Looper madness!! The madness!!!

[Jwar]

Ok guys. SUPER boring thread time. AMIRITE? I'm looking at looper currently. Why? I don't fucking know! Don't ask me shit like that goddamn it!

Anway, I want something that's simple to use, but super flexible. I am over fucking whelmed with options here.


My goal over all with my board is to go full midi at some point, but I'm a ways off. However, I want a looper that works with midi.

Loopers are super archaic still for some reason but I like some of them on the market obviously.

Here's what I"m looking for.

-seamless transitions. Meaning I don't want to hear it stopping after I've quit playing a portion of a loop. I want it to just repeat without a second delay. That shit drives me fucking nuts.
-at least a full minute of loop time or more would be best.
-is dead clean and I mean, no fucking delay at all or anything else. I want a looper to loop.
-reverse, 2x speed and other cool functions
-ability to stack multiple loops with ease
-it would be nice if the loop tracks could auto sync timing. I'm not sure if this is something any looper does, but why the fuck not if they don't?
-a memory card slot
-large and in charge. No but for real, I feel like all the good ones are pretty fucking big, so big ones are ok. LOL
-the ability to delete loops individually (does anything do this??). What I mean is if I lay down something awesome, then something else awesome and fuck up the third loop, I want to be able to delete that shit without deleting everything.
-volume control over individual loops
-ability to stop individual loops
-shit I'm missing and can't think of? Help me out here! Maybe some drum shit? I dunno.

I'm a dad of rock, and I want to rock out with my...errrr....never mind. I want to jam and I'll never have time for a fucking band until my kids are a bit bigger.

So, I'm looking at the following currently.

Pigtronix's Infinity Looper
Boomerang III
Boss RC 300 (not sure I fully understand this one)
Digitech Jamman Stereo

That's about it. I'm lost here.

[ognoy]

Boomerang III does everything except memory card/store loops.

I think the Ditto X4 might tick all your boxes, but never tried one myself, som not 100% sure.

[Bon Hoga]

May I hijack this thread to ask how exactly the MIDI sync function saves you from sucking? It's supposed to align your loop with pre-programmed time signature, but if you don't record the loop well, how does sync make it work?

[Olin]

May I hijack this thread to ask how exactly the MIDI sync function saves you from sucking? It's supposed to align your loop with pre-programmed time signature, but if you don't record the loop well, how does sync make it work?

So in my experience with a Pigtronix Infinity and a Ditto X4. Yes. If you hook up a drum machine for example, it qauntises the loop to the BPM, and both will give a bit of flexibility in your playing in that if you hit the record button a little too soon it will keep recording until that bar ends.
However, regarding super tight light loop, it's at least 95% timing. If your timing is shit, the loop will be shit. I've been through a lot of loopers and the only ones I had latency issues with were EHX, which I've since been told was me being shitty and not knowing how they worked. Oldest trick in the book is to put a reverb after your looper to help blend the beginning and end, and my go-to is to set it to go straight into overdub so that you can cover it up on the next run through and have it seamless. I haven't liked Boss loopers, they seem to colour everything and not in a way I like, but the usual great footswitches. Boomerang III's are also really, really good and give you the most simultaneous dedicated loops, but absolutely no storage.

Jwar, I'd really recommend starting with an X4. They're a pretty good introduction to loopers and tick most of your boxes (they have shit storage, I know, no boner), but are relatively cheap and good fun. I have yet to have an issue with mine, even the footswitches have been fine. A Pigtronix Infinity is a bit more in-depth, has storage and is also good, but you have to buy an auxiliary footswitch if you want to use a majority of the functions.

Also keep your eye on EHX, they've sent a new looper out to a few artists and it looks to be as feature packed as a looper can possibly be.

[ibarakishi]

once you start playing with a looper pedal on a regular basis, you will really improve you playing pretty quickly i think regardless of which one you choose.

also, Olin, what other information do you have about the new EHX loopers that people are testing out now? I am really interested in this

[crochambeau]

May I hijack this thread to ask how exactly the MIDI sync function saves you from sucking? It's supposed to align your loop with pre-programmed time signature, but if you don't record the loop well, how does sync make it work?

Do any loopers *send* a clock based on the loop size? I think that's where I would start screaming with glee.

-seamless transitions. Meaning I don't want to hear it stopping after I've quit playing a portion of a loop. I want it to just repeat without a second delay. That shit drives me fucking nuts.

I thought loopers grabbed sections defined by punching in and out manually, putting onus over the splice on you, the player. Do some have an automatic setting, where the signal defines the duration?

Wait, nevermind, you're talking about the stretch of time it takes the thing to think about what it has to do before it does it, huh.

Is there an auto capture looper that sends clock?

Sorry for spiraling out of control on your thread jwar. No fly before my third cup of tea.

[Chankgeez]

If you get a Boomerang, you can etch it so it becums a "Bonerang".

[oscillateur]

You might consider the EHX 22500, it fits most of your requirements... I'm using mine for more drony/noisy things so you should read other people's reviews obviously...

The two tracks can be set to a number of ratios from each other and free if desired, and there's a rhythm track on which you can upload your own samples if needed (there'll be no time strech for these though). Overall a nice little thing, my only beef with it is that there's no sync input (you can choose bpm but it won't necessarily be the same bpm as another machine's).

[kbit]

Bumping cuz I don't wanna start a new thread. I'm curious if anyone knows of some stereo looper pedals that have a decay/feedback functionality for old layers to fade away over time?

I have three delay/loopers that have stereo jacks + feedback but the signal collapses to mono while looping for all of them. Ditto x4 can but it's huge and those footswitches are questionable; EHX 22500 can but it seems like overkill with it's extraneous features; DD-20 kinda can with it's delay but you can't set the temp to long loop lengths in that mode, and SoS doesn't have a feedback control.

Any other options out there?

[Errant Tiger]

Following, just in case...

[Jwar]

I'm using the Boss RC-50 now and I'm pretty happy with it now. The best thing is I can run in stereo now. WHUT! lol

[whoismarykelly]

Get a Looperlative LP1 or a couple of Echoplex Digital Pros. Anything pedal based is way behind these much older units in terms of features and flexibility.

[manymanyhaha]

Have had a RC-20, RC-50, Jamman Solo, Infinity, X4, RC-300 and now use Circular Labs Mobius with a MOTU 16a but about to start exploring Ableton, because a new friend raves about it.

My favorite is the current one: 16 tracks of looping only limited to my knowledge of the software, my controllers and Windows7.

I liked each of those pedal loopers for different reasons at their time, but each had problems too. They are each very limited. What I like about software is the ability to expand or contract and adapt to my needs/imagination. And being able to layer 16 tracks improvisationally has improved my creative happiness several times over. Can't emphasize that enough.

Mobius is free and doesn't require a hefty computer to run to its fullest ability. You just need a decent soundcard and Windows 7. It hasn't been updated in almost a decade though, which is another reason I am about to try Ableton out.

[Dowi]

I'm using the Boss RC-50 now and I'm pretty happy with it now. The best thing is I can run in stereo now. WHUT! lol

LOL weren't you the "FUCKSTEREOPEDALBPARDS" man?

Anyway I have had my fair share of loopers but the only one that stayed is the Rc-30, but I admit I hate a ton of his things (like: two channels and no independent loop times? Cmoooon)

[kbit]

Also just wanted to add that the TimeFactor's delay is suuuper fun. It may not be fulfill my stereo needs like I hoped but granular playback over the loop buffer is