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Looper's Delight
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Hi Qua,
(forwarding this to LD as well, because this might be of interest to
others)
first of all, I believe that it doesn't matter that much with which looper
you start - you'll rather quickly discover what you like about it and what
you don't like and can then take that into consideration when "venturing
into more full featured products".
Of course, from a ROI standpoint, it would make sense to get something
which
you'll continue to use even when you switch to EDP, Mobius, MAX/MSP,
Looperlative, Repeater or whatever.
In the realm of the rather cheap yet still powerful loop pedals, I
personally do know two devices more deeply, but will also comment a little
on the Boss RC series (but please consider that I haven't ever played one
of
those).
First, an excursion:
There are basically two concepts how to see (and to design) a looper. One
is
a delay. The other one is a phrase sampler with overdub capability. The
simple loopers are from their implementation and user interface either one
or the other, the more powerful ones, while being either one from their
implementation, can be used in either way.
Delay-oriented loopers have a variable feedback setting which is used all
the time. There is no real record vs. overdub difference - you set the
delay
length, and when you send something into the input, you record into the
loop, and when you turn the input off, you don't. The delay time can be set
either by manually selecting it, or by tap tempo (if available). "Unrounded
Multiply" (lengthening the loop by repeating its contents or shortening it
by only keeping a part of it) may be possible. If it's not possible,
chances
are that you can varispeed the loop.
There are no transport controls like reverse, stutter, halfspeed (safe for
possibly varispeed, see above) or even stop/start. There's sometimes not
even a quick way to erase the loop - you have to turn feedback to 0 and
wait
for one cycle.
Sampler-oriented loopers work like this: You hit a button, start playing,
hit that button again, and the loop plays. You can then hit a button to go
in and out of overdub. When not in overdub, feedback is always 100%, it's
below that during overdub (but not configurable on the simpler loopers).
Normally, you can't unrounded multiply or varispeed, but you may be able to
stop/restart, stutter, reverse and halfspeed.
As I said before, the more powerful loopers allow you to have all these
functions and to work more delay- or sampler-like as you wish.
Now my two recommendations:
1. Delay-oriented: Boss DD-20 Gigadelay
Here, I don't talk about its Sound-On-Sound mode, because that is rubbish.
This is about the normal delay modes.
You get a 23s stereo delay. You can have two delays of up to 23s (in
stereo)
sounding at the same time, and you can even do a trick and extend the loop
time to 46s in mono (I think Ted developed that).
You can do unrounded multiply, adjusting the delay length of a running loop
causes slight pitching or when doing it more radically weird artifacts.
2. Sampler-oriented: Line6 DL4
You get 14s of loop length (28s in halfspeed) in mono, plus a pre-loop
800ms
delay (with great varispeed effects) plus modulation. Transport controls
are
record/overdub, stop/start, stutter and reverse/halfspeed. Feeback during
overdub ist (I think) 90%, no way to control that.
Apart from that, the delay modes of the DL4 are also great.
So, which one to get? I don't know...both are great tools. A lot of looping
artists have worked deeply with the DL4 (the Walkers are two examples who
did a lot with one or two of them. You might also check out Genie for some
very showoff-effect-ladden material played with just a guitar into the
DL4).
On the LD site's "tools of the trade" section, there's also lots of info on
the DD20, and I use one myself in my microrig (Zoom G2.u into DD20), and
the
feature to have two independent loops going at the same time sets it apart
from...well almost every other hardware looper (exception being the
Looperlative).
Both are also tools which you're most probably going to keep when someday
you switch to a more powerful looper. In that realm, the DL4 might be
slightly superior because its delay models are (imho) more useable than
those of the DD20 for "interesting delay sounds". Perhaps just go to a
music
store, try both, try also to connect them in series, and see what you like
better - most probably you'll end up getting both.
About the Boss RC series:
These seem to me very much oriented at people who want to lay down a chord
progression and then solo over it. Not that much of tricky sound mangling -
just pure phrase sampling with overdub.
Rainer
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: qua@oregon.com [mailto:qua@oregon.com]
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 25. Oktober 2007 19:02
> An: rs@moinlabs.de
> Betreff: dd-20
>
> Hi,
> a few folks have recommended the dd-20 for me as a good one
> to start with to get the 'feel' of looping and experimenting,
> and having creative fun ... before venturing into more full
> featured products like Mobius (s/w) or
> EDP (h/w) that also have bigger learning curves
>
> would you agree?
> -Qua
>
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill rs@moinlabs.de
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:52:33 +0200
> To: qua@oregon.com
> Subject: AW: GIGADELAY!
>
>
> > on L-D. I'm curious, being a 'delay' pedal, what
> advantages it may
> > have over the 'looping' pedals such as RC-20
>
> The short answer: it's a delay pedal.
>
> The slightly longer answer: control of feedback (in the EDP
> sense), unrounded multiply, weird artifacts.
>
> (I have to admit here that I've never used a RC-20, RC-2 or
> RC-50. I have been using a DL4 for quite a long time - and
> like its looper mode for what it does, but would have liked
> it if the delay modes had 14s delay time as well).
>
> Keep in mind, though, that the looper mode of the DD20 sucks.
>
> Rainer
>
>
>
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