Best Loopers for under $300

[mwalluk]

Looking for a dedicated looper, may consider all options such as delay/looper as long as the looper is good. Needs to be a clean recording, not muddied. Prefer click once instead of holding down. Not looking to do extremely loops or anything, simple use for live shows. Looking to essentially back myself, so would only be used to lay down the rhythm, then either pick, strum or solo over it.

[Surgeon]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

I'm using the Akai Headrush 2 live a lot (for the last 5 years actually).

It,s quite simple to operate. Infinite overdubs. Crystal clear. Works wonderfully.
It's also an echo and delay, though you can't use them at the same time.

Only one "channel" but that's all I need and it works very very well for what it does.

[mwalluk]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

The problem I experienced with a looper I had was when I laid the loop down and tried solo'ing over it, the loop started to cut out. Like both waves were on the same frequency and started cancelling eachother out. No matter volume, the 2nd guitar part would compete with it and drown it out.

[Rich_S]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

Regarding post #3, I'm reminded of a Boss demo I saw, I believe it was the DD-7. THe guy built up a multi-layer loop consisting of a "bass" line, a funky rhythm, and some extra little "color" parts, and then soloed over it. He played everything on an HSS Strat, but he was careful to change the pickup selection, tone, and effects for each pass. For the solo, he had an overdrive before the looper, so the solo guitar had this big, singing distorto sound that the other parts did not.

There's a lot of composition/arranging/recording know how needed to create effective loops. That's something I noticed as soon as my son started playing with his new RC-3, that the parts all need to be distinct. I was pretty impressd that he started to figure that out on his own.

Regarding the OP, $300 is kind of a weird price point. DigiTech has an in-between model of the JamMan with four footswitches (the JamMan "Stereo") that goes for $300 street, IIRC. The extra footswitches are valuable for live work. Boss has the RC-30 at the same price. BOth of these units provide some features you might not need, like a microphone input in addition to instrument, and full stereo in/outs.

The next step down is $200, where you'll find the Boss RC-3 and the JamMan Solo. For live use, you'll probably want to add external footswitches for loop selection and tap tempo. I'm not sure about the JamMa, but I took a look at the my son's RC-3 and it accepts 2 external footswitches. I'm going to build him something on the cheap.

If you were going to buy external switches, the Boss FS-6 is an extra $60, putting you real close to the RC-30.

So, I'd say, if you're a DIY type, your best value is one of the single-switch stompers with the external switches. If you don't want to build anything, take a look at both the RC-30 and the JM Stereo, and figure out which is better suited to you. The JamMan's two extra footswitches make it appealing, but I don't know much about the rest of their feature sets.

[schecterplayer]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

The various looper pedals on the market are all pretty different, so it really depends what sort of thing you are going for. If you want a dedicated looper with multiple loops and a really long recording time then Boss is probably the best way to go. Vox makes a nice looper now that has a shorter recording time but has a lot of neat effects/models/neat gizmos that make it a really interesting device for compositional ideas and more experimental music. If you like the Boss pedals I would say buy a used RC-20XL instead of the 30 unless you really need to extra recording time and built-in effects, it is an extremely good looper for the price.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

i spent some time with the EH looper at home. A friend who is deep into that stuff swears by it. Apparently it has the best A/D converters or something. It does have amazing sound quality and the sliders and stuff are pretty intuitive. I think it was limited by only being able to crop to 44time tho? i might be wrong on that one.
I get bored with loops pretty quick so i only spent a few hours on it and never used it again.

[jcthejester13]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

You can find used RC-20XLs for around $200.

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

The Digitech JamMan is the king.

You can get the mid-level Stereo model for $249


Or the big boy for $299.


Use Google and find your deal.

I shopped all the loopers I could get my hands on - BOSS, Akai, Line 6, Boomerang, and the Digitech was the easiest to use. Built like a tank, too. That case is all steel, no plastic.

[Mincer]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

You may want to post this over at Looper's Delight. I use loops in almost everything I do, but never like you describe. I would choose the Digitech over the Boss though- especially the big one. It is more of a live device than a 'rhythm practice machine'.

[Franknfilms]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

I've done some live looping and it worked out pretty well with my hardwire dl-8. I used it to loop a rhythm track that I could solo over. The sound quality is incredible, you would have no idea there was only one guitar player. You do have to hold it while you record though, but it has a 20-30 second limit so you aren't holding for very long.

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

hardwire dl-8, but it has a 20-30 second limit

I have the discontinued old Digitech JamMan, and it has 16 hours of recording and playback.

That may sound like a lot of storage, but if you are gigging, it seems a little smaller - because each track counts. If you have a 5 minute song that has 5 layers, that's actually 25 minutes of recording time, dig?

[mwalluk]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

I've done some live looping and it worked out pretty well with my hardwire dl-8. I used it to loop a rhythm track that I could solo over. The sound quality is incredible, you would have no idea there was only one guitar player. You do have to hold it while you record though, but it has a 20-30 second limit so you aren't holding for very long.

See I have the DL-8 and not pleased with the looper.

[Mincer]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

I have the discontinued old Digitech JamMan, and it has 16 hours of recording and playback.

That may sound like a lot of storage, but if you are gigging, it seems a little smaller - because each track counts. If you have a 5 minute song that has 5 layers, that's actually 25 minutes of recording time, dig?

Thats not quite right...overdubs don't count toward your time- they are using the same time as the original loop.

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

Thats not quite right...overdubs don't count toward your time- they are using the same time as the original loop.

Not so for the Digitech JamMan (specifically, I cannot speak for other loopers).

It stores the loops on the card in Folders (LOOP01, LOOP02, and so on), and each track gets its own WAV file. So each overdub, or track is taking up disk space and eating into total "time," which is really just disk space.

Please note that the way I'm describing this applies to the old, now discontinued JamMan, the one I have. I cannot speak for the newer JamMan units or any other looper.

[mwalluk]

Re: Best Loopers for under $300

For either the Boss or Digi can you just do a live loop. Record a measure to loop endlessly until you hit stop (w/o it saving kind of like the DL-4)?>