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Looper's Delight
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I actually owned both the RC20XL and the Digitech jamman each for about a month, for a while I had them both together to compare (before I returned them both and upgraded to a more expensive looper). I would say that if you are absolutely committed to having auto-quantize, which I'm pretty sure is in fact how you describe it, then you clearly need the boss. Since I was able to live with and compare both of these pedals, though, here are some other things I would consider: overall, I preferred the boss anyway. It just seemed more "friendly." I actually preferred the sound quality, as the "distortion" that reviewers describe sounded "musical" as in "good" to me, not distorted like heavy metal or like a crappy system, and the "clean" sampling rate of the digitech sounded a little too clean/dry/crisp/unnatural/cold to me. It's hard to describe why it in general seemed more "friendly" to me, perhaps the user interface, like how the pedals worked, etc., had a hand in that. I had no interest in USB capability, although I didn't think either that I would care much about storing loops, but that is a nice feature of the digitech that you realize after you fill up your boss. Also, I'm wary of the reviewers that had a digitech crap out on them. That all being stated, I think that with some practice you can get better with your timing as to when you end a loop (and also as to what you play within the loop), which makes the auto-quantize and the metronome less essential. Also, that click track is very annoying to anyone other than you (and, after a week, to you too), so if you really are considering playing out I would strongly recommend against using the click track anyway. That being stated, however, the digitech has a few options as to what the click sounds like (e.g., bass, bass, bass, high-hat) whereas the boss just has one that sounds more like a metronome. All of this of course assumes that you can't follow the LED of the metronome with the sound muted, which I certainly can't, although you can mute the click on either one. Hope those considerations help, Eben On 4/17/07, Brent Santin <woodenflutes@yahoo.ca> wrote: > Hi! > > I plan to loop live (flutes, keyboards, vocal sounds), > i.e. on stage. > > I've been playing with a very basic looping pedal, and > am really enjoying the results (it's a cheap ZOOM > pedal which is basically is an endless digital delay). > I regularly set it for about a 2 second delay > (although it can go up to 6 seconds), then record a > short sound like a click and listen to the click > repeat so that I can get a feel for the timing. I > then layer sounds & beats on top of this. > > If find that if I use anything longer than a 2 second > digital delay, it's too long between my reference > clicks to feel the beat, so I keep the delay time > short. > > The problem with this short time is that while it's > good for building rhythms, there's not enough time to > put down a good bass line or even more than one chord. > > So, I've been considering a looping pedal with a built > in click track/metronome so I can reliably keep my > timing over loops that might be up to four or eight > bars of 4/4 in length. > > I need some help in deciding between the Digi-tech > Jam-Man or the BOSS RC-20XL. Those are the two > looping pedals in my price range with a built in > click-track. > > Right off the bat, the Digitech seems to have better > features for the money (especially the flash memory & > USB connections, XLR mic connector). > > But it is missing one feature that the BOSS has: the > QUANTIZE function. I assume that when I press the > STOP RECORDING pedal, this function clips or edits the > end of the sample to match the nearest beat of the > click-track, thereby keeping the sample in sync with > the click-track. i.e. If I recorded a a one bar 4/4 > sample that, but was slightly late in hitting the STOP > pedal, QUANTIZE would chop the extra few milliseconds > off the sample so that it would end properly on the > "4" beat. > > How important is this feature? It seems important to > me (just from reading). > > The Digitech Jam-Man does not offer this function. So > does that mean if I do not hit the STOP RECORDING > pedal at the exact end-beat the click-track provides, > my loops will eventually drift away from the metronome > timing? > > This is my main concern. I need my loops (I guess the > foundation loop, anyway) to be dead on with the > internal click track of the pedal. If I need the > QUANTIZE function for this, I guess I will have to go > with the BOSS, even though it offers fewer features. > > Thanks in advance for your advice! > > > Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk >email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail at >http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/try_beta?.intl=ca > >