What is a good looper at a decent price?

[Marty Grass]

What pedal is relatively simple but allows A and B passages to toggle between? Thanks.

[Doctor Jeff]

I have a Ditto X4 Looper. It’s pretty good, though I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it.

I got mine about 4 years ago. The bad: it shut down twice requiring service. I believe the last time they changed out the motherboard. The effects knob doesn’t work correctly—the Hold position actually just repeats the Double function. A big quirk for me is that it cannot save loops to a format that Apple’s MacOS or iOS will recognize. One can convert them, but that’s laborious, and then no way to import them back in. Unfortunate, since I imagine a lot of artists would love to bring loops into Garage Band and export them back out easily. I don’t think the import/export function is straightforward at all even with a PC.

The product support was disappointing, at least 3 years ago.

The good: it does have A/B loops (the X2 does not), a dedicated Stop button, and flexibility to sync loops, layer them, etc. If you’re playing a typical AABA song, press the Loop 1 button, play section A, hit A again, and then hit the Loop 2 button. When the second A section ends, you’ll start recording section B. Then hit A again to go back to A loop.

The sound quality is good. One can stereo in/out. It’s in a metal case, very solid, and large enough to be able to step on the buttons without accidentally hitting the wrong one.

Despite the issues above, would I buy again? Yes. First I would hope they would have fixed any motherboard issues that plagued the initial model. Second, hopefully, customer support is better. (No idea if this is the case though.) Third, I don’t use the Hold or Half/Double time or Reverse functions, mainly just Once and Fade, which work as advertised. I also don’t see a need to import/export loops, just playing on the fly.

The sound quality is good and the basic loop functions are easy to use. There’s the option of layering A and B—for instance setting up a rhythm track on A and then playing melody on B. I don’t know if there is any easier to use looper out there for the price ($224 on Amazon), but would like to here from other folks who’ve used them.

If you don’t need the A/B capability, the X2 is a cheaper, simple to use looper with a dedicated Stop button.

[omphalopsychos]

What’s wrong with comping a whole chorus (or ten)?

The A’s usually have different endings anyway so why would you want to toggle and play the wrong changes?

[Skip Ellis]

Donner Circle Looper - about a hundred bucks on Amazon. Even has a built in drum machine that syncs but you don't have to use it - jazz rhythms are not great but some of the blues stuff is OK. Be sure you get the right wall wart for it as it needs a little more amperage as I recall. Actually a really nice gizmo for cheap - built like a tank and holds lots of loops.

[darkwaters]

EH makes a good one. Simple and easy to use. I had one of the Boss Loop Stations for a while, but it got on my nerves. Too many options for what I wanted.

[Litterick]

Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360