After learning about this device and checking prices online, I've seen another product listed as a "similar item," which is the Boss RC-30 Loop Station.
Any thoughts? If not I'll just get the Jam Man. Thanks again!!
I did check that out before getting the Jam Man Stereo, and it simply didn't measure up to my set of needs, even if it were the same price. The design is heavily focused on the looping function, and maybe it's the better choice for that, maybe not. You can record/play/manage two different loops at the same time, which is cool. But as a sampler/playback machine I think it's a giant fail compared to the JamMan.
There are a lot of complaints about lag/gaps going from one phrase/patch to the next. The Jam Man is seamless. What if a backing track changes time sig or tempo, so you need to use separate patches in sequence to do the song? The Boss fails, the JamMan cruises right through.
The whole thing with sending the drummer a separate output with a click in it? The Boss can't do it. A inconvenient work around would be to build patches with click built into the right channel, and send that to the drummer. Doable, but a big pain. And you'd have no recourse if he signals you to bump the click volume. (Have done that live with the JamMan, no problem.)
No SD card, internal storage only. No backup. And either bring the computer to your pedalboard, or the pedalboard to the computer. Or yank the pedal off the board to take to the computer. Or get the longest USB cable you can (10ft) and hope it reaches. Rig already packed up and in the vehicle, then realize you forgot to drop the volume of one part of a patch by 3dB like you promised the singer? With the JamMan just do it, put it on another card, and bring it with you to load during setup. With the Boss, go dig the thing (or the whole pedalboard) out of the car.
Only 2 multifunction footswitches on the boss. And neither of them can select the next or previous sample, you gotta bend down to do that. They start/record, and stop/switch between the two current tracks (and even that requires holding it down the proper amount of time, while you're busy playing. Get it wrong, and the thing stops.
) The JamMan has separate switches for the main stuff... play, stop, next patch, previous patch. No nervous dancing around with it in mid-song.
If you select the next patch in the JamMan, nothing happens right away. If a patch is already playing, it will automatically switch to that next patch as soon as the current one finishes. If nothing is playing, it will patiently sit there blinking, waiting for you to push "play". (If you don't want it to automatically roll from a playing patch into the new one, there is a setting you can change to make it just stop and wait for you to hit "play".)
The Boss can run on batteries, but also is switched by the input jack, and doesn't come with a power supply. If you have one, great. If not, either unplug it all the time to save your batteries or buy a power supply. The JamMan comes with one, because there's no using it at all without it. (And you'll still need it, even if you have a nice DC power supply for the rest of your board. So there are drawbacks to both.)
For what you want to do, get the JamMan. I did, and couldn't be happier with it. Unless it had balanced main outs, that'd be better. It'd be nice if it could run on DC instead of AC, or even batteries. But other than that... it's pretty much perfect. For me at least.
Glad you posted in Amps instead of Effects, even though it should probably go there. I might not have seen it over there.
