Grateful Dead Music Forum

I am thinking of buying a looper for practice. Boss has a couple of good ones (the RC-2 and RC-3).

Any reviews, thoughts, opinions to share on any loopers before I drop some $$$$???

Gracias!

I use a boss RC 20. The small one, not the double pedal one. It may be the rc2. Its great! long loops with no degradation in sound, drum beats, etc. Its very good for practice. I love mine. multiple loops. It plays much longer than your band would ever let you solo!

I have a Digitech JamMan (the 2 pedal one).
I like that it has 99 loops and has a disk to save loops to computer if you run out of memory.
It also has a pedal to move from patch to patch as you play.
For example, for my "Eyes" loops, I have an Emaj7 jam (into/outro), Emaj to Bm jam (first solo), EMaj to Bm to A jam (2nd solo), and a G#min jam (outro solo), on loops 5-8 repectively. I can select them on the fly with the footswitch without missing a beat.
It also has some input features for recording segments from CD's (or archive.com), or a mic.

There are some newer models out since I got mine a few years back, but in general I recall the Digi had more features that the Boss.

I own one of the boss loopers. It is really fun but I have outgrown it. I saw this dude at a bar the other night doing some really cool one man band type stuff he was using a boomerang III. That thing was BAD ASS. He could add layers merge layers, delete layers in between layers copy and paste layers.... it looked pretty damn sweet.

my .02

Yes trey from phish uses the boomerang, they are awesome pedal systems, some learning curve with it though, but one of the best out there... The Digitech seemed to be the best for the money as compared to Boss, more useful features IMO. I got a Digitech Hardwire delay/looper, don't bother with it for looping, it is an awesome delay but you can only loop 20 seconds. Not enough for dead performing wise, but enough for short 3 -4 chord progressions like Jackstraw and the beginning of eyes. It seems like a useful loop in a band setting is either a few seconds of a whole minute in my case. My Gdec you can loop or record whole songs if you want plus layer, that is helpful for practice and rehearsal, that is like the digitech I believe. Now that we got our key player I don't need it anymore, woohoo!!

"a looper?"
"A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock."

sorry, couldnt resist

I use the Boss looper (red) with the two pedals, can't think of the official name right now... I like to use it for home solo practice but when trying to use it in a band situation the drummer and I are "Off" from each other because of a small time lag that occurs between playing the original and the start of the loop. This isn't a problem for me in my living room but about half the time with the drummer we sound not quite right.

so it doesn't get used at a show....
the fourteen minute loop has never been maxed out either, but is a wacky option

cheers
Z

yeah, I love mine. Its a Boomerang v. 1 very solid. Only bad is it can't alone save the loops, so you have to redo each time. Also have tried in a band situation and had the same trouble as Zim had with the timing. Very hard to nail with a live drummer. Shows how tight Trey and Fishman are because he uses one often and well. It is an excellent tool for learning to solo over chord progressions. Just excellent. Really helps with timing too. Mine went down, (faulty power supply) and I just got the new plug in the mail-looking forward to cranking it back up tonight.

By the way, unrelated, but I am streaming the Richmond show (11/2/85) from the Dead sight, this week's picks. and it is hot. Its my hometown and frankly the last Richmond Dead ever. Enjoying a great Estimated. Remember 85? there were some really hot shows. The band rocked with Jerry in Red. Give it a listen.

Loopers rule!

wow, just looked up boomerang - looks sweet - too bad i don't make trey money to afford it
i think i'm in used boss or digitech territory

Grateful Dad, definitely get a looper! Do it today. I followed Pete B.'s advice and got a DigiTech Jam Man a couple years ago, for practice, and it elevated my playing by about 1000%.

There are subtleties that only a looper can bring out for learning Garcia's technique. There are just too many notes sometimes to comprehend and a looper, connected to a CD player (or whatever; even can do video files, like a You Tube video), can cut through the extraneous sounds to get you Garcia almost solely. And you can chop up all of his phrases into snippets so that each tiny snippet gets you focused on those notes alone until you smooth out the phrase for yourself.

I just took on Wake of the Flood's Half Step last Saturday morning for the first time. Had to move a lot of files in the Jam Man to other locations to open the space for the loops to go in succession, and starting at position/file 74 got everything I need in by position/file 96. Now, when I get home from work, I sit down to it, dial in 74, give it a go, slow it down if I need to, and keep turning the dial to one file after the next as I work my way through. Nailed the opening notes (they're great, by the way), and have almost nailed the first solo completely.

The thing that makes it such an effective learning tool, other than that you can isolate a snippet and slow it down if you need to, is that you hear the snippet, alone, many times over, as you progress. By the time you know the song and work it up, you have the viewpoint of Garcia from that snapshot in his life thoroughly memorized. Once you work up the song, then you can take it in any direction you want with your own improvisation. But the essence is ingrained in you so that you have the structure and feel for quite some time.

Just an incredible learning tool.

anyone ever compare the digitech single pedal to the boss single pedal?

They are only around 10 bucks different but seems like the digitech does way more...maybe too much?

vwjodyme, yes, I compared the RC 20 side by side with Jam Man in my home when I ordered them both at the same time from MF. The thing I didn't like about the RC 20 was that it could use batteries and they would have been, from memory, may be wrong, like 6 size C or something, and I didn't think I'd ever use that capability. But the Jam Man also had other features that were better.

I suppose you can maybe go to their respective websites and possibly download their instruction manuals. That would tell you what their real differences are.

old man down wrote:Grateful Dad, definitely get a looper! Do it today. I followed Pete B.'s advice and got a DigiTech Jam Man a couple years ago, for practice, and it elevated my playing by about 1000%.

There are subtleties that only a looper can bring out for learning Garcia's technique. There are just too many notes sometimes to comprehend and a looper, connected to a CD player (or whatever; even can do video files, like a You Tube video), can cut through the extraneous sounds to get you Garcia almost solely. And you can chop up all of his phrases into snippets so that each tiny snippet gets you focused on those notes alone until you smooth out the phrase for yourself.

I just took on Wake of the Flood's Half Step last Saturday morning for the first time. Had to move a lot of files in the Jam Man to other locations to open the space for the loops to go in succession, and starting at position/file 74 got everything I need in by position/file 96. Now, when I get home from work, I sit down to it, dial in 74, give it a go, slow it down if I need to, and keep turning the dial to one file after the next as I work my way through. Nailed the opening notes (they're great, by the way), and have almost nailed the first solo completely.

The thing that makes it such an effective learning tool, other than that you can isolate a snippet and slow it down if you need to, is that you hear the snippet, alone, many times over, as you progress. By the time you know the song and work it up, you have the viewpoint of Garcia from that snapshot in his life thoroughly memorized. Once you work up the song, then you can take it in any direction you want with your own improvisation. But the essence is ingrained in you so that you have the structure and feel for quite some time.

Just an incredible learning tool.

I use a JamMan...really like it...same complaints about playing live...hard to get in synch with the drummer. Would like to know more about OldMan is doing...do you transfer snippets of mp3's to your disc. I guess I'm just not understanding exactly how your using the looper. Would like to use that to get certain riffs. Could you explain a little more in depth.
Thanks

Besides practicing original material, how is this better than jamming along to cds or the archive?

dleonard wrote:Besides practicing original material, how is this better than jamming along to cds or the archive?

Well - he said he could slow the riffs down for transcription purposes for one ...