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Looper's Delight
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First review here (that I'm aware of) of this new playa in the field of
looping stompboxes.
(note: all prices in € and based on German street prices)
1. FEATURE SET AND PLACE IN THE MARKET
The recent time has seen some growth in the field of looping devices in
general, but of stomp boxes in the comparably lower price range
especially. While earlier in the stompbox format there have only been
delay pedals which could also be used as loopers (and with the for the
time huge amount of delay time, the Digitech PDS8000 stands out), recently
there have been both delay pedals with a looper thrown in (this trend was
started by the Akai Headrush and the Line6 DL4 - don't know which came
first) and dedicated loopers, among them both Boss' RC series and the
Digitech Jamman. Lately, even Eventide with its Timefactor has joined that
market - with the Eventide-typical price tag.
The ElectroHarmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai (for short: SMM) falls
into the former class. With a price of €215, it directly competes with
the Boss DD20 (€225) and also a bit with the Line6 DL4 (€319). As the
DL4 is considerably more expensive, so is the Akai E2 Headrush a lot
cheaper (€109). (For completeness, the Boss RC series comes for €159
(RC-2), €222 (RC-20XL) and €399 (RC-50). The Digitech Jamman is
€250).
So the all-important question: how does it compete to the Boss? And also,
how does it fare against the cheaper Akai and the more expensive Line6?
As a sidenote, I will not compare it to the vintage Digitech PDS (no
longer available), the Eventide (about double the price, and I don't know
or have it), nor to the Digitech Jamman or Boss RC series, as they are of
a different concept (pure loopers).
2. CONCEPT, PACKAGE ETC.
The SMM is, as I mentioned, a delay with a looper thrown in. It offers
seven different delay modes and a looper in addition to it (which you can
record to and play back in six modes, it only plays back in the
MultiTap+Rev mode due to UI restrictions). The maximum delay time is 3
seconds (but with an additional 6 seconds reverse echo in MultiTap+Rev)
and 30s of loop time (at standard playback rate).
Package-wise, the SMM comes in a sturdy metal box (smaller than a Boss
DD20) with two metal footswitches (DL4-style) and five knobs on top. There
are a few LEDs (active, tempo and mode). No connection of an external
footswitch or expression pedal.
Connections are 2xinput on the right and 2xoutput on the left. While this
may seem nice to the typical stompbox people, it doesn't look nice for me
because it makes arrangement on the pedalboard more inefficient from my
POV (I prefer connections on the rear).
The SMM comes with an AC transformer power supply and won't run off
batteries (why?)
Everything here is stereo, the sample rate is some 46.88 kHz with 24 bits
of conversion and 32 bits of processing.
As mentioned, the looper is available in addition to the delay modes. More
specifically:
* a recorded loop can play back in addition to you playing with a
delay added
* you can record a loop in all modes (except Multitap+Rev) - which
will record your playing plus the delay used
3. USER INTERFACE
The two footswitches:
Tap/Record: with that, you tap tempo and by holding it down, record or
overdub a loop. There is a debounce period of 0.5s to distinguish between
tap and record - hence, no loops or overdubs which are shorter than 0.5s.
Bypass: this esentially switches off the device (delay and a possibly
running loop). Delays will not continue to trail out. Consequently, there
is no possibility to play on top of a delay without adding to it.
The five knobs:
Hazari: switches the mode
Delay: delay time for the delays, playback speed for the loop (Yes! you
get continuous control from halfspeed up to doublespeed!)
Repeats: number of taps in multitap modes, feedback in delay modes,
feedback during overdub in looper mode (for thos EDP people: "secondary
feedback")
Filter: turning it to the left adds a lowpass, turning it to the right a
highpass
Decay: dependant on mode - will discuss this in section 4
Blend: dry/wet ratio. This will for some reason affect both the currently
selected delay and a possibly playing loop
You can save one preset for each of the eight modes to store your
favourite knob positions.
4. THE MODES
a) LOOP:
I'll start with that one...ok, holding down tap/record gets you recording,
holding tap/record afterwards gets you into overdubbing. To erase the
loop, switch to bypass and hold tap/record for half a second.
Now what can you do with your loop?
Decay: turning it all the way CCW sets reverse playback - turning it all
the way CW sets forward playback. The problem here is that really quick
transport direction changes are hard to do.
Repeats: Yes, you get control of the feedback level during overdub (and I
think this is a first one for a looper in that package/price range).
Delay: this is the loop speed from half time to double time. And this is
for me the most outstanding feature of this looper in comparison to
competitors. True varispeed without any artifacts!
Tap Tempo: somehow, the thing decides on a tempo based on the loop length
and flashes the LED accordingly. By then tapping a new tempo, you can
change the tempo of your loop. What's interesting is that this will do
some low-quality time-stretch, not a varispeed. So you really do have both
timestretch and varispeed available.
You can't in any way stop or restart the loop, so it's more like a delay
with different controls here...
(Correction: While this isn't documented, when you switch to bypass and
back on again, the loop is restarted from the beginning. So this gives you
some kind of stop/restart functionality, and if your feet are really fast,
even a stutter)
b) ECHO 3s/ECHO 1s:
A simple 1s or 3s echo. Why we need separate modes here is beyond me.
Decay: this offers some reverb-like diffusion for your echoes.
As in all delay modes, turning the delay knob will NOT give you the
wonderful varispeed effect (why not?), instead it will either
shorten/lengthen the loop or at a certain point of lengthening/shortening
it just clear it. Disappointing. Not even ugly artifacts as with the DD20.
c) ECHO 300ms+Mod:
You guessed it - a modulated delay. What is funny is that it modulates the
delay time phase-reversed for left and right channel. You only get one
control for that effect (Decay) to control depth, frequency seems to be
1/delay time, maximum depth is not enough for my taste.
d) MULTITAP 3s/MULTITAP 1s:
Again, two modes for one effect.
Here, "Repeats" does adjust the number of repeats from 1 to 30 (but the
maximum number is also a function of the used delay time, so don't expect
a 30-tap 3s-per-tap delay). "Decay" adjusts the volume change for
succesive repeats (from rising to falling).
e) MULTITAP 1s+REV:
A tricky creation: Same as the Multitap 1s mode, only when you hold down
the tap footswitch, a reverse playback of what you just played is started
(in addition to the multitap) for up to 6s! This is perhaps the most (and
easiest) controllable reverse playback effect ever.
f) REVERSE ECHO:
This is somewhat tricky - according to the manual, it "is an intelligent
reverse echo; it studies your playing so that it can produce reverse
echoes that best suit your delay time setting". In other words, it has
some kind of threshold setting which will trigger the reverse delay.
However, there's more to it - with the decay knob, you can set the "number
of replay voices from 1 to 25". With radical settings of repeats and
decay, it quickly gets into weird country. Like e), this is something what
sets the SMM apart from other devices.
5. PLAYING WITH IT (AND COMPARING IT TO COMPETITORS):
To start this chapter, note that from the stompbox loopers, I'm familiar
with the E1 Headrush (owned one), the DL4 and the DD20 (have both).
Right now (and at first sight, have played with the thing for less than
two hours), the delay modes just don't do it for me. With the (possible)
exception of MULTITAP 1s+REV, there's nothing that original here that
really is new and has a good use case for me.
I'm also disappointed that I can't let the echoes trail away while in
bypass.
There is however one thing that it does which nothing else does, and
that's the varispeed option in looper mode. Up to now, the only thing that
could do that (that I know of) with a loop time of 30s was the Repeater.
This feature alone might make the SMM the small stompbox looper for all
those tapedelay fans.
Direct comparison with the E2, DD20 and DL4:
E2:
* doesn't have any reverse echoes
* max. delay time of 21s
* has separate outputs for the four heads in tape delay mode
* doesn't have any tricky looping functions (record/overdub)
* two footswitches
* low price
DD20:
* looping mode sucks
* up to two 23s delays at one time
* useable artifacts possible
* two footswitches, additional one possible
* user-defined presets
* everything stereo
DL4:
* max. delay time of 3.?? s (or was it that), half of it in
reverse mode
* looper reverse/halfspeed mode and stutter
* four foot switches
* expression pedal connector
* user-defined presets
* delays offer varispeed
* loop time: 14s
* looper + 800ms mod delay
* very interesting delay models
SMM:
* max. delay time 3s (+6s reverse in Multitap3s+Rev)
* looper varispeed, reverse, start/stop
* looper + delay algorithm possible
* mildly interesting delay modes
* no battery operation
* everything stereo
Sooo, is it worth it?
I'm still not sure (and I guess the following days will show). What had
convinced me from the ads was the varispeed looper alone. Then again, as I
already have two stompbox loopers (plus the KP3 with some varispeed
capability as well), and can do varispeed with the Repeater should I
really need it, I ask myself whether I really need yet another looper for
that function alone.
Unfortunately, the SMM does not synthesize every available looper stompbox
into one device, rather it adds new features that one wants to
have...anyone willing to design a stompbox which includes the best of the
DD20 (long delays and two of them), SMM (long loop time, varispeed
looping) and DL4 (expression pedal, four footswitches, interesting delay
models with varispeed)?
Best,
Rainer
Post Scriptum: After playing some more with it, I found that indeed you
can produce strange artifacts with the delay time knob (although this
works best when turning from short to long time - otherwise, there's the
risk of ending up with an empty delay line). More research to do...