I just put in an order for Digitech Jamman Stereo. Hope to get it before XMas.
I've been thinking of buying a looper since J-Sin was having a harp workshop here at spring. The whole day workshop we had really affected my thinking of harp. Besides J-Sin as a teacher we had also a skype-lesson from Chris Mikhalek at the afternoon.
Jantso showed a few beatboxing "licks" during the day and that really got my attention as I've been looking at the different ways to do music also alone and not just in a band setup.
At the evening we had a jam session at the local club for all of the harpists attending the workshop. Just few days ago I found a video from Youtube of a jam with J-Sin & me in it (I'm coming in at the end of first part). You can't really get the full atmosphere and sound environment from the clip, but I remember I had a feeling like we had some sort of "living loopers" setup in some parts of the song. It was really great:
Isaacullah's reviews and discussions you have had here were really useful to understand what kind of looper to buy. I actually thought about Boss VE-20 vocal effects pedal also as one option, as vocals are my primary thing, but then I went for dedicated looper pedal to start with.
Hey apskarp! Great clips, and great news on the looper! I'm glad my reviews were useful to you! I can't wait to hear what you do with the looper when it comes...
Yes, I was thinking about that one too Brendan. However, that will need additional footswitch if one wants to operate it hands-free as fluidly as the Jamman stereo (e.g. switching loops on the fly). That would take away both the advantage of small size and the cost would also be more closer to the Jamman Stereo.
Of course it doesn't matter if you operate it by hands as you seem to do.
Other advantages of the Stereo are own inputs for mic & line, stereo in/outputs and some other minor stuff..
It doesn't require an additional footswitch for normal operation, and nor does the similar-size Boss RC2. The footswitch just gives you a couple of extra options which are not essential.
For example, to stop a loop on the Solo and RC-2 you hit the pedal twice. The footswitch allows you to hit it once to stop, but that's not a big deal.
The small size/weight of these units (plus their amazing functionality) is the attraction for me since I fly quite a bit; but if you're not concerned about that certainly go for a bigger pedal. Why not go all the way and get the rather large but very powerful Boss RC-50: three loopers in one?
Actually I meant that you need to have the additional pedal if you want to switch the loops on fly with your feet: e.g. you have recorded four loops and you want to switch from loop nbr 4 to loop nbr 2 for the next verse.
You could do that with your hand also by turning the knob on Rc2 or pressing the little buttons with Jamman solo. Then you would not need the additional footswitch. Perhaps Isaac knows more about these things?
RC-50 would of course be the ultimate gear but as I'm just starting to experiment on these loopers it would be too big investment - who knows if I'll be "converted" to this stuff I might upgrade to it... :)
But for now I figured that the additional features (mainly the additional switches + inputs) on Jamman stereo justified the extra 100e...
Has anyone been able to check out the Boomerang III Phrase Sampler? If you're ok with a large pedal it seems worth checking out. The main question seems to be the state of the firmware but it looks like they made an update in September.
Hey apskarp, I get most of my beatboxing lessons from beatboxtutorial.net (also have a YouTube channel), and from humanbeatbox.com. Hope that helps!
Oh, and both of you guys are right. Jamman Solo is definitely capable of doing all standard looping things, and a bit more. Functionality is improved with the footswitch, especially if one wants to do more than overdub on a single loop (which is what I can only do on the Digitech RP155's looper). With the footswitch it becomes more practical to record separate loops, and then trigger them independantly, or silence one of them while allowing the others to play on. The RC-50 and th Boomerang are meant for this kind of looping (like Dub-FX and other complex looping artists do). The Jamman stereo and the Line6 Jm4 are a middle option between small pedals like the Jamman Solo and the RC-2 and the big boys like the bommerangs and the RC-50. They give you the best of both worlds, keeping things compact while still making complex looping possible. If I get into some money, those are the two that I would be considering for sure. But I'm really into looping, and really want to do fancy stuff with it. For sure, the RC-2 and the Jamman Solo will do for most things most people want to do. ---------- -------------------------------------- View my videos on YouTube!"
Last Edited by on Dec 08, 2010 12:51 PM
Actually I was thinking this through now again after Brendan's comments and decided to went straight to the RC-50. I found a pretty good deal on it so the upgrade from Jamman Stereo became feasible.
For me it isn't so important to have the compact size, but instead the additional abilities to loop and change different base lines, rhythm tracks etc are something that I have in my vision.
So, I changed my order to RC-50 - let's see what happens! :)
I was thinking that the RC-50 was something more along the lines of the RC-2 or RC-20. After looking at it - it should keep you busy exploring the possibilities for quite a while.
Hey! Alright now! The RC-50 is a serious piece of kit! As far as I know you will be the only harp player using it (could be wrong)! I expect that once you get the hang of it, you will be doing some VERY cool things with it! I can't wait to see you go at it!!! ---------- -------------------------------------- View my videos on YouTube!"
Just go an email that the package has been shipped! I should be getting it next week! :) (Unless the post officers have something against me as they delayed my Buddha harp arrival for couple of months..)
I made some beatboxing experiments last night with SM545 & Max. I used some Behringer effects pedal too but that has really crappy effects so won't be trying that again.
It seems that harp playing makes it easier to learn beatboxing - perhaps it's the breathing patterns and abilities to alternate the mouth positions, resonance chambers etc..
I made some beatboxing experiments with Behringer V-amp 2. It seems to give lots of good sounds for vocals - the harmonies, bass lines etc so I think that will be enough effects for awhile..
I know DubFX uses some Boss bass effects pedal for his effects. Anyone got any other devices they use for (vocal) effects?
apskarp, that's one area that I'm still experimenting with. As you know I do all my looping with a digitech rp155, which is also a guitar multi-fx pedal. So far, what I've found to sound good for beatbox is a relatively clean setting with a touch of reverb. I haven't really tried DubFX style vocal accompaniment (bass lines, harmonies, etc), but he definitely uses a lot of octave effects as well as delay and reverb. Not sure which FX unit he is using, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a unit specifically for vocal effects. There's a few of those out these days that seem pretty interesting. Seems to reason that they would play nicely with a sm57/58 style mic, or Audix fireball, etc. Probably a bullet mic would over load those units. ---------- -------------------------------------- View my videos on YouTube!"
Hey thanks for posting that! I hadn't seen that before! I'm such a gearhead, so I LOVE getting the inside scoop into equipment and such from some of my heros (and Dub FX certainly qualifies as a hero!). Never would have expected a Bass FX unit to sound so good and so natural with voice! Very cool. Man, the amount of time and experimentation that he had to put into it to find all those sounds, and to be able to dial them in on the fly and in time with the music is amazing. He's just really good at what he does! Great vid! ---------- -------------------------------------- View my videos on YouTube!"
Oh, and I just realized that it is Hakan Ehn who uses a vocal processor. A Digitech Vocal 300 if I remember correctly... ---------- -------------------------------------- View my videos on YouTube!"
Just an update. I go the BOSS RC-50 and today I had some time to learn to use it. It isn't the simplest pedal on the market, that's for sure. However, today I was able to make a song with it, using the separate looper pedals at the same time. What it does is that you can put different parts of the song on different pedals and then switch those independently.. IT gives you some more possibilities to work with, although you could design the songs with single pedal to work ok too.
I plan to put something online as I get better at it..
Hi, I use sometimes Boss RC-20XL. Sounds perfect and it has many options in pretty small box. I played concert on SPAH this year. No effects, only RC-20XL and richter harmonicas (low keys for backgrounds). Short piece of techno :o)
