Thinking about getting a loop pedal ... but which?

[MidnightPackage]

I am thinking about picking up a looping pedal for use with my Kronos. I think it would be fun for live performance, and even help with composition. At this point I am looking at the Boss RC-300 because it seems to be the most advanced and most complete option, and I can control it with my feet. But I believe the Korg KP3 has looping capabilities too, and part of me would like to stick with Korg. Does anybody have any experience using a looper pedal with a keyboard? In particular, do you have any thoughts on KP3 versus Boss RC-300?

I could have posted this in the Kaoss forum, but I was really hoping to get some feed back from keyboard players, and especially those with a Kronos.

Thank you

[RonF]

I have been through almost all of the available loopers. The KP-3 is wonderful, among the top loopers in existence. Its U.I. is fantastic. But, it suffers from some issues, unfortunately, which Korg has failed to ever address. 1. It has no sound-on-sound looping (which is in the Kaossilator Pro). 2. It suffers from problematic and unreliable midi sync, which can be very important if you include synths such as Kronos in your looping. 3. Its loop times are relatively short. You can only get around 4 beats of recorded material (don't quote me, I forget the exact number, but its too short) at slower tempos below 90 BPM.

I have the RC-50. It stinks. For so many reasons, especially it has virtually no midi sync which is reliable. I cannot speak directly to the RC300, but Roland has a long history of problems with midi sync and loopers. Once you get into looping...midi sync will be VERY important.

I also have a Looperlative LP1, which is the Rolls Royce of loopers. But its very expensive, a boutique item which comes with "boutique" customer support (read: virtually no support), and it too has bugs which need to be worked out, including dodgy midi sync as slave.

The best looper I have found to date, is the Elektron Octatrack, it has bullet proof midi sync (as slave!). But again, expensive, and its not yet been updated to fully exploit its looping capabilities, although an OS update has been promised and is purportedly imminent. Once it drops, Octatrack will probably be the king of loopers, and it does SO much more too.

Lastly....I am watching very carefully this: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/InfinityLoop/
which promises to be an incredible looper with bullet proof midi sync. Should be out in April 2012, and be reasonably priced. If I were you right now....I would wait for THIS.

You may be interested in this thread here: http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... ate+looper

Hope this all helps you out!

[MidnightPackage]

Thanks so much for your thoughtful and helpful post Ron. From the reviews that I have read of the RC-300, it sounds like they solved most of the problems with the RC-50. However, it appears that they dropped MIDI sync altogether. I will be honest, I am not even sure why MIDI sync is important (I assume it keeps a bar on the synth in timing with the bars on the looper?). The RC-300 does seem to be a very powerful looper for guitarists. But as you suggest, for a keyboard player MIDI-sync is going to be important. I think I have some learning to do. I may wait for the Infinity Looper as you suggest.

The problem is, I have a little bit of money to spend today

[RonF]

Midi sync becomes very important, and a wonderful creative tool, when looping the Kronos, or any other midi gear, and trying to keep it all in sync. For example, Kronos karma patterns and drum tracks.....you can keep this all in tight sync as you layer pass after pass, changing programs or combis each time. This opens up a world of possibilities, and you easily explore how a single track from Combi A layers with another random track from Combi B, and then Combi C....with no delay or interruption of the music.

Optimally, you want the Looper to SLAVE to a master clock (so you can create loops of varying length which line up exactly with the bars and measures of the music)....but most loopers fail miserably at this. The few I mentioned have better success. The Infinity Looper seams designed to be midi slave, as that is what they are advertising.

Once you get a few loops going, and layer things up, you can then sync other gear to the same master clock, and continue to compose and get creative in real time, with everything beating to the same drum, so to speak. Its sort of hard to put into words, but please trust me, having everything sync and being able to throw down a track into your looper in real time with no delay or interruption of the music is where the creative magic happens. Having your looper slave to your master clock is what makes this happen. It also enables you to "quantize" exact loop lengths, that will again add to your creativity and amazing poly-rhythms you can create. Sooo much fun when its working properly.

Unfortunately, a looper pedal (such as the RC series from Roland, and most others) are designed for guitarists....the thing here is, a guitarist typically uses a loose human timing, and that is what makes the typical looper pedal perfect for a guitarist. But when you are trying to line up to a drum track, or sync to arpeggios, or other phrases from a synth or electronic gear....you will quickly drift off timing based on anything less than midi clock.

FWIW....Kronos and a good sync-able looper are an amazing combination that opens up all kinds of creative vistas you cannot otherwise imagine. I use it frequently, and have often thought that loopers should be built in to workstations. The combination makes for a highly fluid and instantaneous creative output in real time.

[MidnightPackage]

Thanks again for your help Ron. Everything you have said makes a lot of sense. I think I am going to hold off on the looper pedal and see how the Infinity Looper shows.

[PianoManChuck]

A lot depends on what type of music you plan on doing with a loop pedal. RonF is right about MIDI clock if you're going to be using drum patterns, karma, or anything along that nature. However, if you're going to be making music that doesn't use any of that, you'll be fine.
As an example here's the New Zealand Boss loop station winner's creation/performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miMM8R1CSM8

No reason you can't use a keyboard and individual keyboard patches, your voice, and a bit of experience with looping pedals to create something similar. There's other impressive performances on Youtube by others.
Again though, if you're going to use karma, drum patterns, rppr or any other repetitive pattern, you'll definitely need MIDI. Here's another example (from the USA winner of the Boss loop contest), you can see the MIDI cord and can understand exactly why its needed in this particular song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QMEQE13Pv0

[MidnightPackage]

Thank you both. I really appreciate the helpful insights. Since I really wanted a toy right away, and since I am also a guitarist (and a pianist/keyboardist that has never used MIDI sync before) I went ahead and ordered the RC-300. It should be delivered some time today. I understand the limitations and know that in time I may be frustrated by the lack of MIDI-sync. If the InfinityLooper gets great reviews for it's sync capabilities I may pick that up as well. I will let you guys know what I think after I have had a few days to play with my new toy.

[McHale]

You can do a LOT of the functions of a loop pedal with the Kronos' built in effects.

[MidnightPackage]

You can do a LOT of the functions of a loop pedal with the Kronos' built in effects.

I would love to see a tutorial on how to do that! *hint hint*

I was thinking you might be able to accomplish similar things with the sampler, but really I have no idea how to pull it off, and pushing buttons with my feet seems like such an easier way to control things.

[MidnightPackage]

I am sitting at work excited to get home and play with my looper pedal (after a lovely Valentine's Day dinner, of course).

I have a question for you guys. First an admission: I know next to nothing about MIDI sync. I have never really used it.

Now, according to the manual, the RC-300 supports MIDI-Sync in one way: If the pedal is the master and your external device is the slave. I am understanding this as, the pedal outputs the MIDI clock signal and if my Kronos is set to accept an external MIDI clock input, the Kronos would sync it's tempo with the pedal board.

I am thinking, isn't this what you would want - if not always - at least a lot of the time? Wouldn't you want a consistent tempo on the overall looping performance? If it worked the other way around, every time I changed a combi patch on the Kronos with a different tempo assigned, it would change the tempo on the looper and everything would speed up or slow down. Wouldn't I want the Kronos to adjust to the temp on the looper pedal?

So, what am I not understanding?

[McHale]

You can do a LOT of the functions of a loop pedal with the Kronos' built in effects.

I would love to see a tutorial on how to do that! *hint hint*

There's KINDA one already on YouTube. Look up the "Kronos All Excess" video. The second guy (DonaldKrunk) demos a patch he created using the looper, delay, and a grain shifter. Since that video was all done on my Kronos, I have the patches we created that day.

[MidnightPackage]

Thank you! I will check it out ...

[McHale]

start at 1:47 to hear the patch being mangled through the grain shifter. He then immediately explains what he did to get that sound. You then get to watch him use it...

[MidnightPackage]

So I got home, set up the pedal, set the Kronos to sync to the clock on the pedal, and it works very well. As I rotate the tempo knob on the pedal the Kronos tempo adjusts in real time.

I have only messed around for a half-hour, but I am having a blast so far.

[RonF]

I think you will find that the more optimal sync set up for interfacing "groove based" midi instruments, such as Kronos, with a looper device, is to have the looper pedal be the sync slave, and the Kronos (in this example) be the master. There is some quirky behavior with the looper pedal being master....as it needs to establish loop lengths on the fly (so it doesn't know what the BPM is until you "close" the first loop), and then also it needs to send midi start/stop commands to the other gear....all of which needs to happen in real time...and in reality, this is very fitchy. Its somewhat functional if you first create pre-set loop lengths on your looper (I used to first create blank loops on my RC50 so that I could make a good run at this)....but if you want to improvise at all in real time....then its very quirky. I have found most looper devices to be lacking as a midi slave, with artifacts appearing in the recorded audio as it chases the midi clock, and/or hiccups at the loop boundaries. The only real success I have had in this regard, and its bullet proof success at that, is with the Elektron Octatrack. It chases clock like nobody's business with absolutely pristine audio.

But if you can imagine, while the Kronos is master, you can start a combi or drum track playing, and then use your looper pedal, as slave, to create on-the-fly loop lengths by stomping on the pedals in time with the Kronos, and if its set up correctly, the loop boundaries will line up with the bars and beats of the Kronos clock, keeping everything in tight sync. This is fantastic for adding guitar, or other live instrument phrases to combis and sequences you create and play on Kronos. Its also great for capturing a combi or program "phrase" FROM Kronos, so that you can then change the combi or program and layer that on top with another one. (to make this work, Kronos needs to be master so your new combi or program will lock right up with the previous loop!). Octatrack is particularly nice for this as it has 8 stereo tracks, and you can bounce down 7 tracks onto the 8th indefinitely with ridiculously good fidelity.

But with the looper pedal as master......your options are far more limited. In fact, if you don't want the music stopping while you "jam" in real time.....the reverse sync connection is really necessary. A little trial and error will expose these truths as you play around with it.