations for an easy to use, good quality looper pedal.
I’ve seen some demos on Youtube, and I’m not sure I understand the difference, because there are so many brands and models.
My goal is to use the looper to input 2 or 4 measure chord progressions, and then practice my licks and some longer lines with the looped progression. I'm not interested in overdubbing, just a clean playback of the chords that I input.
I’ve read several times that the older pedals are more desirable, because the newer models add so many unnecessary features.
Hoping someone can give me advice from hands-on experience with these type pedals. Thanks, JB
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04-21-2013 07:59 PM
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One brand to look into would be Boomerang. Plenty of you tube videos on them.
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Boss rc2
Count 1234 click 234-1234click
You just recorded two bar pattern
Cheap, easy to use and sound good
You can get the RC three or the boomerang or any number of pedals including the jamman All great petals but the cheapest decent one is still the Rc2
I have one and that's exactly what I use it for, comping a progression and then practicing over that
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I really like my Digitech "JamMan."
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'Ditto' looper by TC Electronics.
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+1 on the ditto. Simple, small and good - changed my daily practice in a good way
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I have the Digitech Jamman Solo. Works fine, but for what you want to do any of them will suffice really.
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One friend had the boomerang. Pretty cool with reverse loops sco-style, but expensive.
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For live performance, I prefer something more than a single-switch looper (I like to have a dedicated stop switch). For practice, however, something simple like a ditto is great. Digitech has just announced a new looper called "JamMan Express" which is almost identical to the ditto. Pricing appears to be lower than ditto and the JamMan Express has a couple of additional features that the ditto doesn't have - stereo in and out, it can run on battery power and it has additional led's. Here is the announcement:
JamMan Express XT | DigiTech Guitar Effects
Keith
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I have a TC Electronic Ditto Looper, It has five minutes of looping time and unlimited overdubs, it does not convert sound to digital, so I do not lose quality; it is excellent in a live set-up and small enough to fit in my pocket.
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Just checked out the ditto... I have to say it looks pretty good and the price is not much more than I paid for a used RC2.
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Hi,
I had the Boss rc2, but I never bonded with it. I was looking for a looper for the same reasons as the OP, and the rc2 was just too complicated for me I guess. I then got a Jam Man and liked that much better. I could avoid all the awful drum tracks and just loop chord progressions on the fly. I then found myself in need of something small to take as part of my travel set up and I bought the Ditto. It is a great looper and so simple. It ONLY does what I was looking to do. No drum tracks, no reverse looping, no USB, just a cool looper in a tiny package.
Bill
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I'm read that some people are disappointed the Ditto doesn't take a battery, but TC did that to keep it small, and I run my few pedals off a one-spot anyhowdy.
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Does the jamman use a battery? the rc2 doesn't because it is always on...
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My Jam Man does not allow for a battery.
Bill
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My practice setup is quite a bit more stuff/cost than the OP asked, but since there are already many good replies directly to that in this thread, I just want to throw this out there for consideration - note, this does not address the OP's needs, but it is a decent practice setup...
The new v3.0 firmware for the Boomerang III provides for acting as a midi slave. I have an Alesis SR-18 drum machine that can act as a midi master, providing clock out and midi start/stop messages. When connected to the midi in of the Boomerang III, it can start and stop the Boomerang III and keep it in sync with the drum machine. I can plug my guitar into the Boomerang III and take the output of the Boomerang III into the instrument input on the drum machine. I connect headphones to the drum machine and practice without disturbing anybody. The SR-18 has both drums and bass, providing essentially a jazz trio setting, or I can loop a rhythm guitar part on the Boomerang III and practice against that. This setup is flexible, since I can run the Boomerang III while the drum machine is stopped in its "normal" manner, use the drum machine as a simple sort of metronome by muting the bass track and simply running a single suitable drum pattern, such as those that are already in the machine, or program it as needed. If you intend to use the SR-18 wih the Boomerang III, you need to make sure it has v1.02 firmware, since Alesis addressed some issues with midi sync in that update. I believe that came out a few years ago, so any new SR-18 should have it. This is one issue with these types of devices - know the history and what versions of firmware work with other devices with what level of firmware.
If you have the Sidecar, which I do, then connect the mid out of the Alesis to the midi in of the Sidecar, and the midi out of the Sidecar to the midi in of the Boomerang III. It all works together well.
Anyway, this is a nice little practice setup. I prefer stand-alone hardware to using a PC/Mac, so it suits me well. I like the fact that the Boomerang does not save loops, because it is good practice to record them fresh every time. By doing some programming of the Alesis SR-18, I get a sense of what a drummer and bass player do. The more of the music I have to play, the beter the practice is for me. It does get easier with time and repetition.
I am not using any effect pedals, but these should work fine with the Boomerang III if one leans in that direction.
Tony
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The new JamMan Express is supposed to work with a 9V battery or a standard 9V DC power supply. The JamMan Solo works with a standard 9V DC power supply but no battery option. The older two pedal JamMan and the JamMan Stereo require a 9V AC power supply (note 9V AC output, not 9V DC output like most pedals).
Originally Posted by Socalbill
Keith
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I actually have an RC-30. Double pedal loop station. I'll be honest, I barely use the double pedal. The thing is that When recording, and you press the stop pedal, it stops, rather than play the loop without an automatic overdub. It would be better if when recording, you press the stop button to stop recording, but it starts looping, except without the option to overdub that track automatically.
However, the RC-30 has two tracks, both overdubbable (if that even is a word :P), both with their own volume control as well. I like to put on my HOG and go an octave under, record a bass line, then record a chorus of comping, and play over the two things, then I can lower the chords and keep the bassline, or vice versa.
Also, one of the coolest things I've seen done with a looper was done with an RC30.
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Thanks to everyone for all the very helpful input and information on loopers. I had narrowed my selections down to the Boss RC2 and the Ditto as they looked to be the easiest to deal with for my purposes. Many of those new pedals are like some of those the old VCRs that have every imaginable feature most people never used. I intend to use the looper in the same manner as Socalbill. After all the input, I believe the Ditto will serve my purposes. Again, thanks for all the assistance. JB
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I am flipflopping.. the Ditto does seem cool and it wasn't available when I got my RC2 (in fact when I got my RC2 they discontinued for the RC3).
I think I use it for the same reasons you do but one nice thing that the ditto doesn have it programmable tracks.
So if this week I want to work on II V I ... Autumn Leaves... and a Maj7 vamp .. I can record one.. turn a knob to the next postion and record the second.. another flip.. and record the 3rd.
I don't have to rerecord every day.
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I had a Boss RC-50 for a while. It is hard to describe, but it always seemed to me that the workflow was interrupted every time you wanted to do something with the pedal. With the Boomerang III, it just seems to flow from one thing to the next without stopping.
Tony
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I'm thinking of swapping out my Digitech JamMan for a TC Ditto. The best looper for me is probably going to be the one simple enough that I'd actually use it.
The JamMan is well made and does have some slick features. The memory card insert is brilliant if you have a need for such things--store and use lots of loops.
But I just want to run some ii-V-I's and see if my soloing sucks a little less than yesterday.
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I've owned a Boss RC2, a Boomerang III, an Infinity Looper, and the TC Ditto.
Of those the Boss was horrid and sucked tone. Same deal with the JamMan - you put your cable into those things and its going to have a negative impact on your signal.
The Boomerang and Infinity are great for people looping lots of things or who really want to learn the tool and do creative out-there things. They are similar in function and quality but different in design and layout. They give you distinctly different approaches to how you build up a loop. The biggest negatives to these pedals is they are large/clunky and expensive ($400ish)
The TC Electronics Ditto is my favorite (and only) pedal of all time. High quality with no tone suck, works flawlessly as designed (so it has limitations but for practice or looping a passage it kills). The best thing is the price and size - I got mine from ProAudioStar for $115 new and it fits in the smalles pouch of any bag. I highly recommend it.
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I was going to buy the Boomerang until I found out that it lost the loops when powered down.
At times I have 4 or 5 different loops stored in my RC2 and it's very handy to come back to them and start practice.
It clearly doesn't bother a lot of people but I think it's worth mentioning.
I'm not sure which of the other pedals mentioned here do the same.
Obviously the units without batteries.
I will also say that I don't like the RC2 very much. Such a tone destroyer and very fiddly. I need a magnifying glass just to read it
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If you want to save tracks/load loops/etc and what the highest sound quality then the Infinity Looper is the best option. The Boomerang as you say does not store loops so that is a big difference between them. I actually preferred the Infinity to the Boomerang III just for its layout and physical buttons.
Loopers are really peculiar thing though when you get into advanced feature models like the Boomerang III and the Infinity. They become instruments where you need to re-wire your brain to the approach needed and develop some muscle memory and feel for them over time to get good at it. Loopers like the RC-2 and Ditto let you focus on just playing the guitar rather than playing the guitar + looper.
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