For a long time, the rhythm section on looper pedals was kind of crap. Not that it’s not a nice additional feature, more so that it was just something tossed in with some token patterns and often synthetic-sounding drums. But the RC-10R sets out to change all that. It’s essentially the love-child of a traditional, Boss-level looper pedal and a drum machine, complete with interesting patterns, the option to throw in fills and a choice of drum kits so you can change up the sound to suit your compositions. This all seems great on paper, but how does it work out in practice? Check Amazon Price
NUX JTC Drum & Loop Pro Review
Clones are a fact of life in many industries. Where one company comes up with some innovative concept that catches on and brings in a lot of sales, there are always tons of alternatives on the market shortly afterwards, hoping to cash in on the same basic idea. But for the customer, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Fair enough, they might be rushed-out from some corner-cutting factory and fall to pieces on you faster than a hard-shelled taco, but you just might get something just as good for much less money. Check Amazon Price
Outlaw Effects Lasso Looper Review
There are two extremes when it comes to looper pedals. On one side, you have things like the Boss RC-300, which cram as much functionality in as possible with the aim of providing every feature you could possibly need in a single (often obnoxiously large) unit. On the other, you have pedals like the Ditto from TC Electronic, which scale things back to the key offering, in the name of reducing the footprint of the pedal (not to mention the price) while still providing the core functionality you’re looking for. Check Amazon Price
Acoustic Loop1 Review
You don’t need a vast array of buttons and 15 footswitches to produce a truly amazing looper pedal. From the very simple options like the TC Electronic Ditto to the more complex but still compact options like the RC-3 from Boss, there are plenty of looper pedals out there that provide excellent performance while still keeping the footprint small and the operation intuitive and simple. This is a specific market, though – some guitarists who like loopers need something multi-track and with a dizzying array of footswitches and dials. Check Guitar Center Price
NUX Loop Core Deluxe Review
The NUX Loop Core did a good job as a looper, especially considering it was essentially a clone of the Boss RC-3 Loop Station. There were a few sticking points, particularly the sound quality, but overall the Loop Core offered everything you could need from a looper for less money than Boss’s pedal. The people at NUX obviously recognize a good thing when they have it, and so they’ve decided to come out with the Deluxe version of the same pedal, which improves on what the original had to offer and comes with an extra footswitch as standard. Check Amazon Price
Pigtronix Infinity 2 Looper Review
The original Infinity Looper from Pigtronix kind of straddled the middle-ground, offering a fairly intuitive system with nice extra features like MIDI support that were perfect for live musicians. But it wasn’t perfect. For one, you could only undo or redo the last loop layer if you bought a separate footswitch, and at the time most loopers were usually stocked with tons of buttons and dials. Pigtronix has decided to change up the approach for the Infinity 2. Check Amazon Price
TC Helicon VoiceLive 3 Extreme Review
Many companies have a kind of tiered approach to their pedals. Boss doesn’t just offer the RC-300, for example, they put out the RC-3 and RC-30 too, which package basically the same core features into different-sized units, with some of the capability shaved off as you get smaller and smaller. Digitech’s JamMan Delay vs. the Stereo and the Express is another example. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that TC Helicon hasn’t just left it at the standard edition of the VoiceLive 3, their feature-packed vocal effects, guitar effects and looper pedal. Check Amazon Price
TC Helicon VoiceLive Play Review
The rise of vocal-focused loopers has really helped open the benefits of looping up to more musicians. As guitarists, most of the pedals we talk about at least have the option to plug in an instrument. That doesn’t capture the whole world of looping these days, though. The VoiceLive Play from TC Helicon is a combination of a looper pedal and a vocal-focused multi-effects unit, all packaged in a fairly compact and very user-friendly device. Check Amazon Price
TC Helicon VoiceLive 3 Review
The VoiceLive 3 is a pedal clearly designed for live use. The bulk of the body is taken up by a selection of ten footswitches, evenly spaced apart and each surrounded by a ring of lights so you can see which are active at a glance. It’s 35 cm (13.8 inches) wide and 21.6 cm (8.5 inches) back to front, so definitely a sizable unit, but when you consider the selection of effects and features on the pedal it really doesn’t take up much space at all compared to the number of stompboxes you’d need.Check Amazon Price
Digitech Jamman Vocal XT Looper Review
For most of their history, looper pedals have been largely aimed at guitarists. The appeal of looping for a guitarist is easy to understand. Having a tireless jamming companion and being able to turn yourself into a one-man band opens up a wealth of possibilities. But if you sing or play an acoustic instrument, many of the available looper pedals don’t have much to offer. However, the Digitech JamMan Vocal XT is one of the few options – also including the Boss RC-202 and the TC Electronic Ditto Mic Looper – created with vocalists in mind. The question is: does the looper offer enough to make it worth the investment?Check Amazon Price
TC Electronic Ditto Mic Looper Review
The thing that separates Ditto pedals from the competition is their minimalist style. Many looper pedal manufacturers try to cram in so many features that they end up having more dials and buttons than the Starship Enterprise. In contrast, Ditto pedals are simple, well-presented and compact. The Ditto Mic looper follows this aesthetic down to a tee. It has just two footswitches and a single dial on its 5.4 by 3.5 inch (140 by 90 mm) body. Throw in the typically sleek Ditto look and the result looks polished, professional and inviting.Check Amazon Price
TC Electronic Ditto Stereo Looper Review
The original Ditto Looper is a legendary pedal. In making it, TC Electronic cast aside complexity in favor of top-notch sound quality and ease-of-use. Since then, the Ditto X2 and Ditto X4 versions have taken the concept further, incorporating effects and more footswitches into the same core framework. More recently, the newer Ditto+ Looper has also added 99 memory slots to the original formula. But the follow-up pedals lose some simplicity in the process. If you loved the minimalism of the original Ditto, you might be looking for something similar but with a few more powerful features. TC Electronic has answered in the form of the Ditto Stereo: an upgraded, stereo-looping version of the original.Check Amazon Price