Loop Pedals

[Sonic Mountain]

Hey Guys,

I've been considering getting a loop pedal for a while now. I've looked around and had a play with a few, but frankly its all a bit much for my decisions making brain to take in. i don't think I'm after anything fancy, but I'm ready to be corrected.

What are you guys using and where did you get it?

My instinct is telling my I probably wouldn't go wrong with a Boss RC-1 but I'm interested to hearing others opinions.

I've been setting up my own backing tracks etc in Garageband for ages, but I'd like to be able to mess around on the fly without sitting down and mucking around on the computer.

[Dedman]

I have a little Mooer Micro Looper I got off ebay. cheap and does what I want of it

[dave.king1]

One of my jam mates picked up a Ditto a few weeks back, I'll ask him tomorrow how he's finding it

[Old Tooth Hopkins]

Newbie here!

Depend on the complexity of the music you want to make with it.

Most of the stompbox or micro sized loop stations can only do fixed length loops, i.e. if the first loop you put down is 4 bars, then everything else will be overlapped on top of that 4 bars. If you want to make one loop with 8 bars, and make another loop which is 4 bars, then you need RC-300 or above.

The RC-30 has 2 channels, that you can turn on and off, I've seen live performers who record percussion on one channel and everything else on the other. The limitation with the fixed length, is that you can't really do verse-chorus-bridge unless the verse and choruses have exactly the same length.

I have a RC-30 which i am still yet to discover its full capability. I use a footswitch pedal on the side which allow me to switch channels more readily.

If you are a simple user, just need some background loops, then RC-1, RC-3 or micro looper or a Donnerdeal one would do the job.

Hope this helps.

[Andy40]

Sonic, don't forget to check out the G1 and G3 Zoom. both are relatively inexpensive. I had the G1 and upgraded to the G3 so I can use with or without the computer.

Both have loop and rhythm.

In addition you have easy to use digital emulation of well known pedals. This is a bit of an added benefit as you can use the different pedals with the looper.

Check to see if it plays nicely with your amp first.

I got mine from Artist Guitars

[Sonic Mountain]

Thanks for the replies guys. Some good point there Old Tooth Hopkins.

The Ditto is one of the ones I've played with. Super simple, I need some practice with it to get a good backing loop going.

The Zoom is probably over kill, as is the RC 30. I have a really good computer interface and a number of pedals and emulators so I'm really just after the looping function.

I think this points me to the RC-1. I like the twin input out put - I could run my keyboard through it and do beats or baselines that way. I might just bite the bullet and buy one in the next week or so.

[Marcel]

A Digitech Trio Band Creator is a lot of fun, particularly if you just want to rehearse. It is an artificial '3 piece band in a box' where the backing bass and drums are created electronically to your loaded riff.

Load a riff into it with a clean signal from your guitar and it plays back a bass guitar and drums to your riff. You can load 3 riffs and switch between them (higher model can hold 5 riffs), and there are controls to set the tempo of the playback speed and there are a variety of styles to choose from.
As an example, say you load in a basic 12 bar as riff 1, and a suitable bridge or middle 8 as riff 2, then when played back in the 'Rock' setting you find it boring or old hat, well without reloading you can change the Genre style to Blues or Jazz or Alt Rock or R&B or Pop or Country, and then set the tempo and "Alt timing" as you desire.
It has a separate outputs for the bass/drums and guitar, or you can use it as a single combined signal to an amp. A headphones socket for 'silent' practice. There are two models and the higher priced version includes a standard style guitar looper to the electronically generated bass and drums backing band

I don't use my cheaper model as often as I should, but it is a lot of fun and can challenge your creativity and your dexterity (being that the electronic bassist and drummer NEVER tire or drift in their timing or loose their patience with you).

[Old Tooth Hopkins]

Worthwhile mentioning that Boss RCs have in-built pre-recorded loops in the last 10 tracks which is fun if you are home from work and just want to jam for a bit. On the computer, you can also load other pre-recorded loops on there.

There are also 10 basic beats you can tap tempo.

[Simon Barden]

I have a Zoom G5 and the looping is terrible on that. There's about a 1 second pause at the loop repeat point. Utter rubbish. So definitely try the Zoom G1 or G3 in loop mode before even thinking of buying it for that. Otherwise I've never tried any loopers but the two button ones (or single button ones with a footswitch) others tell me are so much more versatile and easy to use.

[Jed51]

I was using the Boss RC1 until I decided to get a BeatBuddy to lay down my drum track - came up against the dreaded clock sync issue - the cheaper loop pedals don’t have MIDI sync capability so when you start overdubbing everything quickly goes to sh*#. Ditto x4 appears to be the cheapest option in hardware with MIDI, although Loopy on my iPhone is also an option with something like the IK Multimedia iRig Stomp guitar interface and a BlueBoard for foot control.