TC Electronic Ditto+ Looper Review

Summary

• Pros: The Ditto+ Looper has excellent audio quality in a minimalistic, easy-to-use pedal. It has 99 memory locations with 60 minutes of recording time.
• Cons: No metronome or rhythm options, limited connectivity options, no ability to add footswitches.
• Overall: The Ditto+ looper is the pedal the original Ditto should have been. It’s perfect if you want something simple and elegant, but other options blow it away in terms of features.

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Full Review

The original Ditto Looper broke the mold when it came to looper pedals. While other manufacturers were cramming in as many features as possible, the Ditto focused on its core functionality. It stood out from the competition by focusing on a clear, well-captured tone. This was immensely popular even with pro players who just wanted something that sounded great. The lack of memory was a pretty big limitation, however. TC Electronic listened to its customers and fixed this with the Ditto+ Looper. It is essentially the Ditto, plus, memory and a few other things. See what they did there?

The Way the Ditto Should Have Been

The Ditto+ doesn’t really change the formula for the original Ditto looper, but the small improvements make a big difference. The basic design is pretty similar. It’s a small, rectangular-shaped pedal with a footswitch at the bottom and a dial at the top.

There are a couple of key differences, though. First, on either side of the “Loop Level” dial are two buttons that allow you to navigate between the loop locations. Second, the lone LED light on the original Ditto has been replaced with a color display screen. It doesn’t take up much space, but it shows your current status (i.e. recording, playback or overdubbing), the active memory location and the current position within the loop.

The changes to the original formula described so far probably don’t sound like that big a deal. And you’re right – they aren’t. The display screen is well-designed and, honestly, better than it needs to be. Broadly speaking, though, not having the ability to store loops was the Achilles’ heel of the original Ditto. You could create an awesome loop with pristine audio quality, but when you wanted to record something else you had to delete your initial loop. If you wanted the first loop back again, you’d have to play it again. So the simple addition of memory improvement is a substantial improvement.

The Ditto+ Looper: Elegant Simplicity

The core functions of the Ditto+ are great, just like they were with the original. It only has mono input and output options, but the pedal is true bypass and offers 24 bit audio. So, whether it’s your unprocessed tone or the recorded loop, the sound is exceptional. Other than that, the Ditto+ basically works like any looper (including the original). Tap the footswitch to start recording, tap it again to initiate playback, and then tap again to overdub. At the end of your overdub, tap again and the whole loop plays back. You can continue adding overdubs in similar fashion as many times as you like.

Just like on the original, pressing and holding the footswitch undoes the last layer. Doing the same again brings it back in. Pressing twice stops playback. Pressing twice but holding the second time clears the loop. The Ditto+ has in-built memory, though, so if you don’t clear the loop you’re working on, it will be stored in the currently active slot. This saves regularly, so even if you suddenly lose power, you will still have your loop when you switch the Ditto+ back on.

Ditto+ Memory Capacity

There are a total of 99 memory locations on the Ditto+, and the total recording time (split across all of these slots) is 60 minutes. Of course, there are options (for example the Boss RC-5) with much more memory than this, but compared to the 5 minutes on the original Ditto it’s a huge improvement. Even if you feel like you’ll fill up the 30 minutes, the Ditto+ also adds a USB port so you can back up (and import) loops to your computer.

Another major improvement from the old Ditto is some flexibility for the length of your overdubs. On the original, if your loop was 15 seconds (for instance), any overdub could only be 15 seconds as well. But now, if you put the Ditto+ in “Extend Loop Mode,” you can also record overdubs that are longer than the original loop. So in the example, you could record a 30 second overdub, and the original loop would simply play twice while the dub was going on. This mode also gives you some leeway as to when you hit the footswitch. If you press it too early for the end of the loop, it simply “queues” the action so the ending is perfectly timed, every time.

Never Mind the Bollocks, Just Give us a Looper

If you’re looking for a no-nonsense looper that sounds great but doesn’t bury the core operation behind a dozen functions you’ll never use, the Ditto+ is the one for you. The original Ditto had a kind of pleasing simplicity to it, but the lack of memory crippled it in terms of usability. The Ditto+ is such a minimal update that it’s almost frustrating, but the result is really hard to argue with. It takes the core ethos behind the Ditto and turns it into something much more useful.

It should go without saying that it’s still not the ideal option if you’re looking for a live performance tool. If you only want to incorporate some basic loops then it’s fine, but you can’t change memory locations hands-free – there isn’t even a slot for an external footswitch. And without simultaneous tracks there isn’t much potential for creating even a simple song structure. But if you just want a looper pedal to practice with or to help with songwriting, the stripped-down and simplified approach of the Ditto+ is perfect.

If You Want Heaps of Features, Other Options Are Better

There are looper features that other companies like Boss include as standard on even their smallest pedals that just aren’t on the Ditto+. There’s no rhythm backing or even a basic metronome, for instance.

But – and this is a big but – if you really don’t need any extras and want a beautiful-sounding looper on a budget, you really can’t do much better than the Ditto+. It’s a great choice for beginners due to the simplicity, and also a great choice for pros who want awesome sound quality. The learning curve is basically non-existent, it doesn’t take up unnecessary space, and it has tons of potential as a jamming and practicing companion.

Where to Buy the Ditto+ Looper?

Ditto+ Looper Product Clip