And fancies giving me a recommendation? I saw Laura Veirs last week and she used a Boss one. Apparently, KT Tunstall uses the Akai E2 Headrush pedal.
I only perform live at church (not much call for a loop pedal but you never know...) so I'd mostly be using it just for myself, at least at first.
So, help! What pedal might be good for me?
In my limited experience
Boss DD-3 and DD-6 are easy to work but have a limited loop(under 3 and 6 seconds respectively). The Boss DD-20 is also great as you can record loops and store them as well as change the timing of the loops. I think there's a 16 minute recording time on it, i might be wrong. Line 6 DL-4 is great for delay effects and it loops for 15 seconds or so. Good for making weird sounds which i suppose you won't need in church. Akai is apparently good but i haven't used it, Boss also do a loop pedal called loopstation or something... Dunno.
i started on a digitech xdd (i think?)
little, silver, single pedal. its great, but only 4 seconds of recording, and once somethings on the loop, you cant get it off, and it doesnt store or anything
i now use that with my digitech jam man. its like the market leading boss loopstation, BUT you can export all your loops as sound files to your computer. you can also undo a layer if its shit, and has expandable memory meaning you can get sometghing like 24 hours of audio onto it
Boss Loop station
easy to use
prob the one laura veirs uses.
good way to build a song.
I have the boss rc20xl
its alright but a bit annoying, its quite noisey, a kind of whine along with slight squeaking noises in time with the tempo light. Also there is no way of turning the auto quantise function off meaning it doesnt stop recording the loop when you press the pedal but instead after you press the pedal it works out when it thinks it should stop according to the time signature (and if you dont program one in it defaults to 4/4) I suppose that makes it easier in someways but would prefer if it just starts/stops/loops when I say rather than when it thinks
ElectroHarmonix
stereo memory man! definitely.
got one in january for my birthday and have been really pleased with it. 30 second loop and so many other presets and options, its different as well, not the obvious boss pedal or anything. hot rox in nottingham is the place to go if you want interesting stuff.
boss loopstation rc-2
pretty mint, about 4 minutes loop time.
the rc2
actually has 16 minutes mono, same as the twin pedal one but without the reverse mode. I haven't used mine live yet (my band uses a lot of time-signature changes, so it gets tricky) but it is a great tool to quickly getting ideas down when you're playing on your own.
I like recording, but the time it take to record multitrackwise always gets in the way of the creative process a bit for me.
is this one of those "double" boss pedals?
if it is then get it, as i think it's the same one the bass player in my band uses. it's really easy to use and it saves your loops even when turned off/unplugged so you won't have to keep remaking them, unlike the line 6 dl4. I don't know if the boss delay pedals can save loops either...probably not.
i've got the RC20XL
its pretty amazing but its not perfect. But probably the best if you want to look excessive things. Get either that or the Digitech one.
f'serious
the digitech one isn't much more expensive (might even be cheaper in some places) and has expandable memory, an add on footswitch and usb storage
The Headrush is pretty good for looping
Much easier to use than a single footswitch pedal. Although it's not as good as a dedicated looper (that huge boss one) it'll comfortably work for a bit of layering. I think it has maybe 20 something seconds? There's no 'snap to grid' type quantising functions, so you have to be pretty spot on with your timing.
I've got the Boss DD20 but haven't used the loop functins on it, might have a play later.
I use the Boss DD6.
As has been mentioned the loop time is limited. The delay is awesome though and you can get some pretty cool aphex-esque effects from it.
The Warp thing is the DD-6's greatest asset.
zvex lo-fi loop junkie
very twisted, worth the money.
Zachary is now offering the lower priced "Vexter Series" LFLJ, same thing, made in Japan, not hand painted.
I want a loop pedal
where you play a loop, then overdub it and then you can undo the original loop (not the layered overdub). Does this exist?
Boss RC50
You can record onto three separate phrase pedals. You can remove, mute or overdub onto each phrase. I think it works a bit like 3 RC20's in one pedal. I'd love one but its about £270 retail.
sounds like 3 RC20s
the RC20 has an undo/redo of your last overdub.
also you can switch between pre-recorded loops if you have an additional footswitch (or use a footswitch to reverse the pedal... i'm doing that but its not like you can't do it with your toe or finger)