Anyone own a loop pedal?

[Ward]

I am going to buy a loop pedal, and wondered if anyone here can give me some input on the different brands. I'm leaning towards the Boss RC-30 (which hasn't been released yet), but I am curious to hear opinions on the Boss RC-20 (the older version of the RC-30), the Digitech Jamman stereo, and the Line 6 JM4 looper. Or any others that are out there.

They all seem to have pros & cons, but it would be nice to hear from people that actually use them, not just info written by sites trying to sell them.

I plan on using it primarily to create rhythm tracks to solo over. The drum features are important to me, and from descriptions I can't tell if the Boss rhythm tracks or the Line 6 pre-recorded drum patterns would be better and more versatile. The digitech makes it sound like they don't have much unless you upload them from your computer, but I could be misreading it.

Thanks in advance for any info.

[Axewielder]

I owned a RC-20 and was disappointed with the ability to improvise back and forth between two loops. Then I traded it for a Boomerang and haven't looked back. The rang is really intuitive, although a much larger unit. I went that direction after seeing Adrian Belew use one in concert really effectively.

[Grandturk]

I have the Line6 looper. Have had it for a few years. I use it primarily to practice through headphones. I also have had mulitple POD products, still have the X3 and Pocket POD, and have had the Fender G-Dec amp (first gen).

The Line 6 pedal has guitar in, aux in, CD in, headphone out, SD card in, amp out L/R. The features I use the most are - drum tracks, guitar amp models, recording and looping, CD in.

Coming from the Fender G-Dec which had midi instruments as backing tracks, the Line6 is a huge improvement - all the instruments are studio recordings and sound really good. You can access either the pre-recorded "song" loop or just the associated drum track. The song loops are OK - but to me they don't really work to solo or jam over - either because the genre is wrong for me, or rhythmicly (sp?) they don't work for me. So I mostly use the drum tracks, cut a backing rhthym and then loop it and solo over it endlessly. This is the manner in which I will typically use it.

The amp tones are just OK - they really pale in comparison to the POD - but once you're playing with the drums, they sound pretty good. I use either the Crunch Green or the Metal Red settings predominantly.

I've also been using the loop pedal to run with my mp3 or iPad into the CD-in and use either songs to play with or jam tracks from youtube. So its pretty versatile.

[Grandturk]

I actually have some soundclick files of some recordings I did with the looper pedal... but damned if I can find the links now...

[Ward]

AxeWielder: Never heard of the Boomerang. Does it have drum patterns or tracks onboard?

GrandTurk: Are the drum tracks pretty varied and useful on the Line 6, or are they very basic and simple (if that makes any sense)?

Thanks again for the info.

[Grandturk]

GrandTurk: Are the drum tracks pretty varied and useful on the Line 6, or are they very basic and simple (if that makes any sense)?

They're medium to good - most of them are bom-chick, bom-chick or bom-bom-chick, bom-bom-chick. There's no shuffle feel in the rockier tracks and there's no double bass blast beats to really grind out the metal to.

I actually just got a cheap drum machine app for my iPad that lets me program up some double bass tracks to pump the low-E to.

[Axewielder]

AxeWielder: Never heard of the Boomerang. Does it have drum patterns or tracks onboard?

Nah, it's fairly stripped down compared to those others. I does one thing (phrase sampling) and does it very well. My version looks to be discontinued:

http://www.boomerangmusic.com/Rang%2...ng%20Plus.html

That version III looks kind of whacky, I'm not too sure about that.

[Larz]

I have an RC-2, its decent for what it does, fairly simple to use without needing to do anything additional on a laptop, etc.

The drum samples are okay, nothing too complex, like something Rikki Rockett throws down at a sound check.

[Hellbat]

I actually just got a cheap drum machine app for my iPad that lets me program up some double bass tracks to pump the low-E to.

What app? I have rebirth and drumtrackHD but they are both pattern based. I dream of some day having a drum app where I can tap in my own bom-chicks, have them quantized and set into patterns that I can then fill out after the fact.

[Grandturk]

What app? I have rebirth and drumtrackHD but they are both pattern based. I dream of some day having a drum app where I can tap in my own bom-chicks, have them quantized and set into patterns that I can then fill out after the fact.

I'll have to check the name when I get home. I forget. This one has the real time editing so you can set it off and them hit the "pads" and it plugs them into the sections and then you string the sections together. You can select different subdivisions of time so you can get a triplet feel, etc.

[Grandturk]

Here's a couple of clips a recorded off the Line6 pedal a while ago - give you an idea what it sounds like - their drums, my guitar tracks.

Hope these work:

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8115559

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8115560

[Forrest]

I have a Digitech Jamman with the FS3X pedal. It's awesome and I loved it, however, I'm about to buy a POD HD with a built in looper, so I was going to post it on ebay. If you decide to go this route, let me know, it's in mint condition, never gigged or anything, I'll give you a better deal than ebay.

[Ward]

Forrest: Does the Jamman have anything onboard for drum patterns? I couldn't find much info, but what I did find said you can 'load it up with drum & bass tracks' which sounded like you had to upload from outside source.

I don't expect too much from the drums on any of these, but I definitely want some built in drum patterns to jam to.

Thanks.

[Larz]

Bear in mind your amp speaker probably wasn't designed with drum beats in mind. The sound is decent though and its fun to play around with.

I called Mesa to make sure I wouldn't kill my amp or ruin any warranty running the RC-20 through it but I still don't crank the drums through it very loud and often just hook that up to my cheaper Marshall and then just my guitars through my Mesa or Z.

[Forrest]

Forrest: Does the Jamman have anything onboard for drum patterns? I couldn't find much info, but what I did find said you can 'load it up with drum & bass tracks' which sounded like you had to upload from outside source.

I don't expect too much from the drums on any of these, but I definitely want some built in drum patterns to jam to.

Thanks.

Yes, it has some preloaded...I mean, it's just drum/bass tracks they loaded into the first 10 memory slots. It connects as a USB drive so it's easy to add any backing tracks you already have, or copy/backup anything you record.

They're novel but I didn't spend more than an hour messing with them. I just played with EZ drummer loops on the computer after that.