Loopers and freeze pedals

[bassbora]

I am looking for some experiences of loopers and freeze pedals. I have always been curios about loopers but always talked myself out of them. When I was studying in the 90s I recorded on tape jazz standards and then as usual melody, solos and walking bass lines practiced over this. Looper would have been invaluable back then but I have not really needed it since.

 

I have been practicing a lot last few months more like I was doing in the 90s and I saw the other day Janek Gwizdala talk about important practice gear. He mentioned loopers and freeze pedals. So that sparked my interest again and I thought it would help with my practice. Also the singer in my band has suggested we do duets just voice and bass so I thought both loopers and freeze pedals would be a great aid to fill out the sound.

 

Any advice if these pedals are worth the investment or not?  Good, bad and possibly brands to look at and to avoid.  I have obviously seen the Ditto and RC from Boss and the Freeze from EHX. It would be great to hear what people think.
 

[velvetkevorkian]

I've had a few different loopers (Digitech DL8, Boss RC1, HX Stomp's 1 button looper) and the main issue I've found* is that overloading a single switch with multiple functions (press, double press, long press) was too much for my brain -- I'd be looking at units with at least two footswitches, so you can have a dedicated stop switch, at least.

 

*aside from my lack of ability and willingness to practice 🙄

[itu]

A tool for practising: you get instant feedback while listening your playing.

[songofthewind]

I had a Boss RC300 for a long time. Old fashioned and bulky, but brilliant in having a pedal per function. Can’t be beat, I venture to suggest.

[Baloney Balderdash]

EHX Freeze and TC Electronic Ditto X4 Lopper, and you should be perfectly covered.

 

The Ditto X4 looper is likely completely overkill for this specific application, but you might as well get something proper that is likely to cover every possible future looper needs you might run into.

[dudewheresmybass]

dependant on the function you're using on the freeze would require double tapping the switch.

If you are ok holding the switch as long as you need the drone, you're fine. However, if you need to step away from the pedal during performance, you'll need to double tap the switch.

Just to clarify

[SumOne]

The EHX Superego+ is worth considering as it gives a lot more options for what the drone sounds like (and you can do things like layering, and glissando between the drone tones, and 'threshold' so it'll only drone notes over a certain volume), that is useful to make it sound different to the bassline you are playing over the top. Can also add an expression pedal to alter the droning sound. It also works as a pad type synth pedal, and a modulation and delay pedal.