[music] Loop pedal help?

[lazyhour]

Help?

I'm after a loop pedal where you can drop out the original thing you've looped but keep what you've built on top, then bring it back in again later. Does such a pedal exist for a non-exorbitant price? Is there a pedal where you can bring in and out a load of different loops? The key thing is to be able to get rid of the original sound you looped.

Any advice?

[Unnecessary Biscuits]

Have you tried cloning yourself?

[lazyhour]

It would be funny if I made a sockpuppet account to reply to that, but I can't be bothered.

[popcorn]

Sorry, I don't know the answer to this, but just in case it's useful, my band did the exact thing you're describing by using Ableton Live's Looper effect on a laptop with a midi foot controller.

Using a dedicated loop pedal would probably be more fun and simple though. I would be amazed if there isn't one that does it. If no one here knows, ask on Reddit.

[sevendaughters]

the Electro Harmonix 4500 has four tracks of looping that you can fade in and out like a mix, so yes. I think the big bastard Boss Looper, the RC-300 has 3 tracks in parallel capacity.

[lazyhour]

Thanks both for your replies. I may post on the dreaded Reddit...

sevendaughters, the two you mention both look excellent but they're a bit beyond my budget. It's annoying how there are millions of YouTube vids about loop pedals but none of them seem to think anyone would want to drop the original loop out, so they're all inconclusive.

The Boss RC-50 is much more affordable than the 300 but I haven't yet confirmed that it actually does what I want. Oh, I could try to find a manual for it!

[Flouncer]

Oh, I could try to find a manual for it!

Yeah, you can generally download the manual from the manufacturer's website these days so that'd be the way to go for any you're not sure about.

[a duncandisorderly]

look for a second hand electrix repeater. it's not a pedal but you can connect pedals to it. four independent tracks that can be arranged as stereo pairs.
best audio looper I've ever used, in terms of functionality. the boss ones are all good- really depends if you need external syncing with anything.

[lazyhour]

Can the repeater be all synched up so the first loop you make acts as the tempo/duration?

[a duncandisorderly]

Can the repeater be all synched up so the first loop you make acts as the tempo/duration?

yep. when you stop the first recording, it calculates the tempo. I use mine with an external clock, though, so it stays in time with sequencers.
you can reverse, stop/start, track-slip & pitch-shift the individual tracks, & restore the sync after you're spaffed off a load of mucking about.

[lazyhour]

Christ, sounds amazing!

[lazyhour]

Hmm, they're hard to find at anything under about £450...

[a duncandisorderly]

Christ, sounds amazing!

it's a shame they discontinued it. it would've made a great pedal. the rackmount version even has inputs for a record deck, as though they thought a DJ might find it useful.
I took mine out of the rig a couple of years ago, hoping to replace the func with an elektron octatrack, but this latter doesn't like being slaved while looping live sources, & the repeater's just easier to drive in a live situation anyway.


https://reverb.com/au/item/6195458-electrix-repeater

[a duncandisorderly]

this looks quite good- I'd consider one of these if I was looking.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/tc-electronic-ditto-x4looper-960805001?lgw_code=16284-960805001&gclid=CjwKCAjwxrzoBRBBEiwAbtX1n59q-RYbLUBpabLX44oUhuZuwuYmR2ZN6y_tUftmTQO5cy1QorxbcBoCfFoQAvD_BwE

[lazyhour]

Omg, the Boss RC-505 looks absolutely perfect.

https://youtu.be/9IpYgfjHAOE

[lazyhour]

Oo eck I've bought one

[the]

How much did you pay for it?

[lazyhour]

It looks so perfect for me - drop in and out any of 5 loops, each loop can be a different number of bars, onboard FX... that I dipped into savings and got it for £369.

[kngen]

Omg, the Boss RC-505 looks absolutely perfect.

https://youtu.be/9IpYgfjHAOE

Front 242 is looking well!

[a duncandisorderly]

It looks so perfect for me - drop in and out any of 5 loops, each loop can be a different number of bars, onboard FX... that I dipped into savings and got it for £369.

excellent!

[lazyhour]

I will report back when it arrives and I've played with it a bit. Thanks all for your help.

[Ferris]

Well for anyone reading who wants a really easy one, I got one of these a while back and it's been great. Think it was about $200 (120 quid?) all in, and is nice for just mucking about, but you can't pick and choose recordings to play. It's build on the previous, or nothing.

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Guitar/Stompboxes/DITTO-LOOPER/p/P0DD4#googtrans(en|en)

Lazyhour's one looks much nicer though obvs, but figured I'd throw a cheapy recommendation out there.

[a duncandisorderly]

Well for anyone reading who wants a really easy one, I got one of these a while back and it's been great. Think it was about $200 (120 quid?) all in, and is nice for just mucking about, but you can't pick and choose recordings to play. It's build on the previous, or nothing.

https://www.tcelectronic.com/Categories/Tcelectronic/Guitar/Stompboxes/DITTO-LOOPER/p/P0DD4#googtrans(en|en)

Lazyhour's one looks much nicer though obvs, but figured I'd throw a cheapy recommendation out there.

there seem to be a lot of this tiny, one-function loopers about. amazon persuaded me to buy the smallest version of the ditto while they were (for some reason) knocking them out with a gold paint job.

slightly off-topic, but one of the pedals I lost hours to was the electro-harmonix 'freeze' pedal, which loops a tiny recording of whatever's plugged in... literally a few mS... carefully crossfading it so it sustains perfectly. so you play a chord & as the notes die away, you push the switch & then the chord sustains for as long as you want. alternatively, you can put a bass note into it & play tunes over it, & by sleight of foot, change the bass note without anyone noticing.

this is the pedal:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Electro-Harmonix-Freeze-Electronic-Guitar/dp/B003UI40BE

& here's EHX's own rather eccentric demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPeeJrv9wb0

& perhaps rather unexpectedly, scott (of scott's bass lessons) raving about it too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGug_kEcvNc

[Ferris]

Ooh that looks well good.

My fave pedal was my old Fender Fuzz-Wah that I had to sell to pay bills. The band I was in at the time had a grumpy frontman, and my Fender Jaguar pissed him off because it had lots of switches and buttons (he derisively called it "Mr fuckin' Switchy"). Combined with the Fuzz-Wah (a duo pedal that moved horizontally and laterally), he fucking hated it so I never used either live or in a studio.

I sold it for a song a few years after I stopped playing in a band, along with my '80s MIJ Fender Jaguar, Gibson Marauder, and Fender '60s reissue Telecaster (but the older batch of reissues from the '90s), when I was hard up.

Sad now :(