Bypass Loopers

ash96

Looking at getting a bypass looper for my pedalboard, to reduce the amount of toe tapping and leaning over, but also, I've had the odd pedals / cables die at gigs, and it makes it a lot easier to get by on a gig if this happens if its a looper as its not in the chain.

The gig rig stuff is obviously insanely good, but not sure if I can stump up for the price of those / or even need anything that complicated at the moment. And the G2's are pretty big so might need getting a bigger pedalboard.

Seen a few companies like Brightonion etc, just looking for something thats cheap-ish, while still being solidly built.

Anyone got any other good solutions?

Gassage

OK; some may disagree but I really advise against the pure true bypass strip. Really horrible things and the impedence mismatches you'll get when introducing pedals into a signal will be significant. Avoid.

Some bargains to be had with some buffered and programmable loopers- the Octaswitch is very good and cheap on the Bay.

Providence PEC02 is brilliant if you can find one.

Then, there's GLab stuff, but not as good as those above.

FInally rhe Gigrig Mk1 range is still superb if big. And can be gotten cheaply.

english_bob

Are you looking for a programmable one? I'm pretty sure the bright onion ones are just a series of loops, so won't really cut down on tap dancing, just move it all to a different place on your board. The Gigrig (and many other cheaper loopers) allow you to turn on or off any combination of the bypass loops with a single footswitch. Some even allow you to change the order of the loops between presets.

So, worth considering:
What's your budget?
How many loops do you need?
Programmable? If so:
MIDI control?
External switching (eg. for amp channels)?
Fixed loop order, or flexible?

hotpickups

Disaster Area Amp loopers are great. I use them

http://www.disasterareaamps.com/

timbuk02

Always thought One Control stuff looks good, with some neat hidden features in the simpler ones.
http://www.one-control.com/white-loop.html
http://www.one-control.com/black-loop.html

ash96

I was basically just considering the simple loopers as i'd basically be just chucking stuff on and off, don't really need massive stuff, just to chuck stuff on and off.

How come the cheap ones sound shit? Would it be worse than having everything in line anyway? Would buffers not help?

I could go the midi / looper route really, I've got a few strymon pedals that could work wired into all that, but in reality, I don't need to switch presets particularly quickly. More just use of one or 2 per song.

Sporky

ash96 said:

How come the cheap ones sound shit?

They don't - no more so than having a true bypass pedal and a bit of extra cable.

Gassage

ash96 said:

I was basically just considering the simple loopers as i'd basically be just chucking stuff on and off, don't really need massive stuff, just to chuck stuff on and off.

How come the cheap ones sound shit? Would it be worse than having everything in line anyway? Would buffers not help?

I could go the midi / looper route really, I've got a few strymon pedals that could work wired into all that, but in reality, I don't need to switch presets particularly quickly. More just use of one or 2 per song.

Sporky said:

ash96 said:

How come the cheap ones sound shit?

They don't - no more so than having a true bypass pedal and a bit of extra cable.

See, this is where I differ.

Respectfully, when you use a bypass strip, say your normal sound is comp, light OD eq, delay, but for a solo you need a vibe. So you click on the vibe...you're now introducing the impedence of the vibe, the cables, the switches etc. You then add another OD, the vibe is now out of kilter as the impedence has been changed again.

Now, this works if you've got buffers and so on. But if everything is TB (and I hate TB) then every time you change the signal path you'll have to tweak every level you are using.

Trust me, been down this road many time.

Get something that's buffered and programmable. I can't recommend the Octa by Carl martin highly enough- cheap as on eBay 2nd hand.

THis is worth a read

http://www.petecornish.co.uk/case_against_true_bypass.html

vasselmeyer

If you're looking for something smallish with midi then the BOSS ES-5 might be worth a look.

robinbowes

As usual, the reality lies between the two extremes. 

True bypass strips are not necessarily "horrible things", and a full-on Pete Cornish rig is not necessarily what you need.

I have a GigRig G2 on my "main" board but, tbh, I'm using a much smaller board most of the time, with no loop at all.

Ask yourself what you actually want to achieve. If you just want to move all your pedal switching into one convenient place at the front of your board then a TB strip could be just the thing for you. Do you want programmable loops, MIDI control, more than one output, transformer isolation? If so, then one of the more expensive options might be appropriate.

R.

DesVegas

I have an old school Wee Lush single looper with feedback option which is pretty cool if put before a delay. It has a flanger, reverb and tremolo in the loop

Jonathanthomas83

Gassage said:

OK; some may disagree but I really advise against the pure true bypass strip. Really horrible things and the impedence mismatches you'll get when introducing pedals into a signal will be significant. Avoid.

Some bargains to be had with some buffered and programmable loopers- the Octaswitch is very good and cheap on the Bay.

Providence PEC02 is brilliant if you can find one.

Then, there's GLab stuff, but not as good as those above.

FInally rhe Gigrig Mk1 range is still superb if big. And can be gotten cheaply.

@Gassage , sorry for what is probably a very simplistic question, but if I had a TB looper, and put an LD-1 in front of it, would that be good enough?

Sporky

Gassage said:

See, this is where I differ.

Respectfully, when you use a bypass strip, say your normal sound is comp, light OD eq, delay, but for a solo you need a vibe. So you click on the vibe...you're now introducing the impedence of the vibe, the cables, the switches etc. You then add another OD, the vibe is now out of kilter as the impedence has been changed again.

How do you think the impedance is actually changing, and what effect do you think that'll have?

The switches have negligible impedance.

Decent patch leads have negligible impedance (note that Mr Cornish's argument relies on having 2-foot-long patch leads!).

When you switch a pedal in you're just presenting it's input impedance (which will be high) to the previous stage's output impedance (which will be low), and its output impedance (which will be low) to the next stage's input impedance (which will be high). Most likely those two impedances will be similar to the input and impedances of the following and preceding stages respectively, so there'll actually be very little change in the system.

I'm not knocking Mr Cornish's approach (everything wrapped in good buffers is correct from an engineering point of view) but his article is rather liberal with the reality of the situation - it presents every worst-possible-case as being likely.

robinbowes

In my experience, as long as you have a good buffer at the start of the chain then you won't go far wrong. I used to use a Boss TU-3 tuner but I switched to a Polytune so am now using a Boss CS-2.

I think you're drinking too much of the Cornish Kool-Aid, @Gassage

R.

ash96

robinbowes said:

In my experience, as long as you have a good buffer at the start of the chain then you won't go far wrong. I used to use a Boss TU-3 tuner but I switched to a Polytune so am now using a Boss CS-2.

I think you're drinking too much of the Cornish Kool-Aid, @Gassage

R.

What constitutes as a 'good buffer'?

Any pedal that isn't true bypass? or are some better than others? What about those individual buffer things you get?

robinbowes

ash96 said:

What constitutes as a 'good buffer'?

Any pedal that isn't true bypass? or are some better than others? What about those individual buffer things you get?

Good question.

All a buffer does is to provide a high impedance at the input, and a low impedance at the output which prevents loss of signal and high frequency rolloff due to cable capacitances. This is obviously most important for the first pedal in the chain, ie. the one connected to the guitar by a long cable.

In practise, a "good" buffer is actually pretty easy to design/build - this is a good page showing various topologies: http://www.muzique.com/lab/buffers.htm

So, in answer to your original question, I would say that most buffers are probably good enough, and that you don't need to worry too much about which one to use.

R.

MrMusic

I'm with @hotpickups. I was lucky to purchase a Disaster area DPC5 on this very forum from him and it's superb and really versatile, couldn't live without it now. Thanks again @hotpickups!!

hotpickups

MrMusic said:

I'm with @hotpickups. I was lucky to purchase a Disaster area DPC5 on this very forum from him and it's superb and really versatile, couldn't live without it now. Thanks again @hotpickups!!

Not me I think that might have been someone else I feel. I did sell a DmC-6D once though

professorben

hotpickups said:

MrMusic said:

I'm with @hotpickups. I was lucky to purchase a Disaster area DPC5 on this very forum from him and it's superb and really versatile, couldn't live without it now. Thanks again @hotpickups!!

Not me I think that might have been someone else I feel. I did sell a DmC-6D once though

tricky chord that......

Jonathanthomas83

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Gassage said:

OK; some may disagree but I really advise against the pure true bypass strip. Really horrible things and the impedence mismatches you'll get when introducing pedals into a signal will be significant. Avoid.

Some bargains to be had with some buffered and programmable loopers- the Octaswitch is very good and cheap on the Bay.

Providence PEC02 is brilliant if you can find one.

Then, there's GLab stuff, but not as good as those above.

FInally rhe Gigrig Mk1 range is still superb if big. And can be gotten cheaply.

@Gassage , sorry for what is probably a very simplistic question, but if I had a TB looper, and put an LD-1 in front of it, would that be good enough?

@Gassage any advice?

Gassage

It's a better option than without.