need a good looping device??

[regotheamigo]

I am in a band without a bass player, so I want to try and expand the sound as much as I can, and I thought these would help for laying down rythem parts while I solo. The only one I know of is that Boomerang, and I hear Boss has one as well. If you own one of these or know of any other ones that are nice, let me know. Thanks

 

[jaymeister]

Boss RC-20xl

Digitech JamMan is new

Echoplex

www.loopersdelight.com has more details

 

[jazzgitter]

I have an RC20xl and use it when I do solo sets at church. Works awesome for that. Using it in band situation? Very difficult unless there is a way for it to be linked to a click or everybody is listening very closely to the loop. But for solo work and practicing it is awesome. One of my favorite features of the RC20xl is the fade out feature. You can program the pedal to fade out when you hit stop so that the cut off is not abrupt. I'm not sure if any other pedal has this feature. Great pedal. Works for me.

Steve

 

[Priestunes]

Yes... the tricks to looping are two-fold, at least: either not mind drifting from the rhythm (i.e., ambient, spacious, drifting, ethereal drones) or locking into it by way of an extremely tight drummer with enormous ears or a click track that ties him and your looping device and musicians together. Then there's the trick of operating it in time without missing the beat, on either side of it--too late or too early. I use an Echoplex Digital Pro and it has quantize features that can be set for all sorts of subdivisions of the loop itself or the beat within the loop. That is, if the loop is in 5/4, you can quantize to any of the quarter notes or the entire cycle. You can overdub onto the loop, copy that loop and overdub it, cycle back to the original loop, multiply its length, copy THAT to another location, reverse it, and change between these loops on a whim. The sample rate is something like 41K. Something not quite standard like that.

Anyway, there's a great site called loopers-delight.com that provides Library of Congress quantities of information. It's an interesting community, and kudos to you for your interest in this rewarding art form.


Try This

 

[Moe45673]

Originally posted by jazzgitter
I have an RC20xl and use it when I do solo sets at church. Works awesome for that. Using it in band situation? Very difficult unless there is a way for it to be linked to a click or everybody is listening very closely to the loop. But for solo work and practicing it is awesome. One of my favorite features of the RC20xl is the fade out feature. You can program the pedal to fade out when you hit stop so that the cut off is not abrupt. I'm not sure if any other pedal has this feature. Great pedal. Works for me.

Steve

+1 on everything. Should add that some of your abilities (such as improv) will improve much quicker when using this pedal. For practising alone, it is worth the money. If you're good enough to use it with a band, go nuts

 

[r9player]

A Line 6 Delay Mod. can do limited sample and repeat too.

 

[BmoreTele]

My son was in a band without a drummer. Actually, the guitarist was also the drummer, but not at the same time.

They recorded the drum tracks and played them on a CD through the PA.

 

[Non-Digital Tom]

 

[decay-o-caster]

The ZVex LoFi Loop Junky is one to consider as well. It really lets you degrade the looped sound so there's no confusion about which is the loop and which is live. No quantize function, no fade out, just sonic wrongness, more or less. Great little device!

 

[Paulstarr]

i come from the future to tell you to get the Ditto x4

 

[Codyyy]

I have the basic Ditto Looper and it works great for me. Through my tube amp it replicates decently and I can turn it up or down to play over it. Through my Roland Micro Cube the volume seems to go down even when the knob on the looper is up. May be tube vs solid state, I don't know.

 

[moore_for_less]

If you're looking for a looper as comprehensive as the Boomerang or big Boss model, then the TC Electronic Ditto X4 or Pigtronix Infinity could be helpful for you. Even Electro-Harmonix 22500, but I would go with the other two first.

Pigtronix offers a couple nicer features to the Ditto X4, but those features come at the cost of a steeper learning curve. Once you fully understand the functionality, the Infinity can do just about whatever you want it to. And, if you find a MIDI solution to sync your looper to a tempo with a click track being sent to your band mates, the Infinity and Ditto X4 can both accept that MIDI clock signal.

One word of caution I noticed with the Pigtronix Infinity is that the headroom seemed very limited on the unit I had. It kept automatically quieting my loops even though the headroom LED wasn't lighting up to indicate clipping, so my loops would never stay at their original volume. Ditto X4 has never given me these problems and is dirt simple to use, just great. Every so often I miss the more advanced features of the Infinity, but I'll take loops that can be heard on a consistent basis any day.

 

[DaveKS]

i come from the future to tell you to get the Ditto x4

Seriously, you drag up a 10yo (excuse me 11yo) thread for that. There are plenty of more current looper threads that already cover this ground.