Simple looper pedal

[joelhunn]

Looking for a simple looper for home use. Ditto and the boss rc1 are the two I’m considering. Any input?

[JakeStone]

I vote for the RC-1.
It's easy to use and built like a tank.
Lighted loop indicator is nice feature,
I have the RC-3.. But dont really use any of the extras.
Would have been happy with the RC-1

[raysachs]

They're pretty similar. The Boss gives you a little bit more of a visual clue where you are, but I've never found that very helpful. On the Ditto, I like how when you're recording a loop and you want to stop recording, if you just hit the button one time, the recording stops and the playback starts. On the Boss (and many others), if you just hit the button once, it starts an overdub so if you want to stop it, you have to hit the button twice. And then again to start playing the loop. The Boss does allow you to add a footswitch. to make that easier, but now you're talking about some SPACE on your board. The Ditto is quite small in comparison to the Boss, let alone the Boss and an extra foot switch.

I have the Ditto and the Boss RC3 - I almost always use the Ditto for creating loops and then if I come up with something I really like, I'll record it into the RC3, which has 100 spots for saving loops. So the Boss ends up being a playback machine with a lot of stuff stored on it, but the Ditto ends up being what I use for anything spontaneous.

You might want to check out the Electro Harmonix - it's got two buttons and storage for ten loops. And I believe it also lets you fade your loops out, which I guess would matter more in a performance setting than for home use.

-Ray

[joelhunn]

Thanks Ray! Good concise info

[Rudy4]

Don't buy a single button looper. I purchased the RC-1 and added a second external button, but you'll be way ahead of the game if you simply buy a two button looper to begin with.

I recommend the Electroharmonix 720 for a two button looper, a full 12 minutes of record time, (unlimited overdubbs, of course...) the 10 storage slots, and the loop fade function. The loop fade is much more useful than I thought it would be and makes even home use much more enjoyable.

As far as the button order of single button loopers like the RC-1, they can have the order of play and overdub changed by doing a simple change in the initial setup. A lot of folks don't realize this, as the default is usually to go into overdub mode immediately after the button is pressed. Many prefer to go into play after the first button push after recording a loop, so that's why Boss (and others) allow you to switch the order. The Electroharmonix 720 also lets you easily switch the button order.

[guitargabor]

Would recommend the Ditto X2

I owned an older Boss RC 1-not as easy to use, although more features -drum tempo etc..

[fazool]

I just got rid of my Ditto because a single-button, IMO, is not simple. I hunted for a long time to find a very basic two-button looper - had to buy from a UK company.

[Ten]

I picked up a used Ditto X4 for 125 bucks, not much more than those you listed if buying new. They are a bit of a minefield, but mine works fine and I really like the extra flexibility it offers.

[Kalani]

Doesn’t get much easier/simpler than the Ditto X2! Love it!

[Daniel Grenier]

“Simple” you say? I had a single button Ditto. Drove me nuts and I hated it. Nothing “simple” about it, really. I sold it and ended up with a JamMan Stereo looper. 4 buttons and yet much, much simpler to use.

[Rudy4]

As the first line of my post stated:

"Don't buy a single button looper".

The caveat is a single button looper will be less expensive and will allow you to test out the looping waters, but if you even have a suspicion that you're going to like looping (...and why else would you be buying a looper in the first place?) then make the small step up to a two button looper. It takes up less space and is easier to use than adding a second button to a single button looper and there's no savings in cost to doing that. The Electroharmonix 720 fills the requirements nicely and is very economically priced. It's about the same price as the Boss RC-1 if you factor in the included power supply of the EH 720, an additional purchase requirement for the RC-1.

An inexpensive way to try looping is to purchase a Zoom G1on (or similar) low end multi-effects pedal with built in looping. Even the lowly G1on at $60 has two button looping capability. The tragic shame is Zoom limited the loop length to 30 seconds. ARG.

Zoom now has an updated version of their low end multi-effects pedal, but it is STILL only 30 seconds. If they would have increased their basic looper to 3 to 5 minutes of memory they would have sold a gazillion of these to the looper market. The G1on works really well as a 2 button looper and has the additional nicity of pretty decent drum patterns to boot.

[raysachs]

I must be unusually brilliant, because I don't have any trouble with a single button looper at all.Now if I could just get decent at playing the guitar!

If you can set the looper up (or it's set as a default) where a single click after you finish the loop just puts you in playback mode rather than overdub mode, it's really simple. At that point, one click to start the loop, one click to end it. One click to start playback, another click to start overdubbing. The only time you have to use two clicks is when you're in playback mode and you want to stop without entering overdub mode. So you just get used to stopping with two clicks. You want to delete a loop, just hold the button down a few seconds.

The hardest part about using any looper is getting your timing down to stop the loop so it plays seamlessly.. It seems literally impossible at first and then quickly becomes so second nature you can't believe it ever wasn't.

This is for simple at home use without a lot of overdubbing. I'm sure much more complex loopers might be more useful for playing live, where you never want to have to double click in real time. But that's not what the OP indicated an interest in.

I personally find the ability to store loops really awesome for home use, but using a looper that does that means you often have to go find a clean "slot" before you start playing. Which can really kill the moment if you have a really nice rhythm going and want to loop it - by the time you find an empty slot, you may have forgotten it completely. That's the beauty of a simple looper - you can't save anything, but it's ALWAYS ready to go. As noted above, I use both, but I started with a really simple one button looper to see if I liked the whole business before I added one that stores loops.

[Kalani]

Daniel: I mentioned the Ditto “X2” (2 buttons). Everyone knows a two-button looper is a lot “simpler” to use (especially live).

[slewis]

Originally Posted by Kalani

Doesn’t get much easier/simpler than the Ditto X2! Love it!

THIS, THIS, THIS.

And has already been stated, absolutely DO NOT get a single-button looper if you plan to use it for performing. You can buy one to find out why, or you can just take the good advice here of many people who have done so, and get a two-button one. And yes, the X2 is about as simple and reliable as it gets.

[meb]

To learn about looping on the cheap and to learn what to look for in a
looper, I bought the 1-Button Ditto Looper. The first thing I learned was
that I should have bought the 2-Button looper. I got the X2. :-)