NPD - looper

[AlexR]

The ditto looper finally came in.

Nice small pedal, loops seem quite nice, been faffing about with layering loops ontop of one another.

I guess you'd have to have it after your dirt pedals. Once you kick a dirt pedal on, everything looped suddenly goes dirty too, even if you want to have some clean/some dirty tracks.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: NPD - looper

Nice! I was not into this pedal at all when I first heard about it, but have slowly been turning around.

 

[Mincer]

Re: NPD - looper

Yeah... The looper goes last inthe chain. Be sure to check out the Jam Man Express when it comes out. It is a one knob deal like the Ditto but stereo, can be battery powered and cheaper.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Re: NPD - looper

I'd forgotten I picked one of these just before I flew back from the UK a week ago. Interesting pedal, though I'm in the early days getting my timing right for setting things up.

I also got an Earthquaker Devices Crimson Drive at the same time. I need to play around with both more.

 

[superpete]

Re: NPD - looper

the jam man will also have 10 minutes of loop time, twice as much as the ditto. I'm interested to see the sound quality of it is comparable to the ditto.

 

[AlexR]

Re: NPD - looper

Thanks for the info all.

I've certainly discovered you need to have your timing spot on. Plenty of 3.9/4 and 4.2/4 bars going on so far which should be 4/4 ;-)

A good improvisational tool to be sure.

 

[misterwhizzy]

Re: NPD - looper

I love it. I was playing over it the other night, and my wife comes up and asks me something, realizes I stopped, and she says, "How is that still playing?"

 

[karpathion]

Re: NPD - looper

I've had mine for about 3 and a half months now, and I'm still having problems with the timing.
I can tell you that it really likes to be in the effects loop, and you have to play with the levels to get everything even.
Other than that, it's a pretty good little looper.

Enjoy.

 

[Franknfilms]

Re: NPD - looper

I'm enjoying my ditto looper. I have always found loopers pretty useless in any position other than the effects loop, in the loop it works perfectly. The sound quality is spot on, I can not tell the difference between the loop and my playing when the volumes are equal.

I do not love that you have to "hold to clear". So you are in the middle of a loop and decide to kill it. Well, you have to double click (to pause) or hold it for a few seconds (to clear). Double clicking is much faster and more accurate so that is how I stop it in the middle of a song. But THEN you want to clear it, while it is still paused/muted, and you have to hold down, thus reactivating the loop for a second before it clears out. This bugs the hell out of me. If anyone can tell me that I'm doing it wrong, please do.

 

[superpete]

Re: NPD - looper

. But THEN you want to clear it, while it is still paused/muted, and you have to hold down, thus reactivating the loop for a second before it clears out. This bugs the hell out of me. If anyone can tell me that I'm doing it wrong, please do.

this is the only thing i don't like about the ditto as well.

 

[Franknfilms]

Re: NPD - looper

this is the only thing i don't like about the ditto as well.

I think I'll have to actually read the instruction the manual to be sure, but this might have me on the market for another looper eventually.

 

[Mincer]

Re: NPD - looper

This is one of the problems with basic loopers. You can only do so much with one button. Boss gets around this by having a jack for a second footswitch, but you are right- this feature would drive me crazy, and would be a deal breaker for live use. If you use it for practicing static chord progressions at home, these mini loopers are great. But if you compose or improvise with them, you will want something more pretty quickly.

 

[BrianS.]

Re: NPD - looper

Mincer, is there a good guide or tutorial on how to get the most out of a looper?

I've almost pulled the trigger on a few over the past couple years, but still haven't. I've watched these threads, too, and I'm thinking that if I do ever get one, I'd want something a little more flexible that the ditto. It would be cool if there was a resource out there that could shorten the learning curve, or at least offer some really great tips & tricks for looper use.

 

[AlexR]

Re: NPD - looper

Loopers are really simple, I mean the only real issue is timing. If you want one of the 'one man band' type ones with drums patches etc and multiple tracks then I can image you'd need some experience to get the most out of them. But that would be the same with any piece of recording equipment.

Checkout the PGS demo of the ditto - pretty good idea of what you can do really.

 

[Mincer]

Re: NPD - looper

Well, this isn't a guide, but it is a comparison of features loopers have. You can also research tips and post questions to Looper's Delight. . Research is free, but getting a looper that doesn't do what you want costs money, so get a good idea on how you want to use it. The technique of punching in and out at the right time just takes practice, though. Eventually, everyone gets it.