The Looping Thread

[gjhardwick]

A quick search didn't yield any results for an all-encompassing Looping/Loop Pedal thread so here goes!

To start things off, it's looking like there will be some cool looping pedals released this year;

Pigtronix Infinity

Vox Delaylab

Looperlative LP2

Looking at the specs, it appears that all three have their strengths and weaknesses. The LP2 probably has the strongest feature set for straight looping, though initial reports suggest that it's OS is a little flaky.

I'm currently using a Strymon El Capistan in Sound on Sound mode as my main looper. Sounds great and it's controls allow for some nice mangling of the tone.

Loopers of the board unite!

 

[GregoryL]

Good thread - you'll find quite a bit of discussion about looping in the ambient / textural guitarist threads.

All of those new options look great ... lots of interesting features in the Pigtronix.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone is currently using Ableton Live with a MIDI footcontroller for live performance looping?

I've been thinking about going this direction as I think it will provide a lot of flexibility, but I have to admit, I'm not sold on needing a laptop as part of my rig.

 

[John II]

Thanks for the post.

Does anyone know of a loop pedal that will accept both a vocal in/out and a guitar in/out that will enable both to be looped and synch'ed simultainiously??

 

[edgie]

Nice thread! I would like to incorporate some small looped segements in my playing in the future so this'll be a good read. Never had a looper before except the one in the El Capistan that I had before.

I'm curious on people's input on the Pigtronix Inifnity and the Vox Delaylab since those are the ones that will be most likely to be available in our area. I'm looking for units that are not too complex nor too basic. Something like a beginner-intermediate looper pedal. What are the necessary features that we should be looking for in a looper?

 

[BluesHarp]

3 new loopers, eh? Curious if anybody has played one yet.

I just got a boomerang 3 and its got a manual with it half inch thick. I got so lazy when I pulled it out the box.. I layed down an took a nap.

 

[jkokura]

I'm seriously interested in that Infinity Looper. I like the look of it, but even Pigtronix doesn't have anything on it's website yet.

Jacob

 

[Justin Gadell]

boomerang 3 user here...i enjoy it and its actually really easy to use don't let that manual intimidate you

 

[TwinkleDaddy]

I will never abandon my RANG III. My whole band is centered around looping and this thing has never failed me.

 

[gjhardwick]

I briefly owned a Boomerang III - I didn't 'gel' with it at all, mainly due to the short/long press of the bonus buttons to access the different features.

I should imagine if I stuck with it a little longer i'd would have got use to it, but it just didn't seem to be that intuitive to me.

John II - IIRC, the only pedals that accept both vocal/mic & guitar inputs are the Boss RC-30 and Digitech Jamman. These record both inputs to the same loop though. The new Pigtronix will be able to route the two inputs to the separate loops though.

 

[p.j.]

I love my Vox Dynamic Looper. So much fun, so many features. It has 2 loops w/ 90 seconds between them. Fantastic feature set.

PJ

 

[gjhardwick]

If only the Vox Dynamic Looper had some sort of feedback control, then it'd be amazing.

The resampling function (the ability to extend/edit a loop by a multiple of the original or any amount) is quite powerful though and as far as i'm aware, the only pedal looper to have such a control

 

[p.j.]

If only the Vox Dynamic Looper had some sort of feedback control, then it'd be amazing.

The resampling function (the ability to extend/edit a loop by a multiple of the original or any amount) is quite powerful though and as far as i'm aware, the only pedal looper to have such a control

That (feedback control) is the only thing it is really missing. I still love it. It replaced my Line 6 DL-4 and I couldn't be happier. The Vox and my Kaosillator Pro are a mind melting duo.

PJ

 

[wrightdude]

Nice... I loop outboard with an Electrix Repeater, would like to replace with something on the floor this year... was thinking Digitech Jamman Delay... but nice to see some new things to consider!

(I "do" also have a MMw/Haz, Digitech Timebender, TC Flashback and a DL4 which will of course loop, but looking for something to replace repeater with long loops, an undo etc....)

 

[feralchild]

I'd like to get my hands on the PT infinity as well.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone is currently using Ableton Live with a MIDI footcontroller for live performance looping?

I have done this. It works fairly well, especially if you use Ableton's Looper device instead of just recording clips. I even came up with a way to do a multitrack version of the ableton Looper by putting several in an effects rack... which worked basically like the 2880 I am using now. (Except Live's Looper has a multiply feature and the 2880 does not, which is why I want to look into the PT Infinity!)

The main issue was latency. I have an older Tascam USB interface which is not bad but not great either. Using ASIO4ALL I managed to wrestle the latency down to 5ms round trip, which is pretty good by most standards, but I can still hear it, and it's enough to bother me. Apparently the RME interfaces are the way to go if you want supergood LLP (low latency performance) but they are pricy, as would be your laptop if it's got enough CPU power to do all this real time stuff (mine has an i7). See the benchmarking work being done here: http://forum.dawbench.com/showthread.php?1801-DAWbench-Universal-Suite-Results-Database-In-Progress

If you have the technology to achieve a good latency for real time performance, then Ableton is a bad-ass looping tool. I'm pretty sure Michael Travis from EOTO uses Ableton for his guitar looping (but note, he's only playing his guitar like 5-10% of the time). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EOTO.jpg (I don't know if he's using the Looper or recording clips)

I tried using a Launchpad and recording clips in the normal fashion, which is actually kind of limited... I won't get into the details but let's just say if you want to do any kind of layering at all, you'll need a lot of tracks, so you'll need a lot of different footswitches and constantly have to be arming/disarming tracks in addition to recording, playing and stopping. It gets unwieldy, especially when compared to something like a Boomerang. Maybe there's a more graceful way to set it up...? This is just my experience.

Right now I am using a 2880, and I have that clock sync'd to some other stuff. My guitar rig works completely independent from my laptop (and I like it this way). These days I basically just use Ableton for controlling Reason, and for recording everything (MIDI and audio tracks).

But if I'm just making straight electronic music, which is not often, then I am using Ableton's full capabilities.

 

[faizz]

The main issue was latency. I have an older Tascam USB interface which is not bad but not great either. Using ASIO4ALL I managed to wrestle the latency down to 5ms round trip, which is pretty good by most standards, but I can still hear it, and it's enough to bother me.

I use Looper in parallel with my analog signal, so I let monitoring OFF.
Then I pre-set loop length before tracking.

These two things solved any latency issues for me.

My .02,
Faizz

 

[GregoryL]

Feralchild and faizz ... thank you both for your replies. Much appreciated.

 

[feralchild]

I use Looper in parallel with my analog signal, so I let monitoring OFF.
Then I pre-set loop length before tracking.

These two things solved any latency issues for me.

My .02,
Faizz

Yes if I understand you correctly, you're saying you don't monitor the guitar input in realtime, you only monitor the loop playback, so your guitar signal is always coming through the amp and the loops play back through the monitors. Correct? This is a potential workaround for the latency issue. I believe I experimented with this idea a few times but never got it to flow smoothly. Worth another try perhaps.

Do you use the Looper effect, or do you just record clips? And don't you have to turn the track monitor switch back on when you go to play the loops back?

 

[faizz]

Yes if I understand you correctly, you're saying you don't monitor the guitar input in realtime, you only monitor the loop playback, so your guitar signal is always coming through the amp and the loops play back through the monitors. Correct? This is a potential workaround for the latency issue. I believe I experimented with this idea a few times but never got it to flow smoothly. Worth another try perhaps.

Correct, but that only solved half of the problem for me: next thing to do was pre-setting the loops length. That means, Looper already knows how many bars will be recorded.

Do you use the Looper effect, or do you just record clips? And don't you have to turn the track monitor switch back on when you go to play the loops back?

Yes, I use Looper, no need to switch monitoring back.

Also, the latest Live updates should feature a low-latency monitoring mode: I never tried it but it may be worth some experimentation.

Hope this helps,
ƒ

 

[uberschall]

I'm very psyched for the Infinity looper. I just watched Dave Koltai's walk-through from NAMM- doesn't digitize your signal when not looping, two stereo loops- each with a dedicated start button, 2 inputs assignable to separate tracks, other cool features, and as he puts it, "no cheesy effects." He said look for it April 1; didn't mention a price though...

 

[mwvm]

I briefly owned a Boomerang III - I didn't 'gel' with it at all, mainly due to the short/long press of the bonus buttons to access the different features.

I should imagine if I stuck with it a little longer i'd would have got use to it, but it just didn't seem to be that intuitive to me.

John II - IIRC, the only pedals that accept both vocal/mic & guitar inputs are the Boss RC-30 and Digitech Jamman. These record both inputs to the same loop though. The new Pigtronix will be able to route the two inputs to the separate loops though.

i'm just about to buy a boomerang iii.... do you think that's a bad idea?

btw i'm glad i came across this thread (not literally)... i didn't know there were alternatives to the boomerang regarding loop "channels".

also, i'm currently living in grantham mon-fri... are there any esoteric gigs worth checking out? i've not played in a while