Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360 Review

Summary

• Pros: The Nano Looper 360 has an intuitive design, making for an easy-to-use looper with excellent sound quality. It offers 11 memory locations and six minutes of recording time, better than many comparable loopers.
• Cons: Suffers from many of the same issues as all small loopers: it lacks many useful features and has limited potential for live use.
• Overall: Another solid option for guitarists looking for a straightforward looper without the bells and whistles of pricier pedals. You won’t regret buying it, but you may find yourself eventually craving more features.

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• Amazon: Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360
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Full Review

Tiny loopers are all the rage these days. After Electro-Harmonix’s multi-track 2880 and 45000 offerings, they’ve decided to get a piece of the action too. The Nano Looper 360 is a tiny unit, competingwith pedals like the Hotone Wally Looper, the JamMan Express and the TC Electronic Ditto. These pedals are primarily aimed at those who just want a small, basic looper for practice and jam sessions without paying the big bucks for the larger, more feature-laden units. However, does the simplicity work in its favor, or will you just be left wanting more?

Small Stature, Simple Operation

The Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360’s best feature is simplicity. The top half of the pedal is occupied by two dials. One controls your loop’s volume level while the other selects the memory slot you’re working in. The metallic footswitch on the bottom operates the record/play/overdub functions (in that order). The footswitch also handles stopping playback, clearing your loop, and undoing or redoing your last overdub.

The basic operation is very straightforward. You tap the switch to start recording (shown with a red “Record” LED), then play your phrase. When you’ve made your loop, tap the footswitch again to playback what you’ve done (shown by a green “Play” LED). If you want to overdub, give the footswitch another tap to record again (shown by both red and green LEDs). If you tap yet again, it plays back the layered loop.

To stop playback, give the pedal a double-tap. When it’s stopped you can erase your loop by holding the footswitch for two seconds (the small “Mem” LED will flash six times). To undo the last overdub (or put it back) you hold the footswitch down for two or more seconds during playback. These operations are confirmed by the “Play” LED flashing twice. Undo/redo is really useful if you make a mistake. You can redo the last overdub without clearing your whole underlying loop. But it also makes it possible to bring the top “layer” of your recording in or out at will. This opens up many options for adding variations tor your compositions, such as for the verse and chorus of a song.

Recording Time and Memory Storage

The 360 in the name refers to the number of seconds of recording time. It allows you six minutes of looping in total (with unlimited overdubs). While the Boss RC-1 offers twice as much recording time, the 360 provides slightly more than you’ll find on the TC Electronic Ditto or Ditto X2 (Ditto’s big brother).

The real bonus is that unlike the RC-1 and the Ditto, which only save one or two loops respectively, you get 11 memory locations on the Nano 360. You loops save automatically in whichever space the dedicated dial is set to. You can see at a glance which locations are occupied because the “Mem” LED will light up when it’s set to an occupied location.

While splitting 360 seconds evenly across 11 locations would only give you around 33 seconds per loop, split up unevenly (with some longer, song section loops and some shorter repeating phrases) it allows for plenty of possibilities. If you spend a little more, you can buy a stompbox sized looper with tons more memory (in terms of both locations and capacity) than this, but among the class of mini-loopers, the Nano 360’s offering isn’t bad though.

Powering the Nano 360 Looper

The Nano Looper 360 can run on a 9V battery (for about four hours of looping). It also comes with an AC adapter as standard. You might be expecting this, but many other comparable loopers (like the RC-1 and the Express XT) don’t come with an AC power adapter. The manufactuers can offer the loopers at a lower price without an adapter, but don’t forget to factor this into your cost if you need one. The fact that Electro-Hamronix includes one is definitely a point in their favor.

Excellent Sound Quality

Electro-Harmonix also pays special attention to sound quality. The Nano Looper 360 promises uncompressed, 24-bit and 44.1 kHz sound, with no degradation in fidelity with multiple overdubs. This is the new industry standard. Loopers of the prior generation only offered 16-bit audio, and the difference is noticeable. As of 2022, many loopers are now offering 32-bit sound quality, but the difference there is much more negligible. 24-bit and above is really good audio quality.

On pedals like the the RC-1, the Ditto X2 and the Express XT, you get stereo ins and outs, but if you’re just playing at home and don’t need stereo effects, this is unlikely a deal breaker.

Is the Nano Looper 360 Worth Buying?

Despite the fact that Electro-Harmonix has accomplished a lot with a small amount of space, it’s not exactly ground breaking. As soon as you step up to larger, stompbox-size models, you get a lot more in terms of capability. For example, many slightly larger units come with the ability to “quantize” your looping. This is the ability to correct any minor timing errors you make in creating your loops by automatically stretching or shrinking your loop. You don’t need this feature, but it’s nice to have. You can get it for just a little more. For example, at the time of writing, you can pick up the more capable JamMan Solo XT for about $20 more.

On the plus side, if you opt for a miniature looper, you could do a lot worse than the Nano Looper 360. It’s easy to use, has great sound quality and offers useful extras like the undo/redo function. Other mini-style loopers allow undo/redoing, but the addition of the 11 memory slots sets the Nano 360 apart from the competition. While similar pedals allow for more recording time, many have fewer memory slots. This doesn’t make much sense unless you want to record loops that are a whole song’s length. While bigger units offer many more features, the Nano 360 is a really good option among the miniature loopers.

Most of the Nano Looper 360’s potential lies in its simplicity, sound quality, and use as a practicing companion. You could certainly use it to incorporate loops into a live performance (a backing chord progression for a one-guitarist band while you play a solo, say) or a jam session.

Gaps Between Loops

If you’re serious about loop-based performing, though, it’s definitely worth getting something with more memory and a smoother method of switching between phrases. As it stands with the Nano Looper 360, changing between loops isn’t a particularly seamless process. There are obvious gaps between stopping one loop and starting another one. You can’t queue a loop up to start when your current loop finishes. You have to stop, bend down and change the dial position before manually starting the new one up. You can have a lot of fun with a selection of stored chord progression loops at home, but you couldn’t stitch together a song from a few different loops without these notable gaps.

Conclusion

Among the direct competition, the Nano Looper 360 does a great job. The sound quality is excellent, it’s easy to use and it offers you a reasonable amount of memory. This all makes it a very appealing option for new loopers. If you think you’ll get really into looping, though, you should consider spending a little bit more to get more features. A stomp-box sized option is not much more expensive, and had more potential for long-term use. The Nano Looper 360 is great if you’re into simplicity, but it may be too simple for the looping enthusiast.

Where to Buy the Nano Looper 360?

• Amazon: Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360
• zZounds: Electro-Harmonix Nano Looper 360

Nano Looper 360 Product Video