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Delay/Looper reviews wanted.
- Thread starter Rusty the Scoob
- Start date
If you're going to spend $500 on a looper you may as well buy the Boss RC 300 Loop station. It has 3 hours of recording and it's super easy to work with.
Timeline. Downside is only 30 seconds of loop time. Upside is....it's a Timeline lol. Every sound you can think of and nearly all of its dang good too. Would def use for ambient (and I do!) unless you need a lot more time.
Looks like everybody swears by something different, huh?
I've used my little Boss RC-3 forever and it's never failed me or left me wanting. Only one loop at a time (infinite layers, of course), but at the size of a normal stompbox, it's impossible to regret carrying around, and onboard rhythm guides and saveable/transferable loops really help a body get productive when it comes to making satisfying ambient loops.
RC-300 can pretty much only be better with more simultaneous loops and a few other perks, I imagine, though its imposing size makes it much more of a commitment to add to the pedalboard as compared with its little brother.
Worth mentioning- the Zoom B3 Multi-effects/looper can set its time-related parameters to sync with your loop, allowing a crapton of cool effects (including, of course, lots of different kinds of delay) to be pretty effortlessly and beautifully incorporated into your loop jam. I might have made it my primary looper for that reason if not for its lack of an AUX-in jack, which prevents me from using external devices to provide my own rhythms. I think the new B3n has one, though...
--^@
I've used my little Boss RC-3 forever and it's never failed me or left me wanting. Only one loop at a time (infinite layers, of course), but at the size of a normal stompbox, it's impossible to regret carrying around, and onboard rhythm guides and saveable/transferable loops really help a body get productive when it comes to making satisfying ambient loops.
RC-300 can pretty much only be better with more simultaneous loops and a few other perks, I imagine, though its imposing size makes it much more of a commitment to add to the pedalboard as compared with its little brother.
Worth mentioning- the Zoom B3 Multi-effects/looper can set its time-related parameters to sync with your loop, allowing a crapton of cool effects (including, of course, lots of different kinds of delay) to be pretty effortlessly and beautifully incorporated into your loop jam. I might have made it my primary looper for that reason if not for its lack of an AUX-in jack, which prevents me from using external devices to provide my own rhythms. I think the new B3n has one, though...
--^@
Good point. I only have 2 other pedals but the size should be taken into consideration as you mentioned. I bought a case for mine.
The original Looperlative LP-1 can do all three of those things. The Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro can do the first two-and-a-half: You can't change the balance between layers, but you can un-do previous layers and re-record them.
My mistakeI didn't thought Rusty was looking for a > 1.000,- 19" rack looper...
Oh yeah, his OP suggested fairly casual usage and a much smaller budget. But now that he knows what sort of feature set is possible, perhaps his interest will increase ...along with his budget!
I have a TC 3x delay which is amazing. It can be used simply or for some of the most complex delays possible. I haven't used it for looping much but many of the delay modes have such long times you can use almost all of them as a looper of sorts. It is mainly meant for making a near infinite amount of delay sounds though.
I love it becouse you can use it for classic/ simple delay stuff and set up great sounding ones very quickly. Then you can save 3 different delays to use individually or combine at will. It also plugs into a computer for editing in which you can literally use all 3 delay engines for a single delay, when doing this you can only turn 1 on at a time but it allows for some insane stuff that would be impossible with almost any other delay pedal.
I started with a cheap analog delay but this one sounds just as good if not better in some ways and has more delay under the hood then anyone could need.
Got mine for 200$ used which is pretty damn hard to beat. It is fully stereo too which I haven't even gotten into much.
It can also do some chorus/ flanger sounds with the computer editor.
I love it becouse you can use it for classic/ simple delay stuff and set up great sounding ones very quickly. Then you can save 3 different delays to use individually or combine at will. It also plugs into a computer for editing in which you can literally use all 3 delay engines for a single delay, when doing this you can only turn 1 on at a time but it allows for some insane stuff that would be impossible with almost any other delay pedal.
I started with a cheap analog delay but this one sounds just as good if not better in some ways and has more delay under the hood then anyone could need.
Got mine for 200$ used which is pretty damn hard to beat. It is fully stereo too which I haven't even gotten into much.
It can also do some chorus/ flanger sounds with the computer editor.
Ambient jams makes me think Boomerang.
Boss pedals have storage + mic input.
For voice/loop/guitar modeling Voicelive 3 (TC helicon) is amazing.
Boss pedals have storage + mic input.
For voice/loop/guitar modeling Voicelive 3 (TC helicon) is amazing.
I just ordered, received, and returned the TC Ditto X4 within 5 days. Not impressed at all. In fact, I’m very disappointed that a looper this simple could be so dysfunctional. Maybe some of this was user error on my part.
Storing a loop as a backing track initially caused audible pops and clicks. There were also audible pops and clicks when overdubbing or running the two loop tracks in sync. A quick google search revealed a firmware fix, but it’s not available for download from their support site. Instead, you have to open a support case and they will send you a link to a dropbox location where you can download their latest beta release candidate. Okay, I can deal with that.
After updating the firmware, new problems emerged. Storing an initial loop as a backing track would sometimes cause the track to stutter mid-play, and sometimes it would cause the track to stop playing entirely. So much for seamlessly building up loops live. The pops and clicks that occurred during overdubs and running the loops in sync were fewer, but didn’t go away entirely. I would often have to undo/redo an overdub in order to remove one of those artifacts.
I was also unable to do overdubs on an initial loop track before storing it as a backing track. Maybe that expectation was an error on my part; it almost seemed as if the overdub function on the initial track acted more like a punch in/out for patching the loop. Even so, it’s poorly implemented and messy, and it means that I was unable to create anything other than a very basic loop as my backing track, when it should have, IMO, allowed me to overdub as may layers as I needed before I stored it as a backing track.
As I said, perhaps some of this was user error or a misunderstanding of the device’s expected behavior. I often found myself in unexpected playback or recording modes as a result of trying to undo/redo or clear a layer. I tried to give myself several days to get a feel for using this, but by the 5th day, with more track stuttering and pops and clicks, it became obvious that those problems alone made this product entirely unsuitable for a live performance.
Swing and a miss, TC.
Storing a loop as a backing track initially caused audible pops and clicks. There were also audible pops and clicks when overdubbing or running the two loop tracks in sync. A quick google search revealed a firmware fix, but it’s not available for download from their support site. Instead, you have to open a support case and they will send you a link to a dropbox location where you can download their latest beta release candidate. Okay, I can deal with that.
After updating the firmware, new problems emerged. Storing an initial loop as a backing track would sometimes cause the track to stutter mid-play, and sometimes it would cause the track to stop playing entirely. So much for seamlessly building up loops live. The pops and clicks that occurred during overdubs and running the loops in sync were fewer, but didn’t go away entirely. I would often have to undo/redo an overdub in order to remove one of those artifacts.
I was also unable to do overdubs on an initial loop track before storing it as a backing track. Maybe that expectation was an error on my part; it almost seemed as if the overdub function on the initial track acted more like a punch in/out for patching the loop. Even so, it’s poorly implemented and messy, and it means that I was unable to create anything other than a very basic loop as my backing track, when it should have, IMO, allowed me to overdub as may layers as I needed before I stored it as a backing track.
As I said, perhaps some of this was user error or a misunderstanding of the device’s expected behavior. I often found myself in unexpected playback or recording modes as a result of trying to undo/redo or clear a layer. I tried to give myself several days to get a feel for using this, but by the 5th day, with more track stuttering and pops and clicks, it became obvious that those problems alone made this product entirely unsuitable for a live performance.
Swing and a miss, TC.
Not sure if you're talking about the same process as on the original Ditto, but there's definitely this intermediate step where the tc loopers require you to get out of record mode -- to set the loop length -- before entering overdub mode. Which fwiw is unlike every other looping delay I've ever used. If I have to I can usually execute that transition with two quick footswitch taps in rapid succession on the Ditto, but I agree it's still not as elegant as being able to transition directly from record mode to overdub mode (and simultaneously setting the loop length with that transition).
On the X4, you can set a dip switch to change the sequence from record->play->overdub, to record->overdub->play. In this case, I'm talking about the inability to overdub on the initial loop track at all. What I wanted to do was build a complex loop, using overdubs, that I would then store as a backing track. However, when I would attempt to overdub on the initial loop, it would overwrite instead. It was weird behavior that may have started after I upgraded the firmware; don't know for sure.
So I was only able to store very simple loops as my backing track. After storing, the other loop layers seemed to behave as expected (i.e. record->play->overdub). I would have expected that building the very first loop should have behaved identically to building all the loop layers that came after. I mean, what if I didn't *want* to create/store a backing track? What if all I wanted to do was create a loop and then overdub layers? This behavior would prevent that.
Ah, yeah, Overwrite instead of Overdub sounds like a problem. Talk to anyone @ tc electronic about that?
No. This seems like something that should have been caught before the firmware was in beta, which doesn't give me confidence in their QA process. And if it supposed to work that way, that's a deal-breaker for me. Either way, given all the issues I encountered, I decided I just don't need the headache.
