Any suggestions on loop selector?

[Bur]

High, men! I'm looking for a loop selector with 2 loops, bypass & loop blender, the one like Boss LS-2 in its features, but not buffered, which will not affect the tone. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[eeyorebass]

If you want the ability to blend loops together, you will have to have buffers and electronics involved. Without them you run into signal degradation as it is passively split/recombined etc.

With that in mind, the LS-2 is a great little tool. Other options include:
this:http://xotic.us/effects/x_blender/

one of these: http://woundedpaw.com/fx/index.php?m...233f6f50e60105

or this:http://www.badgereffects.com/paraxv.html


If all you need is a true-bypass, in/out looper, you have even more choices from diy to full custom.
For example:
here: http://www.loop-master.com
here: http://www.roadrageprogear.com
here: http://this1smyne.com/custom/looper/

or numerous others.

Jeremy

[taurus1]

to imply that the LS-2 has a negative effect on tone, is misguided.

[yaksonator]

Originally Posted by taurus1

to imply that the LS-2 has a negative effect on tone, is misguided.

Very true! I have absolutely no tone loss with mine. For me it offers a nice buffer at the beginning of my chain.

[Bur]

I was just kinda frightened by this thread...
Frequency analysis: pedal bypass edition

[Bur]

Originally Posted by eeyorebass

If you want the ability to blend loops together, you will have to have buffers and electronics involved. Without them you run into signal degradation as it is passively split/recombined etc.

With that in mind, the LS-2 is a great little tool. Other options include:
this:http://xotic.us/effects/x_blender/

one of these: http://woundedpaw.com/fx/index.php?m...233f6f50e60105

or this:http://www.badgereffects.com/paraxv.html


If all you need is a true-bypass, in/out looper, you have even more choices from diy to full custom.
For example:
here: http://www.loop-master.com
here: http://www.roadrageprogear.com
here: http://this1smyne.com/custom/looper/

or numerous others.

Jeremy

Thanks, dude... Couldn't be more usefull...

[cheapbasslovin]

Originally Posted by Bur

I was just kinda frightened with this thread...
Frequency analysis: pedal bypass edition

The conclusion of that thread was the bypass of one Boss pedal at reasonable guitar levels was really quite good. Only when you start stacking Boss bypasses in great quantities do you get to hearing serious degradation. If you only have a couple, or keep most of your pedals in the LS-2 loops, noticeable signal degradation shouldn't occur.

That said eeyorebass made some quality suggestions.

[eeyorebass]

Originally Posted by Bur

Thanks, dude... Couldn't be more usefull...

No problem at all. I'm glad to help.

j

[Bur]

Originally Posted by cheapbasslovin

The conclusion of that thread was the bypass of one Boss pedal at reasonable guitar levels was really quite good. Only when you start stacking Boss bypasses in great quantities do you get to hearing serious degradation. If you only have a couple, or keep most of your pedals in the LS-2 loops, noticeable signal degradation shouldn't occur.

That said eeyorebass made some quality suggestions.

Yeah, man, exactly "reasonable levels" pricked up my ears, cause I play stoner\sludge on unreasonable signal levels... so unreasonable, that most of tube amps start farting as soon as I touch its gain knob... So, I drowned in doubt reading that thread.

[ga_edwards]

Originally Posted by Bur

Yeah, man, exactly "reasonable levels" pricked up my ears, cause I play stoner\sludge on unreasonable signal levels... so unreasonable, that most of tube amps start farting as soon as I touch its gain knob... So, I drowned in doubt reading that thread.

Maybe earplugs should be at the top of your shopping list instead of a new pedal.

[ga_edwards]

Originally Posted by yaksonator

Very true! I have absolutely no tone loss with mine. For me it offers a nice buffer at the beginning of my chain.

Me too. Too often people shudder at the thought of having a buffered pedal and assume true is always a better. Very misguided!

[cheapbasslovin]

Originally Posted by Bur

Yeah, man, exactly "reasonable levels" pricked up my ears, cause I play stoner\sludge on unreasonable signal levels... so unreasonable, that most of tube amps start farting as soon as I touch its gain knob... So, I drowned in doubt reading that thread.

Looking at your profile, I see a bunch of effects by Tech 21 and DOD. All of these are buffered and looking for similar signal to what the Boss is looking for. DOD pedals are well known for having bad bypasses. If you don't notice anything with those, the LS2 should treat you very well.

EDIT::: All 3 of the loopers that eeyore linked to will also be looking for the same level guitar signal.

Reasonable levels in the guitar chain doesn't mean the same thing as reasonable levels at the amp.

[odineye]

Originally Posted by Bur

I was just kinda frightened by this thread...
Frequency analysis: pedal bypass edition

Just a little perspective here. The graph in that thread had the LS-2 not showing any appreciable loss until some very high frequencies, somewhere around -1db at 16k.

Lets be honest.

Most of us here can't even hear 16k anymore, those of us who still can are going to be hard pressed to notice a 1db loss at 16k and even then only through a high fi system. definitely not through your average bass amp and for sure not one pushed at the levels you're talking about. Sooo...

I owned the Xotic and it's a great unit, but not quite what you were looking for as far as the number of loops. I have a wounded paw on my board right now and it's another great unit, but it's almost as large as 3 boss pedals. FWIW I'd say stick with the LS-2. A very functional unit at a great price that doesn't demand a lot of real estate.

[Bur]

Originally Posted by cheapbasslovin

Looking at your profile, I see a bunch of effects by Tech 21 and DOD. All of these are buffered and looking for similar signal to what the Boss is looking for. DOD pedals are well known for having bad bypasses. If you don't notice anything with those, the LS2 should treat you very well.

EDIT::: All 3 of the loopers that eeyore linked to will also be looking for the same level guitar signal.

Reasonable levels in the guitar chain doesn't mean the same thing as reasonable levels at the amp.

It seems I am kinda misunderstanding what "reasonable level" means... Also got a lack of knowledge in signal buffering... Frankly speaking I didnt care about trueness or bufferness of bypass at all, until yesterday, when I've checked that "frequency analysis" thread... Never noticed really that my rig, including dod phaser, sucked the tone... Instead of wondering if the signal level of my active bass with two fuzzes with drive all the way up reasonable or not, I'll better buy that LS-2 (like its features anyway) & check it out... I dont need that bypass headache at all... "Believe your ears" - thats the truest bypass...

[Bur]

Originally Posted by ga_edwards

Maybe earplugs should be at the top of your shopping list instead of a new pedal.

Yeah, exactly! And a pair of gloves to protect my tender fingers...

[cheapbasslovin]

Here's a short history on fx bypasses (probably with large holes and fallacies):

In the beginning there were effects and people thought the effects were awesome. But due to mechanical limitations with switching, the bypass often popped very loudly and negatively influenced sounds of the guitars. Then Boss decided to add a buffer to the bypass. The pop was gone and the guitars sounded great. Not long after that Boss was dominating the effects game, and people started loading up on Boss effects. When they started lining a bunch of them up in a row they started to notice notice their tone being dragged down. Observation combined with misinformation and all of a sudden any kind of buffer was synonymous with bad tone. This allowed the 3pdt stomp switch to become more popular and the true bypass craze started. True bypass got rid of of the tone suck caused by the cumulative effect of buffers, but reintroduced the pop. Recently there's been some relay true bypass methods that even get rid of the pop.

While the 'buffers are bad' myth still exists, it's not as prevalent as it once was and their benefits seem to be more widely known. The truth is bad bypass methods are almost a thing of the past, especially if you can set them in groups and use a bypass looper to lessen their cumulative effect.

TL;DR version: trust your ears,they will tell you if your bypass sucks.

[Musicman1901]

There are alot of factors most of which just come down to what your specifically looking for but for a bypass looper you should look at the Nose pedals. I bought a nose bypass looper with 3 separate loops and I love it.