Loopers?

Howdy,

I'm the guy who started the looper thread that GuitarDojo linked above. After careful consideration I decided to go for a Boomerang III.
I received it this week & must say that I'm really happy with it. I haven't had the chance to check out every feature yet (but haven't done so on my Axe Ultra either...)

I hate these threads where you ask "What's the best ....?" And answer 1 will be "I have A - it's the best", the next guy answers "screw A - there ain't nothing that beat my B" and the third reply will be "I built mine myself. It's the best, but not available to you"

There's no "best looper". The pedals listed on looperpedals.info give you a good overview of what's on the market

Here are a few things to put into consideration

- Is it a practice tool / toy / performance tool?
- How much $$$ do you want to spend? - Might keep you from buying a looperlative
- Do you need an XLR / mic connection? - Makes a few other pedals a no-go
- Rack or pedal?
- Memory - expandable or builtin? Volantile or non-volantile? If you use your looper to play back 45minutes long wav-files that want to you put on an SD-card to transfer them to your pedal or save stuff that you recorded and want to move it back to a PC, this narrows your choice too. Personally, I don't care for that, I'm fine with built-in memory. I don't try to catch a stellar musical moment. I try to have as many as possible ;-)
- If you go for a pedal - how big should it be? If you have a big controller for your Axe-FX already & you rather play clubs than stadium gigs, you might want to go for something smaller. That takes you to the next question:
- How many footswitches do you need? Which type of footswitches (some will click pretty loud... Doesn't matter with a heavy metal band, but in an acoustic environment)
- How many separate loops do you need? (Do your songs have A/B/C parts?) And how many do you need at the same time?
- Drum machine / metronome - Not all of the pedals have that.
- MIDI - The RC-50 is the only pedal that's supposed to have working midi I/O, but I read that they're not 100% reliable
(the boomerang has the connectors, but they're not used as midi I/O in the current firmware

Based on these points you should be able to come to a good decision.

Hope this helps... (Actually, I'm pretty sure :mrgreen: )
 
Good point- the Looperlative is obviously not the best (or even close) if you need the looper with built-in switches or drum tracks, if you need really long loop times, portability, etc. I'm just so used to basing my judgments on loopers by how functionally useful they are in playing real music live and seeing how much other units fall short in that category that I sort of dismiss them too abruptly. My apologies.
 
multivir said:
Howdy,

I'm the guy who started the looper thread that GuitarDojo linked above. After careful consideration I decided to go for a Boomerang III.
I received it this week & must say that I'm really happy with it. I haven't had the chance to check out every feature yet (but haven't done so on my Axe Ultra either...)

I hate these threads where you ask "What's the best ....?" And answer 1 will be "I have A - it's the best", the next guy answers "screw A - there ain't nothing that beat my B" and the third reply will be "I built mine myself. It's the best, but not available to you"

There's no "best looper". The pedals listed on looperpedals.info give you a good overview of what's on the market

Here are a few things to put into consideration

- Is it a practice tool / toy / performance tool?
- How much $$$ do you want to spend? - Might keep you from buying a looperlative
- Do you need an XLR / mic connection? - Makes a few other pedals a no-go
- Rack or pedal?
- Memory - expandable or builtin? Volantile or non-volantile? If you use your looper to play back 45minutes long wav-files that want to you put on an SD-card to transfer them to your pedal or save stuff that you recorded and want to move it back to a PC, this narrows your choice too. Personally, I don't care for that, I'm fine with built-in memory. I don't try to catch a stellar musical moment. I try to have as many as possible ;-)
- If you go for a pedal - how big should it be? If you have a big controller for your Axe-FX already & you rather play clubs than stadium gigs, you might want to go for something smaller. That takes you to the next question:
- How many footswitches do you need? Which type of footswitches (some will click pretty loud... Doesn't matter with a heavy metal band, but in an acoustic environment)
- How many separate loops do you need? (Do your songs have A/B/C parts?) And how many do you need at the same time?
- Drum machine / metronome - Not all of the pedals have that.
- MIDI - The RC-50 is the only pedal that's supposed to have working midi I/O, but I read that they're not 100% reliable
(the boomerang has the connectors, but they're not used as midi I/O in the current firmware

Based on these points you should be able to come to a good decision.

Hope this helps... (Actually, I'm pretty sure :mrgreen: )
Click to expand...

yeap, super agree with this. Also I have a boomerang rang III and it's great!! really simple and clean and can sync your loops via MIDI, I also had an Ax8 and it was also awesome. Other thing that musicians forget about when they think about price and size, especially if you want to do performance, is having a budget for a MIDI clock to quantize your loops. some people use drum machines or laptops which you have to program and are kind of bulky, others like beat buddy but I really didn't like. The one I liked the best was the Midinome, to keep my looper in time.

It's not a matter of best, but matter of utility. I also personally don't like the boss loopers, they suck a lot of tone form your guitar.
 
Enrique Blanc said:
yeap, super agree with this. Also I have a boomerang rang III and it's great!! really simple and clean and can sync your loops via MIDI, I also had an Ax8 and it was also awesome. Other thing that musicians forget about when they think about price and size, especially if you want to do performance, is having a budget for a MIDI clock to quantize your loops. some people use drum machines or laptops which you have to program and are kind of bulky, others like beat buddy but I really didn't like. The one I liked the best was the Midinome, to keep my looper in time.

It's not a matter of best, but matter of utility. I also personally don't like the boss loopers, they suck a lot of tone form your guitar.
Click to expand...
curious why you're going into many very old threads and sort of typing the same thing. this thread for example is 8 years old - a reply now seems a bit off-base.

you're mentioning the Midinome a lot. do you work for them?
 
chris said:
curious why you're going into many very old threads and sort of typing the same thing. this thread for example is 8 years old - a reply now seems a bit off-base.

you're mentioning the Midinome a lot. do you work for them?
Click to expand...

Hi Chris, I do not work for them. I got one and I'm genuinely excited, and also a bit shocked that nobody knows about it. I know I had a lot of problems transitioning from different drum machines, and laptops to get my loopers in sync on a live performance. And so I'm doing what I feel is good samaritan work, letting other people who may struggle the same way that there other options.

I do now see how what I posted may look like. Didn't realize, so apologies to that. Didn't meant to offend anyone or break any rules. If you see fit to erase some of posts, well you are moderator. But they were meant in good faith.
 
Enrique Blanc said:
Hi Chris, I do not work for them. I got one and I'm genuinely excited, and also a bit shocked that nobody knows about it. I know I had a lot of problems transitioning from different drum machines, and laptops to get my loopers in sync on a live performance. And so I'm doing what I feel is good samaritan work, letting other people who may struggle the same way that there other options.

I do now see how what I posted may look like. Didn't realize, so apologies to that. Didn't meant to offend anyone or break any rules. If you see fit to erase some of posts, well you are moderator. But they were meant in good faith.
Click to expand...
no problem, i too thought they were in good faith, just thought i'd ask.

i understand your zeal for the product, but maybe stick to recent threads. this one in particular is from a time before the Axe-Fx II and the AX8 even existed :)
 
chris said:
no problem, i too thought they were in good faith, just thought i'd ask.

i understand your zeal for the product, but maybe stick to recent threads. this one in particular is from a time before the Axe-Fx II and the AX8 even existed :)
Click to expand...

You may disagree with me, but I find that old threads is where a lot of knowledge still is acquired. Anybody using the search feature looking for anything similar will get directed to old forums. Most of the knowledge I've acquired through threads are usually couple if not decades old.

But I see your point. I'll try to stick to new threads!
 
Enrique Blanc said:
You may disagree with me, but I find that old threads is where a lot of knowledge still is acquired. Anybody using the search feature looking for anything similar will get directed to old forums. Most of the knowledge I've acquired through threads are usually couple if not decades old.

But I see your point. I'll try to stick to new threads!
Click to expand...
i actually do agree with you, while others may not. i think it's perfectly fine to re-open old threads if the topic is exactly right for continuing discussion, and old knowledge is usually the same as re-typed new knowledge.

but you're providing an answer to the old thread with 8-years-new technology, rather than continuing the conversation or bringing up the same issue. to most, that is a substantial difference in approach.

again, nothing wrong with what you've been doing in my opinion.
 
Enrique Blanc said:
You may disagree with me, but I find that old threads is where a lot of knowledge still is acquired. Anybody using the search feature looking for anything similar will get directed to old forums. Most of the knowledge I've acquired through threads are usually couple if not decades old.

But I see your point. I'll try to stick to new threads!
Click to expand...

chris said:
i actually do agree with you, while others may not. i think it's perfectly fine to re-open old threads if the topic is exactly right for continuing discussion, and old knowledge is usually the same as re-typed new knowledge.

but you're providing an answer to the old thread with 8-years-new technology, rather than continuing the conversation or bringing up the same issue. to most, that is a substantial difference in approach.

again, nothing wrong with what you've been doing in my opinion.
Click to expand...

@Enrique Blanc You just can't expect to have a conversation with someone that may not have been here in half a decade. For example, in this thread the individual you replied to hasn't been seen in 1 year and 12 weeks.
 
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USMC_Trev said:
@Enrique Blanc You just can't expect to have a conversation with someone that may not have been here in half a decade. For example, in this thread the individual you replied to hasn't been seen in 1 year and 12 weeks.
Click to expand...

True enough.. Old threads are kinda like speed-bumps in that regard...

..Just for conversation’s sakes (since I have a few mins to spare), on many forums, digging up old threads - though choc’full of good info they may be, is sorta frowned upon.

..It’s not considered inherently evil or anything ..it just that resurrecting old threads kinda kills off participation levels within the forum, as members are directed to read the old threads, which kills off the flow of new threads along with the fresh conversations and member participation levels which goes along with their creation... the social aspect is negatively impacted.

Can’t have twenty “how much gain is too much gain” threads on top of each other, either.. but there’s definitely a shelf life to threads..

If there is any abundance of really good pertinent information on any particular thread, especially regarding need-to-know subjects, admins can always make those threads stickies so good info is easily found, quickly, without cutting off flow of new threads on similar subjects. But digging up old threads especially really-Really old threads.. not always the best thing for maintaining a healthy forum.

Not taken my measure if this forum yet, so, not meaning to step on anyone’s toes. Not my intention at all. But, yes. New threads, new discussions on the same old subjects..not necessarily a bad thing. ...unless the same subject is rehashed overly frequently which can be just as - if not twice as annoying as trying to engage with members not seen since the good-old days, regarding technology which hasn’t been around for a dog’s age.

...Oh! And loopers are Cool! ;) ...Let’s see.. I have the Trio+ and Jam Man Solo Both Great Loopers. Oh! ..and the AX’s looper to-boot!

There... Hijack, over! :D :rolleyes:
 
I kinda like the thing reddit does where old threads are automatically locked and archived. You can search for them and read them but after a certain age you can't bump them.
 
Hate to “loop” this thread around but, it’s good to see the Boomerang brand is still going strong. I got one from the inventor, Mike, back in 1993(?). It changed my world. I still have the original. I sent it back to him in Texas many years ago for an upgrade. I haven’t used it in years but, wow, what an awesome piece of gear. Enjoy your Boomerang!
 
Boomerang III is amazing!!! Now they have a new company owner, not Mike anymore, I haven't seen as much progress since.

but yeah, super clean loops;

Boomerang + Midinome is a killer combo.
 
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