Loop selectors: To loop or Not to loop?

lukedlb

I have posted my thoughts on my pedalboard experience over the last 3 years to offer insight for anyone considering the addition of a loop selector to their pedalboard. I believe I have addressed the 'Tone Loss' issue well enough which leaves you to consider whether you really need the other features. I leave these choices as to why a looper is absolutely necessary down to the contribution of other forum members.

Some interesting observations came from my loop selector quest, beginning with the Gigrig midi8, the Gigrig G2, the Gigrig qmx, and currently the Mosquite blender solution.

What prompted the loop selector quest?

Tone loss. 

The difference between guitar to amp and guitar through a number of pedals to amp was noticeable. I acknowledge that some guitarists use the tone loss associated with cable capacitance and bypassed pedals to achieve the tone they want. Testing all my cables I was struck by the tone loss from one to the other. I wanted the amp to receive the full range of tone, which I could then modify via pedals or tone control. Quite simply it's the sparkle that sits on the top of a very warm amp that I require.
From what I read and watched, high quality guitar cables and a loop selector would help immensely. The reference guitar/amp cables I bought and soldered provided zero tone loss even at length. While the solderless cables were handy and tiny, at times they unwound and frankly I just trusted the reference jacks and cables and shielding way more. Once you get into it, soldering takes little more than solderless and it's a much more reliable product.

Loop selecting.
The one button solution for multiple pedal selections seemed very interesting but ultimately unnecessary; other than an always on type pedal (reverb or pre amp), my selections were usually 1/2/3 pedals at most and usually building on top of a central pedal, whether it's a fuzz (plus boost, plus leslie, plus drive) or clean (plus boost, plus leslie, plus drive). The multitude of sounds quickly reduced to core sounds. The movability on the fly seemed interesting but ultimately was reduced to the core tones. Pre and post gain was unnecessary as the pedals already provided the necessary adjustments, and as much as 3 or 4 types of gain from one overdrive pedal seems appealing, I only needed the one. The direct loop feature of the G2 as opposed to the passage of 6 relays in the midi8 promised less tone loss but to my ears offered no difference.

Two outputs.
SRV was a clever lad. Leslies sound great; a leslie and another amp sound incredible. A humdinger will provide this in the future.

Volume pedal.
Never used it.

Stereo pedals.
No thanks (although wet and dry echo is cool, and a stereo leslie pedal effect is cool).

Tuner output.
Love it.

Size.
The G2 had more features and was smaller than the midi8. The QMX even smaller. Still, occupy valuable space they all do, especially when the jacks and cables curves are taken into consideration. With all the pedals, the pedalboard and the looper, cables, etc, I had a very heavy pedalboard. Size, weight, compactness should be part of the pedalboard equation and help tame any extra GAS.

Pedal tone loss.
All my pedals are true bypass, some buffered bypass, none are Boss or the like. I asked myself whether the bypass switch would be better or worse than the bypass switch, jack, cable length and internal cabling in a loop selector (such as a qmx). I could not deny that there would be extra length and connections with a qmx solution. Hell, even the bypass on my neo vent and cali 76 are silent (I did have some tone sucking pedals in the past requiring some extra boost from the G2 but they are no more). All of which got me thinking:

A bypass for the looper itself.
I can't deny that a long series of pedals must have an effect on tone loss. Even with a looper such as the qmx, a series of relays must add a tiny amount of tone loss. So why not divide the pedals into core tones and extras; a single neat solution to potential tone loss.

My current pedalboard looks like this:

Wah - wah/fuzz buffer - fuzz - OD (the hampstead odyssey arrives in Jan) - Ryra - Cali76
–
Blender (inside the blender loop is the following) - Univibe - Tremolo - Spring reverb - Neo vent
–
Humdinger
Output 1: Kelly soundmaster amp
Output 2: Tuner - EQ - Leslie amp

My original intention for the blender was to blend the neo vent leslie signal when using a single amp or add some bass to my fuzzy EHX hot tubes. I was surprised by how effective it was with the tremolo, reverb and vibe. I assumed that tremolo and vibe would only be cancelled out by blending with the clean; instead, they supported the clean allowing the signal to have more definition with an underlying pulse supported by the vibe and tremolo. The only problem is the vibe and tremolo require different phasing. I'm going to try swapping positions to see if it has any effect. From what I've read phasing is all a bit hit and miss.

Power solutions play an important part and the subsequent layout of power cables and audio cables too.

hotpickups

I think another factor of some loopers like the Boss Es5/8 is that you can programme the switches  to suit your requirement I.e. Momentary or toggle for example. Lots you can do albeit I font understands half of it  

lukedlb

hotpickups said:

I think another factor of some loopers like the Boss Es5/8 is that you can programme the switches  to suit your requirement I.e. Momentary or toggle for example. Lots you can do albeit I font understands half of it  

Ok, so we could add assignable switches: momentary, toggle, channel selector, remote switch. 

hotpickups

lukedlb said:

hotpickups said:

I think another factor of some loopers like the Boss Es5/8 is that you can programme the switches  to suit your requirement I.e. Momentary or toggle for example. Lots you can do albeit I font understands half of it  

Ok, so we could add assignable switches: momentary, toggle, channel selector, remote switch. 

Yep

lukedlb

Tone sucking non-true bypass pedals such as a vintage univibe would require a looper to keep the original tone intact. 
Pedals compromised by the buffers in preceding bypassed pedals such as a fuzz would either require repositioning or a loop.