Freeze and looping

[sethlow3]

I am very interested in the EHX freeze, but I have always had my eye on the Rang III. Wouldn't have a looper defeat the purpose of the freeze altogether?

[rratajski]

The Freeze doesn't freeze phrases like a looper.

[sethlow3]

right! so since all I would probably use on the freeze is the latch function, wouldn't a looper hold a chord to play over just fine? The other settings on the freeze don't seem too useful.

[MaxMaps]

You seem to be missing the point of the freeze.

The main point of the pedal is to hold or capture a phrase and sustain that as a solid sound. A looper is a completely different animal compared to the freeze.

While it is possible to do it with a looper, it takes some skill to get the same sound function that you do with the freeze pedal.

[Eric!]

The Freeze takes a single slice of tone and draws it out, continuously, like watching Play-Doh spaghetti.
A phrase looper will take whatever you play (longer than a slice) and repeats that over and over, kinda like if you could make the Play-Doh spaghetti protruder poop identical nuggets.

The Freeze is a phrase looper in essence, but the phrase is limited to merely fractions of a second, it'll drone. Like if you had an open D chord ring out forever. A looper will play sequences of notes. Make sense?

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Originally Posted by sethlow3

right! so since all I would probably use on the freeze is the latch function, wouldn't a looper hold a chord to play over just fine? The other settings on the freeze don't seem too useful.

As stated, getting a looper to capture a single note/chord and hold it without continuing beat noises that come from slight changes in volume that happen in a very short period of time is very difficult. The Freeze takes a very, very short sample and has something in the processor to smooth out the sound. It's very difficult to do what the Freeze does on a looper, particularly in the Fast and Slow modes. Those modes are useful for the times you don't plan on holding a series of different notes/chords to play over. If you want to just play over a note/chord every now and then, the Slow and Fast modes let you just press and release when you're done- it's far faster than you could ever do with a looper.

[sethlow3]

Makes sense... Just thinking I could do the same or similar with a rang III. Instead of the millisecond sound repeating over and over, I'd have to get crazy good creative for similar results on a looper.

I'd think you could really get some cool stuff mixing and matching BOTH pedals!

[Swimming Bird]

Most dedicated loopers I've encountered have had a minimum loop time of around 2 seconds. I haven't played with any of the 'rangs, but it may not be possible to make short freeze noises.

I suggest you get both.